Granted, I knew this was coming. I'd heard from better informed people than myself that although my phone works on Vodafone's network, which had switched off it's 3G support in January, it would not work on Telstra's network when it came to decommission it's 3G.
My (limited) understanding is that early iterations of the 4G standard would simultaneously rely on 3G when doing things like transmitting voice and data at the same time. So without 3G available, you need a capability called VoLTE . My phone can do it. I emailed the manufacturer and got a copy of the latest modem driver from them, so I am — technically at least — officially future-proof.
My phone is brilliant. It's a Purism Librem 5. It only came into my possession as a hand-me-down from Ruben, who is in the habit of buying cutting-edge, freedom-compliant hardware before they have quite ironed all the bugs out. The chief bug in this case is that the phone cranks through a lot of power, running hot and not quite getting through a full working day without a recharge. So it's not really practical if you are a grown-up with a job, responsibilities, and so on.
As I'm a child with a short attention span who rarely does anything for more than a few hours at a time, battery life is not an issue, and for most of the year in Melbourne, a pocket warmer is quite an asset. However the main benefit for me is that it runs a customised version of Debian, so anything I do on any other computer I can do on the phone, in principle. In practice it depends on how well the software you're using is designed to work with a small touch screen (spoiler alert: not well in many cases). But it's a much nicer experience than trying to get an Android phone to work like a proper computer. And it is very reassuring to know that it's not designed to spy on you. I don't actually use the hardware on/off switches for the modem, wifi, and bluetooth, but if Edward Snowden is reading this, I'd certainly recommend using them rather than putting it in the fridge.
In short, it's a beautiful thing. But I was expecting it to stop working (as a phone, at least) on October 28th, when Telstra switched off 3G. So I'd be switching to Vodafone. How much more expensive could it be? I consulted Vodafone's website, and found the cheapest "SIM-only" plan was three times as expensive! In absolute terms, that's only the difference between $17 dollars a month at ALDIMobile (a Telstra reseller for customers too poor for Telstra to bother to deal with directly) versus $50 a month at Vodafone.
A mere two pints of beer at a mid-tier Melbourne pub a month! Of course, in my current straitened circumstances, I only drink cardboard box wine blended with the bitter tears of economic precarity which flow down my sunken cheeks and into my glass. It's a non-trivial hit to my budget. So I thought I'd wait till the cut-off, in case Telstra saw sense in the meantime. I could pop down to the Vodafone shop in Bourke Street as soon as I lost service and be up and running again that day.
My singularly uninformed theory to explain the difference between Telstra and Vodafone's service is that Telstra (and Optus too, by the way) is whitelisting and refusing service to anything that's not a known-good device (based on a device ID string sent from your phone to the network), while Vodafone is perhaps just taking all comers on the principle that if it works, it works.
You might be able to justify the former approach by saying that these are critical devices, and if we can't be sure they won't fail under certain circumstances, we can't in all good conscience allow our customers to take their chances. On the other hand, you might wonder whether being overzealous and defaulting to "Oh, dear! Your phone needs upgrading. Let us help you with that," could be lucrative.
As it happens, October 28th came and went, and the phone still worked. The following Sunday, nearly a full week later, I had a long chat with my mum. Maybe Telstra had relaxed their policies.
The next day I received an SMS saying I'd missed a call from Ruben and he'd left a message. (Yes, I'm a lonely old lady and the only people I talk to in the average week are my mum and my chosen brother. Also I get a steady stream of SMS reminders of upcoming health care appointments. But otherwise, I could do without a phone —or indeed a voice — entirely.) I'd been in the ladies' at the State Library at the time, where one would expect to lose signal. There's an awful lot of sandstone, concrete, iron, and glazed porcelain betwixt yourself and the nearest cell tower in that particular location. Upstairs, within view of natural light, I went to check my messages, but couldn't get through to the message service. Odd. Then, walking home after library chucking-out-time I tried calling Ruben and similarly couldn't get through. Damn.
But I could still get text messages, as a subsequent reminder of an imminent face-lasering demonstrated. No cause for panic. Tuesday morning I went down to the Vodafone store where a helpful young man, sceptical of my claim to know better than Telstra, put a Vodafone SIM in my phone and indeed it worked perfectly. So we were good to go. All he needed was some photo ID: a passport or a driver's licence…
Jetsetting is rather out of the question at the moment, and if I ever drive a car again, it will be a sign that something has gone terribly wrong with the plan for the rest of my life (such as it is). I had no photo ID of any kind; at least none with my current name and face on it.
