By Tan Su-Ming
When I started work as a doctor at twenty-four, my view of sexuality was: heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. As for gender, you were either a boy or a girl. And my conservative and religious background made me believe that homosexuality was a perversion and against nature.
A Boy named Chantal
Adam always insists on being called Chantal, so that is how my clinic staff and I address him. I have known Chantal for ten years; he is now thirty-six years old. He comes every few months for sleep difficulties.
Chantal is a “pre-op” transsexual. He has breasts from hormonal treatment from various sources, but he has not had the funds or, I suspect, the complete resolve, to have the surgery that will complete his change.
I have seen him high from a relationship with a new man, and in despair over a breakup, when he goes back to his grandmother’s home. He is estranged from his parents.
Yesterday, Chantal came to my clinic after another quarrel with his boyfriend. “I’ve had it with men!” he said. “I am going back to women.”
“Wow,” I said. “Are you going back to being a man?” “I’m going to be a lesbian!”
I wanted to say, but you’re a boy. But I held my tongue because I know that everyone is looking for love and acceptance. Chantal just has a harder time than most of us.
Commentary
Along the way from the twenty-four-year-old me to the fifty-two-year-old me things changed. What has changed is that I have seen more, and I don’t hold the same views anymore.
It’s comforting to be able to pigeon-hole people. We like to know: What are you?
Native Americans used to recognize five different sexes, including men who thought of themselves as women, women who thought of themselves as men, and bisexuals. All this got stamped out when the Europeans arrived in the Americas.
I now think that sexuality can be fluid. I think that human beings will love who they love and be attracted to who they are attracted to. I think that we do not have to pigeon-hole people. I think we should live and let live.
——-Dr Tan Su-Ming
Dr Tan Su-Ming has been a general practitioner in solo practice in the heartlands for twenty-three years. She believes that if we knew everyone’s back story, we would be kind to everyone.
The commentary and vignette were reproduced with permission from the book “Being Human, Stories from Family Medicine” edited by Cheong Pak Yean and Ong Chooi Peng and published in 2021 by the College of Family Physicians Singapore.
Pictures of illness experiences were drawn by NUS medical students in workshops conducted from 2010-2017 by A/Prof Cheong Pak Yean. Senior family physicians subsequently shared vignettes and commentaries based on the pictures.
