From Lisboa to Paris: A WPATH travel diary

I'm starting to write this from a bar at a train station in the south of Spain. It's hot. I ordered a beer and they gave me a little plate of chips and three of the best chicken wings I've ever had.

Sitting on the train this morning after the weekend I've just had was a lot. Every time I get the opportunity to be around trans people doing the work I do for a significant chunk of time there's always a crash afterwards - a return to the daily routine where, despite my work and my community, I don't feel like I get that solidarity and connection the ways I need, as often as I need.

I've been in Lisboa, Portugal for the past week, attending my first WPATH symposium. Despite what people seem to think, I'm not a member and PATHA isn't formally affiliated - we aren't blindly following the orders of WPATH like the anti-trans lobby claim we do. It's my first time here and I'm glad I came, but it's also been a strong reminder of how far we still have to go.

There have been challenging sessions this weekend. I expected it going in, because of WPATH's history and the experiences of my friends and colleagues who've attended for years now (Ruth Pearce's conference reports are well worth reading) but I didn't quite anticipate the effect it'd have on me and my body. Unfortunately, the histories of paternalism, of being objects of study rather than actors with agency, of having to fight for our self determination - they still are not just histories. I think WPATH has certainly got better - I was prepared for three days of challenges - but that so many of our trans whānau need to find refuge within the first two days of these conferences says a lot.

I'm thrilled to have been here - for years it didn't feel possible, between conference registration and flights to the northern hemisphere on a non-profit budget - and it's been an invaluable experience. It's been incredible seeing old friends again - connected online and through research and through a shared fight, but so rarely sharing physical space - meeting people whose names I recognise from papers that have been invaluable to our work; meeting trans people from all over the world engaged in this mahi, dealing with the same struggles of disinformation and hostile political environments. I got to hear first hand from clinicians working in states that have not just banned gender affirming care but criminalise even the act of referring elsewhere. I heard about how that has impacted their practice, how it's not just an on-off switch where one day things are fine and the next it's all paru. Instead, people struggle through years of practicing under threat, of every development tangibly damaging the wellbeing of their patients, of the bait-and-switch of their own institutions interpreting the law more conservatively than it is on paper.

That's what I was hoping for from the conference programme - hearing about how people are managing under the threats and the disinformation and the criminalisation of care - and I got it in spades. I also heard the positives - places that have maintained access, that have introduced new services where there were none, and how the UK seems to be getting more and more visibly trans despite the context, something we certainly don't get to see from afar when their media are resolutely anti-trans.

I also got to hear from trans activists on the ground in Portugal, at a little community venue, during the TPATH dinner - something I was really hoping to hear.

It was incredible just being in Lisboa, too - I know it's an old trope for Pākehā to travel to Europe and come back going on about how much better it is, but I don't think we have functional cities like that in Aotearoa. On my first day alone I took the metro, the train, the bus, the tram - and it probably cost less than $5nzd. The city felt vibrant - littered with small parks filled with people sitting at kiosks drinking beer at all times of day.

My home is outside the binary
The third table where I can sit comfortably
Rejection of gender feels like home -
I walk in the door, take off my shoes, sit on the bed
- exhale

Not everywhere is like that, though. I'm writing now from the train station in Merida, a little south of Madrid. I stopped over here hoping to go see the ancient Temple of Diana, but it's 31 degrees and the only place to leave luggage is the other side of town. It's siesta hours so everything is closed, including uber. I'm getting waves of post-symposium emotion, processing and deconstructing and integrating. I think I've come away even more determined, with an even clearer vision of the future - one in which research about trans people is genuinely ethical and participatory, where we don't just get to look at the quals, where we have autonomy and self determination without question, by default, without needing to meet threshold scores on ever-more-specific assessment scales.

I'm writing now from the train to Barcelona. It's now one full day post symposium. I arrived in Madrid late last night after about 13 hours of travel and crashed, hard, in a capsule hotel, but not without going to find some kai first and finding I had booked in a queer neighbourhood. It felt like a blessing, to continue to be surrounded by queer and trans people. I had the best shower of my life.

This morning I called my partner and took her for a walk around the neighbourhood - caught up and debriefed. I feel like I'm going to be debriefing for a while - it's not that the symposium itself wasn't good - I have so much to say about the new research and knowledge and experiences I heard - it's just that I'm in that immediate post symposium period. That's partly why I'm writing now - part travel diary, part conference report, part processing.

I felt like this after AusPATH too, so it's not unique to WPATH. After the AusPATH symposium closed, I went to the beach. I walked, put my feet in the ocean, watched the sunset and felt alone in an unfamiliar city after spending a week surrounded with community. This time, I have a week travelling through Europe - some of it alone, some with a friend - which feels appropriate for the larger experience I've just had.

I'm pulling into Barcelona now. The countryside has changed from a pale brown to rich orange and green. I can see the ocean. I feel more at home.

Why is no one mentioning whether trans people are involved in their research?
Is it because we're not?

Take a shot every time someone mentions resilience
Cherry liqueur in a chocolate cup

My accommodation in Barcelona is in a queer neighborhood, marking three cities in a row where I've totally accidentally (instinctively?) booked accommodation in the gaybourhood. A friend who was also at the conference met me here, and we've spent the day being tourists - basílicas and cathedrals and markets and Gaudi and gondolas. I put my feet in the Mediterranean Sea and immediately felt more grounded. It's been good to not think about the conference - we have talked about work, but it's been focused back home rather than Lisboa.

