Mostly, it was lovely to see so many people rallying to the cause of (primarily, but not exclusively) women being able to wear what they want in public without it being seen as consent to harassment and assault. It’s true. Consent to sexual activity is divorced from anything other than what we say. Nothing else consents for us.

Later, we went clubbing, and on the way home on the tube, some men used me as their paid-for amusement for the evening against my will.

I was wearing this:

So I stood out, yes. Get in. I looked the fucking business, people. We’d just been to a club whereby anything went as far as costume went, and I’m a guy that will jump at any opportunity to tart up. Thus, tarted up I was.

I was hassled for photographs by some young men who only cursorily asked whether they could get a picture of me before pawing me and grabbing me and threatening me. But that’s fine, if awful – I could deal with that. I’ve dealt with that before. They were young and quite drunk, for what it’s worth, not that it’s an excuse.

I clocked a group of people, some men and some attached women, checking me out and talking amongst themselves further down the carriage. As I watched, one of them – a young man, approximately a few years older than me – stalked down towards me, looking at my body as he went. He looked at my face, my jawline, my throat, my chest, my waist and my hips. He continued past me, and continued his observation of my body from behind. He said nothing, and got out his phone and started fiddling with it.

Intimidated, I moved to put my back to the wall of the carriage, next to the door, and told him that if he wished to take my picture as well, he could ask.

He looked up. “Oh,” he said, “I didn’t want to take your picture. It’s just that my mates have a bet on as to whether you’re male or female.”

It couldn’t have hurt me more suddenly or sharply if he’d slapped me. He had been assessing my body to see whether I was of the female-assigned-at-birth or male-assigned-category. I bristled. “Firstly, I’m male,” I hissed, “and secondly, I’m not a fucking zoo exhibit. I am actually quite offended.”

“Hey, calm down,” he started, before my best friend Mim stepped in to ask him, in my defence, what sort of entitled arsehole he thought he was, and what gave him the right to use me as his amusement? Would he put bets on whether someone was gay or straight?

“I just wanted to know what she was dressed as,” he said.

Not only had I been gawped and ogled at like a caged animal, he didn’t even take my own word for my own gender. Apparently, his opinion based on his flawed assessment of my physicality over-rode my own identity. I had my identity casually erased before my eyes. Despite my protestations, I wasn’t human to him. I wasn’t a person. I was a freak, an indeterminate outsider, and therefore he found it acceptable to treat me like subhuman filth.

This may sound minor to some of you. He never touched me, he never hit me, raped me, spat at me, threw a beer can at me – none of the things he could have done. I got off lightly. I’m still intact, aren’t I? No swabs, police reports or bruises.

But he’ll have got home and laughed with his friends about how they hassled this weird girl on the tube who thought she was a man and forget all about it. I won’t. I’m not going to forget. Every time I wonder if there’s a place for me in society, it’ll be his face and words I remember. I’ll remember how he looked at my body – the very thing I fret about every morning to dress carefully around so that people won’t see my tiny waist and curvy bottom and think, “That’s a girl” – and how his cissexist assessment of my shape nullified my identity.

We had a march that very morning about this, didn’t we? Women marching, unified by their contempt for the assumption that they are somehow to blame for their own assault and victimisation. A Facebook event was made, and it ballooned! We had a whole march! And do you remember the John Snow Pub gay kissing incident and all the clictivism that happened for that? Hundreds of people kissed all over the pub in defence of those kicked-out guys.

And that’s brilliant. But where are we? Where is the mass anger and outrage for the trans* people? It’s still the Seventies for us in many respects. The internet-based feminist communities are slowly but surely opening their arms to us, but we’re still widely invisible. The beating of a trans woman in Baltimore earlier this year prompted the only bit of mass internet activism concerning a trans* person I have seen in years. We don’t get outraged marches or supportive column-space in newspapers. We’re still the circus freaks of popular culture, the strange deviant unicorns that get exoticised or demonised by turns. Look at the media shitfest over the gender-free baby Storm. Look at how many publications misgender Chaz Bono when they talk about him. Would have that entire carriage of silent passengers stood up in my defence if it was overt racism being displayed instead of transphobia? It’s just not taken as seriously, at all.

I appreciate that there aren’t many of us. If there was a march of trans* people in London tomorrow, there’d be about three people there. 2010’s Brighton TransDOR was woefully under-attended, and the only cisgender people there were friends and family – people who were directly in contact with a trans* person. We’re invisible. But we’re here. And as the social atmosphere changes from hostility to acceptance, more of us will have the courage to live openly and come out.

Bring that on, say I. And that all starts with basic visibility and people giving a shit. So here I am, being as visible as I can be (without blogging continually about living trans* as there’s people that do it better than me!) and I’m asking you to start giving a shit about trans* people right now. Please.

