Sam Elkin’s book Detachable Penis is the latest release from Perth based publisher Upswell.
The book has been described as an unflinching tale of queer liberation, as Elkin offers an intimate and honest view inside the legal debate in Victoria over transgender people’s lives, while at the same time sharing his own internal and personal debates about gender.
Elkin was one the front line of debates over transgender people’s lives as he was the first lawyer appointed to Victoria’s queer legal service. He knows firsthand the arguments about inclusion in sport, children’s access to puberty blockers, birth certificate law reform and discussions over religious rights too.
It’s a book that traverses the many different cases Elkin worked on as people fought for greater rights, it also examines the burnout activist face and the challenges to their mental health.
It gets personal too, as Elkin discusses his own transition, encounters with psychologists, surgeons and speech pathologists.
Sam Elkin chatted to OUTinPerth co-editor Graeme Watson ahead of the book’s release.
What made you want to sit down, put pen to paper and share your journey?
I guess, after I had my experiences of working at the LGBTIQ Legal Service, and kind of burning out that career, I wondered how it was that I could have my dream job and done it, and then ended up feeling so shitty at the end of it.
I started doing some writing to try and reflect on what had happened. To convey both my good and bad experiences to other people who might be in the same situation or working in a similar community.
It is allowing people to see themselves through my experience of the trials and tribulations of working as a member of a community that you’re a part of, and to trying to advance positive changes.
It’s interesting with LGBTIQA+ Legal Services, there’s organisations in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, but nothing really in the other states and territories.
That’s right. Definitely, in WA at the moment, there isn’t really a legal option for people other than I guess, Legal Aid WA might be able to provide some support and obviously, generalist community legal centres.
The specialist ones definitely seem to be clustered around the eastern seaboard. So arguably, the people that need it most don’t have access to it at the moment.
Victoria is often the place described as the gold standard of legislation in so many areas in recognition of people people and bans on conversion therapy. In WA we’ve had legislation put forward and immediately it’s being celebrated.
But, also people are pointing out we could do so much better. In your experience what is it that Victoria has done to get that right?
A lot of people in Victoria would say that we could go further. I’ve been talking to a lot of activists in the LGBTQ community who are a bit older, people like Brenda Appleton and Julie Peters, and Rodney Croome in Tasmania.
When you talk to people like that, you get the sense that you can’t expect an easy win with legislative change.
It’s often 30 years in the making, and defeats along the way. Carrying the argument and networking with people, and building the case, takes a really long time and can sometimes take generations, a
You have to kind of be patient, which is very different to the kind of activist spirit of ‘Let’s get it done now.’
That’s been a big learning for me over the last few years, that if you don’t want to burn out of activism altogether, if you’ve got a really big goal, you need to understand that you’re looking at a 10-year plan, not a six-month plan.
Getting politicians on board and getting them to understand the issue is one thing, but then they’ve got to report to the people they represent again and getting that wider population to appreciate the issue.
I think that’s what we’re seeing a lot. Politicians going ‘okay, we get it, but we can only go so far, because we have to go out and sell it.
It is difficult because in the last few years, trans and gender diversity issues in particular has become very politicised.
So even when there are well intentioned politicians that might have family members or friends who are affected by the issue and really do care about it, when they’re going to be facing potential voter backlash because of people like Posie Parker and the like coming to Australia and stirring up a kind of confected debate, it makes it a lot harder for them to carry the argument in their party to make the moral change.
When I sit down and read the news, and watch all those late-night Sky News programs, at the end of it I feel completely deflated and exhausted and attacked – and I’m not trans.
That must be such a weight on people, just that constant negative news.
I think it has a really significant emotional and psychological impact on our community. I think that’s why we see higher rates of mental distress and suicidal ideation.
All the things that come along with stigma and discrimination, like higher rates of insecure housing, unemployment, underemployment – all of those things.
I think we also have an opportunity to come together as a community and try and change the narrative because we all have really compelling personal stories that I think people connect with.
Mine’s just one of those stories, every transgender diverse person I meet is part of a community as well as all sorts of weird little interests in different subgroups in society. Whether it be music, or dance or sport.
I think that we can do a lot with the sympathetic and friendly areas of the media to tell our stories, to humanise ourselves, and to compel people to act with care and compassion to our community. I see people have been doing a really good job of that in our community in the last few years.
What are your tricks for recharging and stepping away from it, so you can come back and keep fighting these battles?
I think my extended family, and Sue my partner, is really important to me. They are cisgender people who are not in the least bit savvy or interested in the ins and outs of LGBTIQA+ politics.
It’s nice to be around people to who your identity not even their 10th level consideration for them. They’ve got their own dramas, and it’s just great being part of a family group and supportive people.
You can’t spend your entire life online engaging in activism. You’ve got to go out and connect with different parts of the community.
I think it’s really important to not silo yourself off, particularly in a traumatised community because traumatised people hurt other traumatised people. You’ve got to get out and mix with mainstream society.
What made you decide the law is something that you wanted to be involved in? Where did your love for the law come from?
I don’t know if I love the law.
My first degree was at Curtin University and why because I grew up in Perth, and I did Fine Art there, and that’s what I was really interested in when I was a young person.
I basically finished that degree and was like, ‘Oh, God, I have no idea how to get a job’. So I basically did a law degree as a way of avoiding getting a job for a little while.
But I really did connect with the Community Legal Center and social justice focused subjects. I grew up in a pretty disadvantaged community in Marangaroo and Koondoola. Poverty has been a big part of my life. I grew up in public housing. I’ve always been attracted to jobs where you can fight for the underdog.
You can do that at a Community Legal Center. There are so many ways that you can help people, whether it’s through helping people with criminal charges, or helping people appeal Centerlink or NDIS decisions.
There’s so much you can do to help people, and just treating people with dignity and respect, particularly if they haven’t received it is I think a really important act of care that lawyers can do.
It’s a job that I really enjoy doing, but because it is quite a significant mental load, it’s definitely a career that I’ve had to step in and out of over the years.
What do you hope people will get out of reading your book?
I love reading, and I hope people will just basically enjoy reading the book.
I didn’t write it to, you know, settle grunges or drive home a moral message. I’ve wanted people to enjoy the book, I hope they find it funny. I hope they can relate to it.
I hope that they can see themselves in different parts of the book, because almost anybody who works for a living knows that working is really hard for everybody in a lot of different ways.
That burnout in our increasingly digital community is a real thing. I hope that people can see my story as a bit of a cautionary tale and not throw everything into their work and take some time out to recharge and look after themselves. You’ve got to look after yourself first before you try and care for anybody else.
Finally, let’s talk about the title – Detachable Penis.
The reason it’s called detachable penis is obviously a bit of a nod to the King Missile song of the early 90s, which was a horrific ear worm. I don’t recommend anybody google it if they haven’t heard the song, it’s really annoying and really likely get stuck in your head.
It is about me trying to find a packer, gender affirming intimate apparel or whatever you call it, that was right for me. I couldn’t find one that I thought suited me. I ended up buying this crocheted penis, which appears on the cover of the book.
That actually is the real item that of local Melbourne artist made for me during COVID. I was really grateful. And a lot of the book is about me sort of grappling with different parts of my identity and what it means to have a body that looks different to other people’s bodies.
I guess I was just trying to approach that with humor, and warmth, and the crocheted penis and the title Detachable Penis just seem to go hand in hand with that kind of humorous, not too serious vibe.
Sam Elkin’s Detachable Penis is out now from Upswell and available in bookshops.