Cal Horton published their conference report today and it's excellent reading. I'm grateful for my friends who report on more detail so I can worry less about it. It was surreal meeting people whose names I only know from papers - papers that have been massively influential on our work, have indelibly changed how we think about trans health - to see them in person, to get to know the person behind the papers.

I've spent the day on my feet, and my body is clearly reacting to how much I've pushed it in the last week. I'm sitting at the window of our room, looking out onto the street as the rain starts to fall. I don't know how long it will be until I'm home, with the time zones.

Today we're on the train from Barcelona to Paris, travelling at nearly 300km/h through the countryside. It's a nice way to spend a day, watching almost an entire country go by. Next to us are a mother and (adult) child from Catalunya on their way to Belgium then Hungary. Mama speaks only Catalan, so child is translating for us when we talk.

Language is interesting - I think it does funny things to your brain. My first is actually NZSL, and I'm finding myself instinctively reaching it for it instead of Spanish, French, Catalan, when I need to talk with someone. Many sign languages (particularly in the Western world, and especially in the Commonwealth) share enough of a whakapapa that I could probably get along reasonably well with Deaf folk I meet on my travels.

France so far is green. I can see myself retiring from public life to one of these small villages, ten houses of orange brick and tile clustered together. I would be known to the community but anonymous to the outside world. One day.

How much time and money is spent quantifying the things we could tell you sitting around our kitchen table?
Is our knowledge only real when it's filtered through cisgender researchers?
Only valid when we answer a Likert scale?
Only true when it's mixed-methods analysis

Paris has been - well, Paris, I guess. I think Lisboa has been my favourite city so far, but Paris is up there. Last night we ate boef bourguinon, and today we did all the classics - Eiffel, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe.

I've just left my friend at the apartment - she's off to the airport not too long from now, while I want to go up Montmartre to Sacré-Cœur. Having company these last few days has meant I've been able to focus more on the travel, on being a tourist, rather than the symposium. A good thing - I think I've got some distance now, so by the time I'm on a plane tomorrow night, by the time I get back home Monday, I'll be really able to process the experience and what I've learned, to watch back all the sessions I missed, to start looking forward.

We wrote poems at the symposium, did I tell you that? Gathered in the trans room, processing what we were hearing through only half-satirical poetry about the experience of being examined, of sitting in a space drenched with a history that is distinctly not friendly. We'd recite them to each other and cackle. Trans people are SO funny.

How can we develop a scale
To pin down a non-binary identity
Categorise it, box it up
Help them decide how masculine they want to be
Quantify and lock it down
If you meet the threshold then you get self determination.

Being in Paris alone is a whole other experience. I've never seen as much PDA as I have today - straight couples straight up making out against walls of the Louvre, in full view of everyone. The romantic stereotype of Paris is steeped in the city's bones - I can feel it. I'm up on Montmartre watching the sun set over the city and the lights come on. It took about 20 minutes before I witnessed a genuinely lovely proposal. Being 11 hours apart from Aotearoa is a struggle for sure. It's a beautiful city - it's easy to get so caught up in the cultural understandings about it.

I'm in Tāmaki now - I was at home for all of 36 hours before leaving for the next trip. It's a month of travel this month, and probably will be right through til the end of the year.

I'm here for a two day community wānanga - the total opposite of the WPATH symposium. It's doing me real good - and a 90 minute flight is nothing after a 14 hour one. I am looking forward to being proper at home this weekend, to being able to catch up on the sessions I missed, to editing this piece properly.

It's Saturday now, and I'm home - and finally feel like I'm home. I arrived in Ōtautahi on Monday, left for Tāmaki on Wednesday, got back just before midnight Thursday, and slept most of Friday. Today we went to the beach. We walked, ate fish and chips, got gigantic ice creams from the Redcliffs dairy. Home.

Cal has written another conference report focusing on some longer-term research findings on gender affirming care in adolescents - the big topic of the moment, it feels like. I think some of the more challenging moments at WPATH were around this area in particular - everyone's feeling the crunch of the landscape of hate.

I'm so grateful to have been able to attend - and reading back through this piece now, a full two weeks after the symposium ended, I'm glad it doesn't come across like I hated the whole thing. I think trans health - everywhere, not just WPATH - has a long history of cis-centrism and medicalisation we're still battling. It's to their credit, the steps WPATH are clearly taking to begin to address these histories, at least by ensuring some safer spaces for trans attendees - and not just a room off to the side, but somewhere genuinely comfortable, welcoming, a place that could be a home.

Just like AusPATH last year, I think what I'm most valuing from attending in person are the connections with other trans people doing this work. I'm thrilled to have got to know so many TPATH members, to have formed genuine relationships with CPATH and PATHSA, to have caught up with our AusPATH whānaunga, and to have grown closer with my colleagues in PATHA.

And I'm feeling invigorated, spurred on to keep doing this mahi, to contribute more wherever I can. I'm reminded that, despite the hatred and all the effort that goes into removing us from public life, it's not working. We're still here, we're still fighting, and we're not going anywhere.