Here are some of my favourite read-think links:

• Transwhat? – an up-and-coming resource for non-trans* friends of trans* people and allies
• Asher Bauer’s “Not Your Mum’s Trans* 101” – a 101 on what it means to be trans* that pulls none of its punches
• Ciscentrism Sucks! on Tumblr – a trans* space that makes good reading if you want to educate yourself on more in-depth trans* discourse
]]> /2011/06/21/slutwalk-where-are-we/feed/ 7 6143 /2010/12/09/we-came-here-together/ /2010/12/09/we-came-here-together/#comments Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:00:18 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=1232

When you look at the names here, remember these people. Cry for those who we have lost, and let your anger out for a society that would allow them to die.

– Remembering Our Dead site



Markgraf and I are running late.

My iPhone’s GPS has lied to us, and now we’re puffing our way along Brighton seafront in characteristically frenetic fashion, looking for a rather uncharacteristic venue: a Methodist church.  “We’ve never been to church together!” I pant. 

“I know, right? It’s an adventure,” says Markgraf. “If we actually find it on time. Or I might just implode into the sea,” he adds, staring again at the fruitless map, “instead.”

“Mmm. Maybe it’s this next left?”

*

We were there, in a roundabout way, because of Twitter.

A month previously, I’d logged in and seen something Markgraf had RT’d. The original tweet went something like ‘Will be observing Transgender Day of Remembrance‘, adding that ‘many feminist friends just seem to be ignoring it.‘

I made the decision then not to be one of those feminists, and shunted myself Googlewards to find out more. I read the roll of names¹. An angry, sad light went on in my head that day. I texted Markgraf half an hour later.

I saw your RT and googled around. Educated self a bit. Reading the stories. It’s heartbreaking. If anything like that ever happened to you I don’t know what I’d f***ing do. So, um. There’s an event in Brighton. I think I’m going to go.

The response-beep came five minutes later.

Yes. Let’s go. Let’s both of us go. And write an article on it.

So that was the plan.

A London event was added later, but we stuck with Brighton. There is a hella good tea shop there, after all. So Markgraf and I got on a train and went on a kind of pilgrimage.

*

I don’t want to make TDOR all about me (in fact, go and read Markgraf’s post instead). This post is a marker for my own experience of the event, but I hope it’ll make more people, particularly cis people like myself, consider observing TDOR, or at least think about the prejudice trans*² people face all over the world and what they can do to help. There’re positive posts out there about TDOR – as a more high-profile cis-authored example, Anton Vowl had a good rant the other day, or there’s the F Word post here – but I’ve yet to see the news really talk about it. How many ‘allies’ show up to actual events? Would I be on this trip myself if I hadn’t witnessed what transphobia looks like via Markgraf? I’d like to think I might, but I suspect I wasn’t paying nearly enough attention before a personal friend was affected.

Many of the cisgender people I saw at TDOR had some connection to a trans* person themselves – they were a friend or relative. I don’t want to over-generalise, but at the same time this seems to be the spur that makes a cis person bother to go to an event like TDOR – they’ve watched their loved one experience prejudice and discrimination. Perhaps they’ve yelled at the hooligan hassling their partner. Perhaps they’ve read their friend’s blog and realised that things they take for granted – using a public loo, say – can be cause for fear of abuse. These are all good reasons to care. But everyone should care, whether they’ve met someone with a direct experience or not. Hard to achieve when people have to work so hard to find any mainstream media about real trans* experiences at all. There are barely any characters on TV, no bestsellers. The ones we do see are often negatively stereotyped.

In my experience transphobia is never mentioned as an issue or a problem in most educational settings. In any education young people may get in those settings about diversity, it is very much the silent T.

Back to the seafront.

*

Markgraf and I are running late, but – as it happens – so’s the vigil. We slink breathlessly into the church, where the Clare Project drop-in is based, and mooch awkwardly in the porch under a sudden cloud of shyness. But we’re welcomed. There are lone figures, twosomes like us, groups, couples and families. All in all, about 30 or 40 of us.

And, while “knowing someone” just shouldn’t be the only way a cis person comes to identify and comprehend transphobia, at the same time, knowing someone obviously does makes it personal. As we read the causes of death, I picture Markgraf and his partner, and what they are like together; playfighting on my sofa, sharing an umbrella, decorating their home. I think of these people I’ve never met, with their own lives and loves, quirks and habits, all of them brutally, senselessly murdered, and I can’t hold back tears for the names on this long, long list.

There’s a current of horrified energy coursing silently through the room with the names, with these murders. Beheadings, burnings, shootings; it’s relentless. Some attendees are old hands. Some are realising in front of me how heavily the dice are stacked against them. I am watching people, many of them very young, realise that a great many people in the world at large would shrug if they were murdered. Afterwards, as people clutch plastic cups of tea and began to talk again, one attendee murmurs to me, “You know, I go to Pride, I go on protests. I go out for causes. And I really feel that other people – they need to be here. It’s time for them to come out for us.” Later, she passes an email address on to Markgraf, who has mentioned that the town where he lives has nothing like the Clare Project, with a promise of support.

