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Ramon Te Wake, George Fowler and Lexie Matheson (Photo: On the Rag)
Ramon Te Wake, George Fowler and Lexie Matheson (Photo: On the Rag)

SocietyNovember 18, 2020

On the Rag: When your body feels like a hotel room

Ramon Te Wake, George Fowler and Lexie Matheson (Photo: On the Rag)
Ramon Te Wake, George Fowler and Lexie Matheson (Photo: On the Rag)

In the latest episode of On the Rag, we asked three people from the transgender community to share how their relationship with their chests has changed over their lives.

Lexie Matheson, academic

Lexie Matheson (Photo: On the Rag)

I would get out of the shower and I would look down at myself in the mirror and there was always a hint of “what’s that?” The further I got down my body, the more it was “what’s THAT?”. It’s a little bit like living in a hotel room when you have the wrong body – you’re in a hotel room and you don’t know what it’s like to live in your own home.

I remember the first time I took those two little blue pills and checked my chest. Anything? No. And then I forgot about it. But eventually my body was not angular anymore – the shape had changed, my hips had changed and there were breasts. Honestly I just cried and cried and cried. 

Suddenly, I was authentic. I was looking at my house as opposed to my hotel room. Today, I’m proud of the fact that they are mine, I grew them myself. They are nearly 20 years old so they’ve survived through their teenage years. When I get the letter saying that I have to go and get a mammogram, it’s like getting another birth certificate. 

It’s really powerful and a delight to be able to look in the mirror and go: “this is me”. This is me. The journey has been worth it. 

George Fowler, performer

George Fowler (Photo: On the Rag)

People relate to their bodies in all different sorts of ways, but for trans people it is so much harder because you’re transgressing the big weird line in the sand called gender. Growing up I had a complex relationship with my body, puberty was a really scary time for me. I had this spacey, far away feeling like I wasn’t connected with what was happening at all.

I remember the first time I put on male contour and taped my chest – I just had this “HOLY SHIT” moment. I now wear a binder daily which literally just flattens everything out. A binder is not comfortable to wear though and my back is fucked. You’re constricting the whole area so your back muscles get lazy, isn’t that nuts?  

Because I also tape my chest to perform, I buy the weirdest shit from Bunnings. I will go in and say ‘I’m just looking for something sweat-resistant’ because when I untape, sweat will just fall out. And the employee will always just be like, “what is this for?” I say it’s for an art project, but I’m fairly sure they think it’s just for sex. 

Ramon Te Wake, filmmaker

Ramon Te Wake (Photo: On the Rag)

I was completely disappointed and devastated when I didn’t develop bosoms. I would resort to stuffing bras, which I’m sure a lot of people can relate to in general. I was a showgirl from age 16 and I used to perform in a trio called Pure Funk. They were obsessed with big kahunas so we used to have socks with condoms in them full of water to give us big bouncy boobs. 

It wasn’t until I started taking hormones that I developed boobs naturally. My flatmate is all about pretty matching lace bras, whereas I am like “ugh, that’s so much effort”. I’ve had a bra for three years, that will do fine to push the girls up. My friend owns a bar and will quite often ring me and say “we’ve got two of your bras here” and I’m like “Jesus Christ, how did that happen?” 

Interesting story – I never knew that trans women were susceptible to breast cancer. Now that might sound like a really dumb thing to think, but I just didn’t know. I wish we talked about our bodies more as trans people, or were given the space to talk about our bodies more. 

On the Rag is made with the support of NZ On Air.

Watch more of On the Rag here.

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a needly going in to a vaccine
Monoclonal treatments work differently to normal vaccines, using manufactured antibodies Photo: Getty Images

SocietyNovember 18, 2020

NZ faces hard ethical and practical choices on a Covid-19 vaccine

a needly going in to a vaccine
Monoclonal treatments work differently to normal vaccines, using manufactured antibodies Photo: Getty Images

Excitement is high following optimistic results from two vaccine developers. There are some big questions that await, however, on logistics, write Barbara Allen and Michael Macaulay.

The world was ablaze with hope following the announcement last week that a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech may be more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19.

New Zealand politicians were quick to point out 1.5 million doses had already been pre-purchased through a legally binding agreement signed in late September to buy any vaccine to emerge from the multilateral Covax facility.

Within the week, a second potentially effective vaccine emerged from US biotech firm Moderna. Health Minister Chris Hipkins would not say if New Zealand had negotiated for this option.

But assuming an approved vaccine is coming, attention then turns to logistics. Funding, procurement, storage and distribution all raise significant questions about values, decision-making and ethics.

We know there are multiple candidates for a Covid-19 vaccine, but there will be few “winners”, as many countries have already pre-contracted substantial amounts based on calculated risk assessments of which will emerge first. Even then, the challenges will be immense.

For example, assuming the Pfizer vaccine does become available as a safe option, it must be held in “ultra-cold storage” at -70 degrees Celsius. As has been observed already, “Distributing an effective Covid-19 vaccine to the global population will likely be the greatest logistical challenge since World War II.”

Who gets a vaccine first?

For New Zealand, as with all countries, the questions raised are complex: do we now spend a large amount of money to scale up a logistics, distribution and storage system for the Pfizer drug? Or should we wait for an alternative that is more effective, easier to transport and store, and possibly cheaper?

After all, the first available vaccine might not achieve the outcomes we want. But would it be fair (or feasible) to make the country wait?

Furthermore, because enough doses to treat everyone will not be available immediately, it will be necessary to prioritise recipients. What are the country’s obligations here? Do we offer the vaccination first to the oldest, or the youngest, or the most vulnerable?

National health systems will have some idea about how to go about this, but wealthy countries have never faced an immediate requirement on this scale.

An ethical framework

Answering these questions means calling simultaneously on a number of different ethical perspectives:

  • an ethic of justice to assess the fairness of a decision
  • an ethic of consequentialism to look at outcomes
  • the ethics of obligations to see who we may have made commitments to
  • an ethic of care to look at individual cases, rather than relying on abstract logic.

Only when we combine these perspectives can we begin to make sense of priorities.

The vaccine marketplace is a kind of oligopoly, with a few extremely large firms deciding which vaccines get made, when and at what price. Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to invest in producing new vaccines for the developing world because they have little prospect of earning an attractive return.

While global organisations such as vaccine alliance GAVI have been instrumental in getting vaccines to developing countries, given the geopolitics of procurement it could be a long time before an effective Covid-19 option reaches the poorest populations.

The moral dimension

All this points to the deeper ethical issue of inequality. Many agencies, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), have demonstrated that health outcomes are related to socio-economic, ethnic and gender inequalities. Covid-19 has only made these inequalities worse.

Only last week, for example, a UK study showed 57.7 more people per 100,000 have died in the poorest areas of northern England than in the rest of the country.

This matches other research showing how the pandemic has disproportionately affected poorer families, including their being less likely to be able to work from home or adapt to home-schooling.

Limited or selective availability of a vaccine could exacerbate these problems. And while New Zealand may be in a relatively privileged position, this doesn’t mean there won’t be negative consequences for other countries.

This adds an international dimension to our national dilemma: we have a duty to protect our own citizens, but is there a way we can minimise harm to others at the same time?The Conversation

Barbara Allen is senior lecturer in public management, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Michael Macaulay is professor of public administration, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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