GNC Centric (Ben)
'My Trans Youth Group Experience with Morgan Page'
Extract
"I first met Morgan Page in 2012 at a conference for Gay-Straight Alliances from high schools in the greater Toronto area. Though I’ve since detransitioned, I identified as trans at that time, but I didn’t know any trans people in real life, only online. Morgan was a super nice, friendly person and invited me to the youth group she ran at The 519 in Toronto (LGBT Community Centre). Most of the time, the Trans Youth Group attendees were majority MTFs and “nonbinary” (NB) males. There was an upper age limit (somewhere between 21-25) but it was a pretty small group, usually fewer than 10 people; so when people aged out they just stuck around. I guess others learned that the age limit wasn’t being enforced because more and more older (30-40 year old) MTFs started to join.
I remember one day, there were three MTFs over 40 who were hitting on the teen FTMs, very explicitly. It was obviously making us uncomfortable, but almost no one ever said anything, only changed the topic or tried to engage them in a conversation away from us. The only time I remember them being asked to leave was when Morgan was away and the group was led by an FTM substitute.
It was very common for the group to discuss the logistics of sex before and after SRS, kinky sex, and erotic fanfiction. I remember Morgan asking the three teens in the room, including me, if we were comfortable talking about this, but obviously we weren’t going to say no now that the conversation had already been started by these older people. I know of at least three FTMs who entered into relationships with older MTFs while in this group, all of which seemed very unhealthy to me. To me, FTMs under 18 dating or sleeping with (usually kinky) MTFs over 20 seemed very sexually exploitative. Healthy boundaries between adults and minors were foreign to this group, much like in the greater queer and trans community.
Morgan didn’t present herself as someone to emulate, but as someone to share her trans experiences with us. She spoke of her time as a teen prostitute, her SRS, her art, her writing, and her connections in the queer community. I think most of the teens saw her as someone to just give us advice and support, since she could recommend which clinics or doctors to see to start HRT and tell you what you needed to say to doctors so they’d sign off on SRS. She’d talk about what to expect after SRS. She knew the MTF side personally, but she also was intimate with a fair number of trans men so she told us about the FTM side too. At the time, to me, she seemed like the magic key to accessing all the medical transition resources I wanted. This was a trans support group, so one might assume this was normal—and it may have been for such a gathering—but in retrospect, I find elements of this concerning.
Unsurprisingly, most of the teens seemed to be there without their parents’ knowledge (as I was), but there was unquestioning support for all of them to medically transition as soon as they wanted" (continues)
4thwavenow.com/2019/01/26/my-trans-youth-group-experience-with-morgan-page/
'Coercion & Abuse in the Gender ID Community'