Oxford University Press invites Sarah Stephenson-Hunter to talk about her intersectional identities of being disabled and trans

 

OUP’s LGBTQ+ Network and Disability Network were delighted to welcome Sarah Stephenson-Hunter as a guest speaker this Pride Month.

Sarah is a highly respected Disability and LGBTQ+ advocate, speaker, trainer, and podcaster. She is a blind trans woman who has worked in the public sector for over 15 years, currently at the University of Oxford as their Staff Disability Advisor and Trans Lead.

In a talk titled ‘Seeing things differently’, Sarah discussed the issues around being disabled and trans and the intersection between the two.

The talk was powerful, frank, and insightful. Sarah clearly articulated as she opened, that ‘everyone’s story is valid’ and that "When we speak, we speak from our lived experience, but it can only ever be our lived experience.’ 

It was moving to hear Sarah speak about the challenges she has faced, beginning at the age of two when she was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. Soon after, she developed eyesight problems. During a traumatic period in her teens, Sarah underwent 50 surgeries and 200 admissions to hospital.

After an infection in her twenties, Sarah lost the vision in her right eye, and lost her remaining vision in 2011 after an accident. Her sight loss had a huge impact on every aspect of her life, including her education and career choices.

Sarah went on to discuss her trans identity and how disability has impacted this, explaining that although she has always been trans, she wasn’t always aware:

 

Because of issues around health and hospitals, and family disruption I didn’t really feel I had the emotional or psychological capacity growing up to really engage with these feelings I had about how I felt different, about how I felt I didn’t quite fit in.

 

Growing up, Sarah said discussions around LGBT issues were never very positive. She learnt from an early age that the feelings she had were not feelings she could share.

In 2011, the same year she lost her remaining vision, Sarah’s dad died. In what she describes as her ‘tidal wave moment’, Sarah said at this point she couldn’t supress the feeling that she’d been having for a long time. She had spent her life running from it, and at 39, she decided enough was enough.

In January 2013, Sarah’s transition began at the Nottingham Gender Identity Clinic (GIC)and where she admits she was lucky to have a GP who knew exactly what to do, which is not the case for all. The GIC assessment process then began in April 2013 which, ‘is not straightforward, it’s quite a rigorous process.’ Sarah was then diagnosed with gender dysphoria in October 2013 and began treatment with cross sex hormones in April 2014:

 

You see from the timeline it’s not a sort of  ’Ooh, I’ll go to my GP and tell them I think I’m trans, I’ll go and see somebody, and I’ll get given hormones – it doesn’t work like that. It’s a long process.'

 

Sarah’s transition was not just a social transition, but a medical transition, and something she felt she had to do. Approval came through for surgery in February 2016, and Sarah had the procedure seven months later.

 

…it’s just over three years. Now that might sound like a long time, and believe you me … you are very impatient, and you don’t want to have to wait.

 

Today, people can be waiting for an appointment to see a GIC for up to three years and to complete their transition can take up to six years, if not more.

During Sarah’s transition her fiercest ally was her mum, who sadly died in 2020. She had amazing support from her colleagues in the workplace, including her boss, HR team, and colleagues, despite it taking some time to adjust to pronouns and names changing. The students Sarah was working with were hugely supportive, and even started opening up to her; this is where Sarah realised the intersection with those who are disabled and with LGBTQ identities.

A big part of Sarah’s life was the church, and sadly she lost all her friends during her transition. Sarah also lost her wife at the time, despite trying to work things out using couples counselling, the last straw being that if she was to continue going through transition, she would need to leave the family home, at a time when her children were three, eight, and eleven years old. She then had to set up home as a disabled person and a trans person, despite not having lived alone since university, ’that was the price I had to pay‘ in Sarah’s words. Now she has transitioned, she feels at peace with who she is; the ‘tidal wave’ has subsided.

The intersectional identities of being disabled and trans exacerbated Sarah’s feelings of being ’different‘ and made this it harder to think about transitioning: ’This interplay between the two really did exacerbate those feelings of being different, of being separate, of being other, of somehow not fitting in. ‘

Since her transition, Sarah has learnt about how you see yourself physically and mentally. She knows that she looks very different now but as a blind transgender woman, she has never actually seen herself, and still holds the image of herself pre-transition. Delving into the world of clothes, make-up, and styling is something she has been able to experience with help with from friends, but has never seen the results of their efforts.

Reflecting on Sarah’s experience, it’s clear to see that intersectionality is EVERYTHING! Just because you know what it is like to be a member of one minority group does not necessarily mean you know what it is like for those from others. As Sarah puts it,

 

‘We only achieve real change by working collaboratively across the different equality groups and foregrounding our common goals.’