Not a problem, the young gentleman assured me. A Victorian proof of age card was readily obtainable. In fact he'd heard of people receiving theirs within a couple of days of submitting the form.
I had looked into this earlier, and I was sure it wasn't so simple. For one thing It requires the signed testimony of somebody who's known you for over a year. I've been living in Melbourne for about two and a half years, and just over a year of that as legally me, but I've basically just been working and sleeping. No social life to speak of. There are plenty of people who've only ever known me as Katy, but mostly for less than a year. Before that there's my former work colleagues, but as I burned my bridges when I rage-quit from there, that's not an option. There are people in my U3A philosophy discussion group I've been attending for just over a year, and there are people in my fediverse parasocial circle from Melbourne who have known me as Katy since long before I moved here. But is occasionally trading witty banter "knowing" someone? I'm really uncomfortable about this.
"You can get a form from the GPO just round the corner in Collins Street, is that right?" I ask. Well, not today as it's a public holiday. Ah, yes. The day that the country unites in it's love of cruelty to horses. Nothing more I can do today, so back to the library with me then.
Overnight, I came up with a solution. I didn't like it, but it was a solution. I found my old New South Wales driver's licence with literally just a couple of weeks remaining before it expired. It didn't have my name on it, and the photo doesn't look like me, or anybody even distantly related to me. You couldn't even confidently hazard a guess at the species of that ungodly abomination. But it was acceptable photo ID, and my birth certificate and change of name certificate both had my real name and my deadname on them.
I'm not silly enough to think I could ever go stealth. I'm six feet tall and have a face that belongs on an Easter Island hillside, topped with obviously shop-bought hair. But I don't want anybody who didn't know me back then seeing photos of me from the Before Times, and I don't like having to come right out and say I'm trans (unless I'm in political activism mode), because it feels like I'm saying "Poor me! Haven't I suffered and struggled!" when really I've had a very easy ride compared to practically every trans person I know. And there's just the "ick" factor. It's distressing to look at old photos. Not just for me, but objectively one can see that the person in this photo is clearly deeply troubled and it's not a pleasant sight. On top of that is the fact that New South Wales only a few weeks ago entered the 21st century, so my year-old birth certificate emphatically declares in bold capitals "Sex: MALE", which makes me nauseous every time I see it. All of this is a dehumanising indignity.
But the "4G" that used to sit in the top left of my phone's screen had turned into a question mark, and text messages were no longer being received. There were phone calls I needed to make, and two-factor authentication I needed to pass.
Back at the store, I handed over the plastic sleeve of incriminating evidence, and the young man I met yesterday felt very optimistic that this would suffice. He just had to check with his manager, and asked me to take a seat.
I tried to look stoic as I perched on the edge of my chair, and the young man reassuringly flashed me the thumbs up from across the room as he waited for his manager's attention. But I was feeling resentful and angry at the world. I thought everything was settled a year ago. Yet here I am again screaming "This is me! I am the old lady standing right in front of you! Why can't you see me?!"
Then I watched him display the documents to the manager who shook his head. Apparently there was no way on earth that their "AI" face recognition system would accept me as the person in that photo. Which was simultaneously possibly the nicest compliment I've ever received on my appearance and precisely what I didn't want to hear. However I was assured that if I went up to the VicRoads office on Exhibition Street (just turn right at the corner), they'd be able to turn my NSW licence into a Vic one with a new photo in a jiffy.
Again, I had looked into this option in the past and was certain it was not so easy, but having no better course of action I went up the hill along Bourke Street towards Parliament House. At the corner of Exhibition Street, I couldn't see a VicRoads office. I took out my phone to consult OpenStreetMap.org, then realised that of course this wasn't going to work. I briefly considered crossing the road to blow my next week's grocery budget drinking my simmering resentment into submission at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow, but I turned to the right anyway, and eventually one of the row of ghastly great glass-fronted buildings turned out the be the one I was after.
