His Authentic Self
Theo Press, a transgender man, documented his moving transitioning journey as a means of challenging himself, helping other trans women and men, and educating those outside the trans community about his experience.
In his final year of design school, Theo Press was working on a project about protest art. The idea, he says, was to centre the project around major protest movements from the past few decades. However, the protest story that unfolded turned out to be much more of a personal one.
Press is a transgender man and when the date for his double mastectomy (also known as ‘top surgery’) landed in the middle of his semester, he decided, with the help of his photographer uncle, to document his journey. “Transitioning is a protest in itself. That was the landing point for my ‘Self Made Man’ project,” he explains. “A lot of people don’t know a trans person in real life. The core idea was presenting my transition to people who had never seen anything like it before. It was about lowering the barrier of entry to understanding the trans experience.”
Press grew up in Wellington and was around 18 years old when he first started to think that he might be trans. “I never thought there was anything wrong with me. I was kind of a tomboy when I was younger anyway,” he says. “It wasn’t until I got to university that I realised how uncomfortable with my gender I was.”
Around the same time, he began to experience severe social anxiety. Going out for a meal or drinks with friends would make him feel nauseous and throw up. At a time when most young people are busy socialising, Press struggled to maintain many of his friendships. This went on for two years. The moment it stopped was the moment he finally came out as trans.
“In a way, it was completely out of the blue. I had thought about it a little bit, but hadn’t decided to say it. I was in my mum’s bedroom and my sister said a friend wanted to know what pronouns I used. I just started crying my eyes out. I said to my mum, ‘I’m transgender’. As soon as I said it, I was so relieved. It was like the anxiety just evaporated.”
After coming out, Press started researching about how to transition. He soon realised there was a lack of resources for transgender New Zealanders. “I had no idea about transitioning in New Zealand or what steps I had to take,” he says. “A lot of the information I got was from the NHS in the UK. There are only a couple of pages on the New Zealand Ministry of Health website for transgender people to learn about gender surgery.”
BEGINNING THE JOURNEY
Starting on hormone therapy was an exciting step in Press’ transition. “After about two months on testosterone, my voice dropped. That was pivotal. It was like the missing piece that was getting me misgendered all the time. I don’t get misgendered anymore which is great.”
Six months into his transition, Press started looking into top surgery. Government websites proved to be of little help, so he asked for recommendations for New Zealand surgeons on an online forum for trans men. A recommendation led him to Wellington-based surgeon, Dr David Glasson. “It’s a bit of an oxymoron because David is actually a breast augmentation surgeon, but because the Wellington district health boards are so badly funded, he ends up doing a lot of private top surgeries,” explains Press.
On 31 August 2020, with his girlfriend, Hannah, by his side, he went in for his top surgery.
The whole experience, he says, was relatively smooth, mostly due to the fact that he had a great support system and could afford to have the surgery done privately, rather than joining the long wait list in the public healthcare system.
Press knows he is lucky. “I was very fortunate to have parents who could pay for half the cost of my surgery. I feel I didn’t get the ‘genuine’ experience in New Zealand, purely because I went private. A lot of what I’ve heard about the public system isn’t great. People have to wait months and months for a surgery date, let alone the actual surgery.”
In November 2020, an RNZ analysis found that access to genderaffirming healthcare for trans women and men in New Zealand differs dramatically between district health boards. This means many Kiwis have to travel long distances to access services such as breast augmentation, chest reconstruction and voice therapy. According to the 2019 ‘Counting Ourselves’ survey, one in 10 people