Joel's Story

Last night I met Joel, a trans man from Bolivia, who told me his story. In 1999, he arrived in Spain aged 23, after six years of living as Joel. It was the following year when he found the trans community, forming friendships and relationships within that circle, and becoming a long-serving activist. The year after that, he started taking hormones. The doctors diagnosed him with Gender Identity Disorder, which at the time was called transsexualism, and in 2002 he took out a bank loan to have surgery. In 2002, the only way to be considered a “real” man or woman, even in trans spaces, was having surgery. 

“At 26,” he said. “For the first time, I no longer needed to bind my chest.”

You will hear a bit more from Joel when The Trans Cure? is released on 17th December. In an audio supplement for the article, he opens up about the day-to-day examples of direct and indirect discrimination which invalidate trans people so much they may be pushed into conversion therapy to find a solution for their resulting anguish. Before that, however, I wanted to share with you a few bits of our conversation that really stood out. 

Joel moved to the UK back in 2016. Alongside his work, he loves going to the gym and hanging out with his friends, many of whom are also members of the trans community. In 1994, 19 years old and in the early days of living as a trans man, he spiralled into depression and attempted suicide. He overcame this, and now lives a very happy life and feels happy in his body. Nonetheless, a sense of pessimism presides around where trans rights stand following the Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman. Conversion therapy is just one of many plights the community must contend with. 

The most inspiring story was of his father, who supported Joel despite not necessarily having much knowledge at the time about transgender people: “He didn’t understand everything, but he didn’t try to change my mind. He asked what I needed, because he could see I was struggling in my daily life. 

“The best thing he did was change my name. In 1997, when I was 20, he paid for a new birth certificate and the old one was destroyed. It wasn’t legal, but it gave me official documents that matched my identity since I was 20.”

Joel later told the story of a friend from Spain, a survivor of conversion therapy. This friend was pinned down and injected with hormones against their will until they were suppressed into cisgenderism and heteronormativity. Survivor of conversion therapy may be the wrong word for it; this is more like torture. 

My interview with Joel happened in the evening, sitting in the Costa Coffee beside the local Odeon. A barista approached us, pulling back the barrier and informing us that the cafe was about to close. Walking down the shopping centre staircase was perhaps the strangest place I have ever conducted an interview, and as we headed towards the blossoming Christmas market, we parted on a discussion about inspirational trans representation in modern media. It gave me food for thought, as Joel remarked on the Transformers being a trans allegory because, well, it speaks for itself. More profound was his observation about Pinocchio, who only wants to be “a real boy”. This is a struggle Joel, and so many other trans men, are very familiar with.