Content warning: This article discusses mental illness, trauma, inpatient psychiatric services, transphobia, sexual assault, AIDS and descriptions of domestic violence.

In the 1980s, I was put into a psychiatric hospital at 16 years old.

I had lost my ability to speak. Not because of something physical, but I just didn’t know what to say or how to speak.

My father found me at my music teacher’s house, sitting on her doorstep and not speaking. He took me to the hospital because he thought they could help.

Initially, I was admitted to the hospital voluntarily, but then I was put under a compulsory treatment order. I’m from Aotearoa (New Zealand), which was very draconian pre-1992. Under a mental health treatment order, you lost many of your rights and autonomies, even the right to vote.

All images: Marlo W, as featured in Foreground: Portraits of Older Transgender and Gender Diverse People.

This article appears in Archer Magazine #20, the RESISTANCE issue – buy a copy here.

My experience was terrifying. I was put in a seclusion room. They’d take away the drawstrings in your pyjamas, so you wouldn’t be properly clothed. Sometimes you’d be completely naked.

There was a mattress on the floor, and the room was locked. There was a little sliding panel on the door that staff could look through to see if you were okay. Seclusion was used quite a lot in those days.

So, at 16, I was put under a treatment order and had lots of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and very old school drug therapies, including antipsychotics.

This treatment continued between the ages of 16 to 19.

ECT was traumatic – very traumatic.

Back then, the ECT machine was like a little brown box, and I thought the room was a cleaning cupboard. It may not have been, but that’s my memory of it.

I experienced a lot of side effects from those early mental health treatments. I’ve lost a lot of my memories from the ECT.

During this time, I lost all my friends from school and my schooling was completely disrupted.

I was left vulnerable in society. I felt the treatment was actually trauma.

I had a good psychologist, Mohammad, who didn’t agree with the psychiatrist doing all the ECT. He felt that I needed talk therapy instead, but he got overridden.

My teenage years were difficult. And through it all, I came to understand that I was trans. I was obliterated by the time I got out of hospital.

To come out as trans on top of that, I was totally stigmatised.

In the 1980s, you’d have to search to find any mention of trans people. I never even heard the word “trans” in those days.

Now, trans visibility has gotten much bigger, especially through access to social media.

But that means that we’re seeing more transphobia in the media now, which didn’t exist when we were less visible.

When I told my dad I was trans, he wasn’t too fazed because he had a reference point of his friend Rachel*, who had transitioned. She was much older than me, and already had quite a stable life before coming out as trans.

I think my dad probably would have preferred me not to have gone through what I went through, but he was generally supportive.

Rachel was the first trans person I met, and then I met others through her, so I found these strands connecting me to other trans people.

I also knew a few queer people from a park where I grew up – mostly gay men and a few trans women. The park had foot pools that we’d bathe in, but the police would often appear. I can remember running from them many times.

They targeted anyone queer in that context, but you were definitely more visible if you were trans. You were kind of seen as a criminal, really.

Images by: Marlo W

Looking back now, there were some parallels between coercive mental health treatment and treatment from the police, particularly back in the ’80s when the police used to pick me up to take me to the hospital.

Sometimes, I felt I was tricked into going to hospital. They said, “Oh, if you don’t like it, you can leave.” But then they’d put me under a compulsory treatment order so I couldn’t leave.

I think in all institutions, the coercive control can creep up. I don’t think there’s ever a perfect place.

There’s always some dynamic that can emerge if people aren’t doing enough self-reflection or considering the power imbalances.

Many times, I escaped from the hospital in my pyjamas.

I’d run away from the psychiatric hospital, be brought back by the police, and then try to run away again. When I think about it, running away from hospital was a sign of life.

Even though my treatments were causing suicidal ideation – these days, they’re no longer used on adolescents for that reason – I had a will to survive.

For me, resistance is not just a one-off event – it’s a continuing effort.

After I left hospital as a teenager, I ended up boarding with Rachel and her partner Andy*.

While I was there, Andy began to sexually proposition me. I didn’t tell anyone, not even Rachel. I ended up leaving and losing contact with them after that.

I became sort of homeless. I experienced a lot of housing insecurity.

There was a local cafe in town, and the owners said I could board with them and work in their coffee shop. I also turned to sex work for survival.

I was a sensitive child, and to be thrust into street life was unfamiliar.

I think I was incredibly vulnerable to abuse of power. This was often the way for trans women in the sex industry those days.

Sometimes sex work wasn’t something you chose – I have friends who have chosen it, but it’s a different relationship to the work when you’re just surviving.

I was very much surviving, and even trying to find a place in society.

Images by: Marlo W

I started off working on the street, and then eventually I was in a relationship with another trans woman.

She was quite controlling and could get violent. When we separated, she managed to find where I was living and assaulted me with chains and her fists and things.

I felt like that stuff – lateral conflict and violence in the trans community – wasn’t talked about enough.

Sometimes, violence was justified to “harden you up” on the streets.

During my youth, I experienced a lot of trauma as an individual, but there was also a lot of collective trauma in the queer community, as this was the height of the AIDS crisis.

I had many friends who died of AIDS-related illnesses at that time, mainly gay men.

There was one trans woman I knew too, but it was much harder for trans women to get support because the hospices were set up for men.