I have to admit I may have been less than entirely courteous with the young lady at the little reception station, but she did steer me back to the proof of age card route, assuring me that she'd known people who'd received their card in the post within a week. An advance on a couple of days, but still better than the rigmarole associated with a driver's licence. I took a form from the stack in front of her. I might have thanked her. Or I might have just sighed heavily.
I went up to the library and tried to work on my next essay. The young boy opposite me at the desk I'd chosen was joined by another, and they proceeded to produce a blow-by-blow commentary on the US election results as they came in. So I went home early.
The next morning I went to my philosophy discussion group, despite needing to spend the whole day working on that essay. I was glad I did so. The US election results were by now final — indeed terminal — and the resulting banter on the topic of democracy was very cathartic, for me at least. I think some other people got a word or two in.
Afterward I asked Darrell, the convener and conductor of proceedings, if he might do me a favour. I didn't like asking, and it was clear he wasn't entirely comfortable about complying, but with neither of us happy, I nonetheless had obtained the signature of a referee.
Then I went to the markets for some fruit and veg (a girl's got to eat, especially when under stress). Then to the pharmacy attached to the markets, where the girl at the counter confirmed that she was indeed qualified to witness my signature on the form (for a token fee of $2). She even remembered me from a prior visit (during the last great estradiol drought at least six months ago when I was desperately hitting every chemist shop in town), and informed me that they now had plenty of patches in stock. One hundred micrograms, wasn't it?
On the one hand, even at a distance of some months, you might be able to join the dots between two visits by an a harried old trans lady bearing a remarkable resemblance to Malcolm Fraser, but remembering the dosage is quite a feat. I would have bought some, were it not for the fact that my ability to access my "eScript" was at that moment kaput. I did at least thank her for her remarkable consideration, though.
My spirits lifted as I took the tram East to Exhibition Street. I like where I live. I made this happen. A few years ago I was living in a derelict motel halfway between Sydney and Brisbane among drug dealers, meth heads, and angry, violent thugs. I rise to challenges all the time. This is nothing. Everything is basically fine.
The same girl on VicRoads reception gave me a ticket and told me to take a seat till my number was called. I briefly panicked about the state of my hair, the near-certainty that I'd pull a funny expression during the photo, and the possibility that I may need to pee before long. I resolved that I would find a way to deal with the last of these in due course, and the other concerns didn't really matter.
Was told to expect my card in about three weeks. That's not so bad. I can cope.
Stopped at the Exford to powder my nose, feeling guilty about not buying a drink as payment. Went home, gave up on productive work, had dinner, fell into a funk, slept for twelve hours straight, with weird nightmares.
This morning I had to report to two separate branches of the social insecurity apparatus that I've been a good girl and met my study obligations, and also not earned any sneaky employment income on the side. I couldn't do either in the usual fashion. The first task involved a phone call, and the second an online form that I couldn't access without SMS two-factor authentication. So I spent much of the morning standing at a payphone on the street, mostly on hold, trying not to burst into tears.
As a special bonus, I was told that the course I've been doing since June is not an approved course for an exemption for job search requirements. It most emphatically is. I'd spent several days, mostly on hold, shuttling back and forth between call centre workers for Austudy, Centrelink, and Workforce Australia (probably all sitting at adjoining desks at the government call centre at Coffs Harbour) to establish this some months ago.
Nevertheless, apparently it's not, so while I've been given some leeway for this month, next month I'll have to be fruitlessly applying for work again. Which I was planning to do in any case, because the price of everything (including now phone network access) has gone up and the coffers are in an unsustainable state.
What am I supposed to do? Seriously. I have no idea. I've painted myself into a corner. Over the last 20 years, I've been self-employed, unemployed, a student, or a bottom-rung supermarket dogsbody. My efforts to get back on that bottom rung earlier this year demonstrated that I am evidently considered too old, too trans, or too something ineffable. Meanwhile the world is going up in flames.
I'm tired of being strong. Strength was only supposed to be required for a few years, according to the plan. Once I was out of the bad situation and had got myself sorted, it was supposed to be plain sailing. Instead, with every step away from it, the precipice seems nearer. There is no security, and certainly no comfort. I am perpetually exhausted and anxious, and it is wearing me down.
Anyway, the upshot is that if you need to get in touch with me over the next few weeks, use some medium other than the phone network.