Case Critical by Banakonda Kennedy-Kish (Bell) & Raven Sinclair & Ben Carniol & Donna Baines

Author:Banakonda Kennedy-Kish (Bell) & Raven Sinclair & Ben Carniol & Donna Baines
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Between the Lines
Published: 2017-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Service providers can be most helpful when they are open to the lived experiences of the people they are working with, but all too often such openness is undermined by a culture of prejudices against certain identities and a discomfort dealing with new, fluid understandings of identities. Considering the case of transgendered children, for example, Gerald Mallon cautions service providers: “Just as it is important that transgendered children are not mislabeled as gay or lesbian, although they frequently self-label as such prior to coming to a full understanding of their transgendered nature, it is also important that gay and lesbian children are not mislabeled as transgendered.” He points out that in contrast to gay and lesbian children, who ultimately accept their gender while being attracted to others of that same gender, transgendered children have a consistent dissatisfaction with the gender they were born into; they find themselves identifying with a different gender (1999: 60, 59; see also Mallon 2015), and may be attracted to any number of other genders.

When trans adolescents defy gender expectations, they often face a backlash from family and peers, and especially at school. According to one analyst, this situation can lead to “intra-psychic problems and behaviour such as depression, low self-esteem, substance abuse/hormonal abuse and self-mutilation, compounded by additional factors such as running away from/being kicked out of one’s home, homelessness, prostitution, dropping out of school and unemployment” (Burgess 1999: 58). Although this comment was made over fifteen years ago, the heterosexism that spawns mistreatment of Queer populations continues unabated, as suggested by a 2009 U.S. survey of transgendered students’ experiences at school: “90% of transgender students heard negative remarks about someone’s gender expression sometimes, often, or frequently in school . . . and also reported little intervention on the part of school personnel when such language was used” (Trans Youth Family Allies 2009: x). Also sobering, from 2015, “hate-motivated violence against transgender people rose 13 percent last year” (Ennis 2015).

Impact of underfunded social services

Negative attitudes and barriers affect various groups. An executive director of a Halifax employment project set up to aid prisoners from federal penitentiaries found herself working on a shoestring budget that had been cut back: “If a prisoner isn’t able to find a job after release from prison, what happens? He can go on welfare but many are too proud, so where can they get money to pay for food and rent? Crime becomes very tempting and the next thing you know, they’re back in prison. Our society spends a lot on punishment, jails and the like but little on positive help.”

Workers in government welfare or workfare departments face particular challenges. They often carry caseloads of individuals and families that number in the hundreds, which leads to a different kind of struggle to survive. Ben, one of the co-authors, was told this by one of these workers:

From a service point of view, I don’t even have time to listen to clients. In one recent month my total caseload was over 215 cases! I burnt out last August.

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