When we talk about transidentity, we imagine today a relatively young population. However, this could not exist without the progress made in the fight by their elders — who are now elderly people with the same problems as all seniors, but also their own! The visibility of these seniors received a definite boost with the transition of Caitlyn Jenner across the Atlantic. Formerly an Olympic champion under her pre-transition male identity, she finally achieved her coming out in 2015, at age 65. A year earlier began the series produced by Amazon Transparent , which focuses on the transition of a trans woman in her seventies and the upheavals that this entails for her family (the series is moreover based on the personal experience of its creator, one of whose parents had transitioned a few years earlier). In short, if trans seniors — who, for some, have paved the way for the current LGBTQI movement — are now a little more visible, these few highly publicized cases should not obscure the issues and problems specific to trans seniors. . For whether this realization happened early or on the contrary at an already mature age — as they say, better late than never — it is certain that refusing to submit to gender norms presents a different challenge for older people than for older people. the youngest.
It's that at a mature age, we generally have a rather established life:career, marriage, children, circle of friends... Not everyone fits into this basic scheme - and largely patriarchal and heteronormative - but it is certainly more the case for many of these people than in their twenties, when young adults who are looking for themselves at all levels also question their gender identity. It is undoubtedly paradoxically easier to realize one's transidentity and to choose to transition or to live outside gender norms when one is already relatively free of all attachments elsewhere. Just think of all the extra hats worn by the elderly — parents, grandparents — which represent so many deep-rooted relationships that now need to be largely rebuilt.
However, if the noose of a life spent in the nails of gender shackles becomes tighter and tighter as time goes by and we become bogged down in these norms, it becomes all the more necessary to the people concerned to face this reality, which they have finally sometimes known and repressed since their puberty - otherwise at the risk of spending their last years living a lie, as some people say, having gone through various failed marriages such as to better deny their deep identity. For many, it is the reminder of their more distant mortality that pushes them to a late transition.
Fortunately, it is never too late to realize - or admit - that we suffer from dysphoria, and that we simply do not recognize ourselves in the body and the identity that has been assigned to us by a society. , which used to be all the more conservative the older one is. For many, in fact, have reached puberty and begun to feel a certain disorder, at a time when this identity was not only misunderstood, but where most were even unaware that there could have been a word for this disorder, and ways to live with this dysphoria or to transition.
It is sometimes said that old age is synonymous with wisdom. And it is true that at a certain age, we tend to detach ourselves from the gaze of others, compared to young twenty-somethings. Retired, you literally have nothing left to prove! Isn't this period, moreover, a period of transition itself – for once, truly in every sense of the term? One of the great advantages of retirement for trans people is that you no longer risk being subjected to the opprobrium of your employers, colleagues and professional partners. And what we have contributed, we will recover in allowance regardless of gender identity! Many late transitioners say they waited until the end of their working lives for fear of possible repercussions.
coming out does not necessarily mean changing sex. However, it is a question that may arise. However, a physical transition can be more complicated at an advanced age. It is that the body has, so to speak, become accustomed over decades to the gender identity which has been assigned to it, with a deeper voice for example in older men - thereby proving the antagonism between sexes and gender identity:where some want to attribute direct causality from the first to the second, these developments show that gender identity has an impact on the body itself. From a pragmatic point of view, however, this means that for older people wishing to "pass" (as we designate the fact of physically corresponding to the external gaze to the gender identity that we attribute to ourselves, in other words that his trans identity is not "suspected"), the physical changes will be more difficult to achieve. Likewise, from a medical point of view, these present a greater danger, whether it is operations, potentially more dangerous but also less effective, or taking hormones, which can accelerate the development of cells carcinogenic.
Many recall that self-confidence is the main element of a well-lived transidentity. If the passing should not therefore be experienced as the culmination of the latter, it is however undeniable that it plays a role in obtaining this self-confidence. It's easy to tell yourself that the way others look doesn't matter, but you don't shake off decades of heteronormativity and transphobia with the snap of your fingers. It would be foolish — and even insulting to all the people who struggle to “get through” every day, for their mental well-being but also for their safety — to insinuate that appearance does not play a role in confidence. itself for many trans people. Not everyone can afford to be genderfuck .
The gaze of society is undoubtedly even more violent towards trans people when they are older, because of their relative rarity. Not of course that older people suffering from dysphoria are less numerous - nor that it is simply a question of a "trend" among younger people, as many transphobes may mistakenly believe -, but for the reasons explained above:that a much more conservative society led many of them to repress themselves, even to ignore themselves completely. Because at the risk of repeating it, if young people more easily tend to declare themselves trans, it is of course not simply for fun (as if it were not already a way of the cross for a majority of them and that transphobia did not exist at all — let us remember the disproportionate prevalence of cases of depression and suicide attempts within this population), but because they live in an environment in which it is easier to become aware of their trans identity and act accordingly as their elders.
This therefore affects the social integration of older trans people:their peers are more likely to reject them than in the case of their younger counterparts. People who have lost contact with loved ones for this reason generally insist on the quality of the ties that unite them to the people with whom they have remained close. As mentioned above, it is also family relationships built over decades that must be rethought from A to Z:it will be normal, although difficult, to go through phases of rejection, negotiation, etc.
With age often comes the question of loss of autonomy, regardless of gender identity. However, not all healthcare establishments are necessarily suitable for trans people – especially in rural and/or more conservative areas. Their staff and home helpers are generally not trained in the unique needs of these people. And that's not to mention the case of the other residents who can often turn out to be as cruel as children, and therefore deeply transphobic. The only solution in this case seems to be to find an establishment open to this problem - but you still have to have the means:it is not given to everyone, and trans people are often more precarious than the rest of the population…
It seems that the question of older trans people is much less developed in France than across the Atlantic, where there are at least associations helping these seniors. It is now up to the LGBTQI community (unfortunately used to going it alone) to take an example and return the favor to their pioneer ancestors.
