TESTIMONY TO GLOBAL TRIBUNAL ON ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Beijing, China

Daphne Scholinski, USA

My name is Daphne. I am 29 years old and currently live as an artist/writer in San Francisco, California. I am here today as a surviving, living testimony, and to give voice to the experience of many lesbian, gay, bisexual youth and young people who do not conform to traditional gender roles.

Thousands of us continue to be stripped of dignity and brutalized by psychiatric abuse in institutions or are struggling to survive after psychiatric incarceration. I must stress Living, because many never make it this far, due to high suicide rates resulting from this abuse or the internalized fear and shame of their experiences.

Most of my childhood I was mistaken for a boy. Constantly in need of defense for my-self expression, I spent a lot of time hiding. I would be asked, "Why don't you try to look more like a girl?" I couldn't even if I tried. Throughout grammar school and into junior high school, I was continually abused verbally and physically by my family, teachers, and peers for being too masculine.

In my defense I frequently needed to fight with people and eventually was forced out of social activities or refused to go to events because of the stress it created for me. I became angry and rebellious. Resulting from a background of abusive and unsupportive family members, teachers, counselors, and peers, I eventually gave in to the depression caused by these circumstances, and at the urging of doctors and teachers, my parents had me institutionalized.

So in 1981, at the age of 14, I was labeled "mentally ill" and confined to the psychiatric ward of Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. I was later transferred to Forest Hospital in Des Plaines, Illinois and then to the Constance Bultman Wilson Center in Faribault, Minnesota - losing four entire years of my youth. I was admitted for reasons of: depression, not adjusting well to adolescence, not attending school, suicidal thoughts and gestures, but most specifically, as they put it, for lacking signs of being a "sexual female".

The initial comment given to my parents was, "people in your daughter's condition usually spend the rest of their lives in mental institutions." My primary diagnosis was "gender identity disorder". Although the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders in 1973, the U.S. mental health system remains an extremely hostile environment for lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth, who are still routinely viewed by child and adolescent psychiatrists as "emotionally disturbed" and in need of aggressive psychiatric treatment "to prevent adult homosexuality."

The doctors attempted to "cure" me of "pre-homosexuality" and any wish, they thought I had of being a boy. This was based on assumptions due to my "choice of clothing, friendship patterns, and career goals." Much of my so called "treatment" consisted of pressure to conform to norms of heterosexuality and femininity. I was being forced to try to be more feminine. I was to become more concerned with my appearance, and more "obsessive about impressing boys." The goals set for me were: "learn about make-up; dress more like a girl; curl and style hair; and spend quality time learning about girl things with female peers - like, what boys like, etc. "

These attempts to force me to be what they thought I should be were failing. So they saw me as a failure, I was never going to be a "normal female." I was on a "point system", and received points for "good behavior" and lost points for ‘"bad behavior". You needed these points to receive "privileges"; like being able to walk to meals unescorted, watch a movie, make a phone call, or even to shower without someone watching you, or leave your room. Having no privileges was not only embarrassing but torturous. You had no escape. I would spend months never leaving my unit, never going to the bathroom without someone staring at me (which I must add was not always by female attendants). Stretches of solitary confinement, heavy medication, physical restraint and horror stories from staff became routine.

Though I don't remember if I ever received shock treatment, I witnessed it and it was one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. I lived with people who claimed to be Jesus and angrily accused me of "stealing their bones". The woman who lived next door to me screamed over and over again "I want to die, let me die!" And I was supposed to be maintaining my sanity? I was growing up in a mental hospital. Beginning at the age of 14 and continuing until I was 18 years old, I was in three different hospitals. I was subjected to abuse all around me; feeling deserted by my family and left in a mental hospital with extremely "disturbed" adults who yelled, teased and abused me. One of the first statements ever made to me by a patient was while I was in seclusion. She walked right up to the little window in the door, looked in and said, "I think I'm going to have to kill you."

I was sexually molested by a male in his late 20's while I was restrained and helplessly strapped to my bed, not to mention how many times I had patients masturbating around me. I was physically assaulted countless times by out of control patients. Staff were sometimes equally as violent. Restraining was often painful. All I would have to do is get a little angry, maybe just call someone a name, and I would get thrown to the floor with my arm twisted so far behind my back that I feared it would be broken. This was usually followed by a shot of Thorazine, a powerful tranquilizer that would put me to sleep for the rest of the day, only to awaken in seclusion, often without any memory of how I got there.

A staff person once held his foot on top of my head while he said "shut up you fucking crazy ass queer," and then yelled for help to calm me down because he felt I was "out of control". None of this was ever dealt with, instead I would have to continually be accused of insanity for my actions, while I believed I was responding very sanely to a very insane situation. Stranded in a place where you can not win, everything you do becomes a symptom of something. If you stand or pace, you are hyperactive. If you sit you are withdrawn. If you say you need help, you are looking for attention. If you say you do not need help, you are in denial.