It was harder for trans women with HIV/AIDS to find appropriate spaces. It was frightening to come of age at that time.

We lost people who were young. As I was in sex work, we constantly had to be tested to keep safe. My friend Lisa* was a nurse – she was trans, and she worked in the hospice. She nursed people right up ‘til they died.

Some people didn’t have any family, or their family rejected them and left them to die in a hospice.

Around the same time, I was denied entry to a women’s refuge after being assaulted by an ex-partner.

I made a complaint to the police, but they thought I was a complete joke, and that I was responsible for any violence against me.

I ended up staying at the AIDS hospice with Lisa. She took me in because I had nowhere to live and wasn’t allowed in the women’s refuge.

I was so young and surrounded by people in the final stages of their lives, while also struggling with my own wellbeing.

But I think about all the people supporting each other – even though we didn’t have social media, we had connections.

The community is resistance, I think.

In the early 1990s, I made my way to Japan with another trans friend. We worked on the streets and in hostess bars.

When I came back, I had enough basic skills in speaking Japanese to enrol in a course at a polytechnic college.

I had left school at 16 because of my mental health, and I wanted to get an education.

I’ve been in awful situations. I’ve been assaulted. I got outed by a girl in my class, and everyone thought I was the bad one when I confronted her about it. But I didn’t want to leave my course.

Living is resistance, in a way. Persistence and resistance go together.

After my travels and studies, I got bottom surgery in 1993 or 1994.

An older trans woman – Suzanne* – had left me money to pay for the surgery. She was someone who supported me and took me in while I was homeless.

Getting surgery money from other trans people is still quite prevalent today. Within the trans community and the queer community, we’re doing GoFundMes, we’re all divvying out the money so everyone can get what they need.

A lot has changed, but certain things haven’t. Trans people looking after each other is something that remains.

Images by: Marlo W

Suzanne was considered my mother and she used to call me her daughter. But other friends of mine had different mothers.

Suzanne ran a community group from the 1950s. I know the word can be problematic, but it was a cross-dressing community, but there were transsexuals too.

She ran the group out of her house and they all used to go nightclubbing together in the ’60s.

When Suzanne died, the executors of her will destroyed every photograph and document she had of the group.

They didn’t want people to be outed, so photos were destroyed, but I find that a shame. I wish something could have been kept in a secure way for the community to access them.

So much got lost.

It was quite a pivotal point to be able to get bottom surgery. It was a big deal.

But it was done in a different time, and I’ve had a lot of problems with the type of surgery, but I’m lucky to have had reparative surgeries in later years.

In some ways, things were quite amazing in the ’80s and ’90s. Back then, I feel like there might’ve been more of a culture where somebody is believed when they say they’re trans, whereas these days there’s more scrutiny and disbelief.

Even if someone didn’t like you for being trans, they still believed you.

In my adult life, I’ve worked as a counsellor/psychotherapist in mainstream mental health services, addiction services and, more recently, at Queerspace (a Melbourne-based queer support service) for five years.

I completed my Master of Counselling and Psychotherapy in Aotearoa. I’ve supported lots of young trans folk and families. Sometimes in my work, it seemed like parents wanted me to affirm their scepticism of their trans child. It was frustrating.

I have also supported many non-trans people in my work as a counsellor and psychotherapist.

Completing my counselling qualifications in the mental health field was my way of trying to make a difference. My resistance was deeply connected to wanting to contribute to better outcomes for LGBTQ+ people through my work.

Images by: Marlo W

People deserve to genuinely explore their gender, ask questions, and have open conversations without judgement. No one is rocking up to appointments, going on hormones or having surgery without a reason. It doesn’t work like that.

It’s important to be gracious and create space for people to be able to say who they are and how they want to be spoken of.

I feel for younger people and what they’re subjected to now, because I know how it’s impacted my mental health.

In 2022, I became quite unwell. I had to take time out from working with others to attend to my own physical and mental health.

I felt a lot of shame as a practitioner seeking help and needing some hospital support. I’m coming out the other side but still not working back as a counsellor and psychotherapist just yet.

I hope to return to the field when I am ready. I miss my work, but I realise it is so important to put myself first, for now.

In the year 2005, I told my story as part of a Royal Commission into mental health, and I was given an official apology for the pre-1992 treatment in New Zealand, and how awful and carceral those laws were.

They asked if I wanted to take legal action, but I was just too scared. I thought, How is it going to be in court? But they said they felt they needed to offer that to me.

I’m tormented by my past. For a long time, I’ve placed a lot of blame on myself, or felt shame, and I’m trying to work through that now.

I’m also trying to cope with all the anti-trans rhetoric in the media. I can’t bear for trans people to be fodder for the masses. I don’t want that for anyone – young or old.

I want to feel a sense of freedom and peace within myself. But I have bigger hopes, too. I hope this anti-trans stuff fades away like a bad trend. And I hope that no one’s mental distress is treated so traumatically again, the way mine was.

I want things to be better for the next generations. I want the world to exhibit more humanity, kindness and a genuine sense of inquisitiveness about other people.

There’s so much to learn from each other, and in having conversations about things that have been stigmatised for so long.

I believe that resistance comes from our survival and solidarity.

*Names have been changed for privacy.

This article first appeared in Archer Magazine #20, the RESISTANCE issue.

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