I was to explore, in therapy, my "feelings related to the opposite sex." The goals of treatment at this time were stated as: "Elimination of depression, and for the patient to come to terms with herself, as a sexual female." They described my relationship with my best friend as "an expression of a fixated level of sexuality that was being acted out." Nothing about our friendship was out of the ordinary. But because of my "masculine manner" we became suspect to "acting gay" and presumed to be sexual, which we never were. They never believed us. We were forced to be restricted from each other. We were not allowed to speak about each other, to each other; we could not even make eye contact without being punished.

I would spend my entire "treatment" never really dealing with my depression or the symptoms resulting from the abuses from parents, teachers, peers, or previous psychiatric interactions. Instead I was immediately targeted for my "sexual identity" as the problem and the only "thing" that needed resolution. Each and every day was reinforcement that I WAS THE PROBLEM. The silence around the issues of abuses forced me to believe that I deserved it. The idea being that only if I changed, became more feminine, more beautiful, more "acceptably heterosexual", that then there would be no reasons for anyone to treat me poorly, and then I would no longer need to be depressed and could go on to lead a "happy normal life."

I was defeated from the beginning. I had been sentenced to an adolescence spent surrounded by white walls and lab coats. Quite a punishment for a 14 year old who was really showing the typical signs of growing up gay in a heterosexual society. It was not until 2 1/2 years into my treatment that my parents (specifically my mother) became aware of the intent of the institution and my doctors. When my mother said she thought I might be gay, the doctor responded, "Oh no, don't worry about that. We'll take care of that." She specifically told them not to treat me for that. She believed that her wishes would be respected and followed. I was never aware of this conversation taking place, but once you are behind those closed doors, nobody knows what is really going on. You become a prisoner of that system. I can tell you my treatment never did change.

Every hospital came with the highest of recommendations, but conditions were grossly inadequate for an adolescent. In the first institution I was on a unit of approximately 30 people, and only 4 other patients were under 18. The rest of the patients were much older, ranging from the age of my parents to older than my grandparents. Some patients had already been there for years. There is no hierarchy of sani ty. Meaning, everyone is treated the same, no matter how sane or insane you are, or people think you are. I believed this was not only my future, but my only future.

In the end my parents would be convinced that the hospital saved my life; after all I am alive aren't I? While I believe it was necessary to remove me from my home, taking away my freedom, dignity, and any ounce of self-respect was not the answer. I was dying there, they killed my spirit, and no progress was being made. I was ready to live and die there, until, three years into my treatment, an intern looked me in the eyes and said, "What are you doing here? You are so sane." Up to that point the thought never crossed my mind that I could be sane, they could be wrong, and I could be free. I will never forget that moment, that spark that this woman alone created in me, so that I could finally believe in myself.

I was finally released 5 days after my 18th birthday, when they were unable to legally keep me, and conveniently as my insurance had run out and would no longer cover my "treatment". In total, my treatment cost over one million dollars. One month after my million dollar insurance policy ran out, my father received a bill for fifty thousand dollars. Is it not totally absurd, attempting to prove that which is not provable? The charge of insanity. No matter how hard you try, you cannot convince them of your sanity. I am afraid I will have to wear this mark on my forehead for the rest of my life. This scar follows me like a shadow, watching my every move, every thought. Is it possible for anyone to understand what it is like to be at the mercy of people who at any moment can exercise their authority, their "expert" opinions, their "god complex" over you? That with one swift mark of a pen, they can write the orders that will change your life forever?

We need to create a safe space for us to continue breaking the silence that has allowed this issue to be ignored for far too long and has prevented this issue from receiving the attention it urgently requires; and that clearly identifies homophobic psychiatric abuse as a violation of the most basic human rights. This includes: personal dignity, bodily integrity, and individual autonomy.

I was left traumatized by homophobic counseling and "treatments". Damaged, silenced, and discarded; with emotional scars that will take a lifetime to dissolve. Being labeled and treated as mentally ill simply because of who I am has had long-term disabling effects that had prevented me from speaking out about my experiences. While some have remained incarcerated in the mental health system into adulthood, and others are lost to suicide or other forms of self-directed violence, there are the ones who like me have been silenced by shame and the overwhelming fear of being further stigmatized or discriminated against as a former mental health patient. When you have had your sanity challenged, you always have something to prove.

I have often felt so overwhelmed by the tremendous difficulty of surviving and attempting to build a life in the aftermath of extreme trauma. It is now eleven years later; I realize that I was not supposed to survive. I realize that my "treatment" was designed to leave me with only two options: either change or do not exist. Some might say change would have been easy; I mean "act straight," get discharged, and then go on with your life. But it would have been at that moment of "acting" that I would have surely lost my self. My identity would have disappeared, and then they really would have had someone to "treat". At the time I chose neither, and today, as an artist approaching over 3500 paintings, I have chosen to exist.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. - Oscar Wilde