I’m never quite sure what to do with myself in churches. But there’s a paper tree in the little anteroom near the church doors, with detachable paper leaves. There’s a pencil on the little altar and an invitation to write your own prayers, or thoughts. I just write:

T.D.O.R.
WE CAME HERE TOGETHER



Read Markgraf’s post about TDOR here.

1. The list we actually read out on the day was far longer.
2. I’m using the asterisk here to include anyone with a trans – transgender, transsexual, whoever. I’m using it as a catch-all inclusive term for those with a non-binary gender identity, regardless of status in transition or not, what or where.
]]> /2010/12/09/we-came-here-together/feed/ 1 1232 /2010/12/09/we-need-allies-a-day-in-transgender-remembrance/ /2010/12/09/we-need-allies-a-day-in-transgender-remembrance/#comments Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:00:52 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=1507 I attended the International Transgender Day of Remembrance event in Brighton with my best friend on the 21st of November.  I went with the full intent to write about it, and then spent the entire afternoon afterwards in my shellshocked, harrowed-out daze, wondering what the hell to say.

There are a couple of things I’d like to get out of the way first.  Firstly, some readers may be aware, others aren’t – I’m transgendered.  I’m a guy with non-factory-standard genitals.  So there’s that.

Secondly, I have some privileges of my own that I want to lay down.  I’m white, I’m able-bodied, I don’t have any disabilities or illnesses that anyone can see, I’m middle-class and I have a house.  I do my best to work around these in how I treat people and the world around me, but I know that sometimes, they’re going to cause me to fuck up a bit.  So there’s that, too.

Oh – one other thing I have: I have passing privilege, sometimes.  Not all the time, but sometimes.  Which is great, but also a thing to consider, because then I get to have male privilege, too.

We got to the venue for the remembrance service, and I was nervous.  I’ve never really been to any specifically trans-inclusive spaces – let alone a church! – and didn’t know what to expect.  I was surprised!  It was very welcoming, very inclusive and friendly, and the service was well thought-out.  I felt as though I was on friendly territory.  Which was nice.

Now: the service.  What happened was, after a vigil for the loss of a member of the Brighton trans*¹ community, the list of victims between 2009 and 2010 was read out.  Name, age, date of death – and manner in which they were killed.

If this sounds horrifying and harrowing, let me tell you: it is absolutely nothing compared to the experience.  It was so horrible.  It was so hard to read, so numbingly dreadful and so damn depressing that I just burst into tears after reading my first victim’s name.  She was stabbed up and abandoned in a dump.  I thought, is this really the world I’m transitioning in today?  Is this the reception I’m to expect from the public?  Is this a true reflection of how transgender people are perceived?

There were photographs of some of the victims, too.  Now, here I’m brought back to passing privilege.  There is an insidious, embarrassing, totally inaccurate and highly offensive supposition in the media (that appears to have been slowly, very slowly, dying out since the 1970s) that all trans* people are trans women who don’t pass.  These victims were not they.  The victims whose pictures I saw were women with passing privilege.  These were not the cruel media’s “favourite” sort of transgendered victim; the pantomime parody that’s miles and miles away from real trans* people and does more to inspire mockery in the public rather than righteous anger on their behalf.

This realisation served to remind me how bloody vulnerable trans* people are in the face of a society that can’t or won’t understand them.  These people were the members of our community who had that enviable passing privilege that’s meant to help one lead a “normal” life (for whatever definition of “normal” you prefer).  I know that when I don’t have passing privilege, I feel intensely isolated; like some inexplicable, unintelligible Other that will never be able to, say, use a public bathroom without coming under suspicion and scrutiny.  The transgender experience is, whatever your level of passing privilege, a very isolating one.

There are support groups, but they’re few and far between, lost in a tide of support groups for lesbian, gay and bisexual people who also have their own unfair share of discrimination and isolation.  I know I have trouble finding anything outside of London, which is where I’m not.  I know it’s often quite hard to find other trans guys within accessible transgender communities (we’re outnumbered by the ladies 10 to 1 in Britain!  Isn’t that interesting?) if we can work up courage enough to go at all.  Many of us can’t find support in our family – quite the opposite, sometimes – and coming out to social groups often ensures the sloughing of manifestly unhelpful acquaintances.

It’s lonely.  We need allies.  We need allies that are close to us, and we need allies that are further away in the media and government.  I mused upon this as I moistened my best friend’s shoulder at the service, and then mused upon it further as we nerded out over different sorts of tea later.  I did some extra musing when I emerged, resplendent, from the bathroom and announced excitedly to her that I’d been read as male there, and she was gleeful and pleased for me.  We need people like this in our lives.  My friend is cisgendered and she understands.  She makes the effort to understand and to support and include.  She does this, and in doing so, she’s one member of the majority that will encourage others to do the same.

So, hurrah for allies.  Thank god for allies within the LGBTQI community that go against the distressing trend of leaving off the “T” from the acronym, or argue with those that would claim trans women who like women to not be “real lesbians”.  Thank god for allies within the feminist community who don’t agree with Germaine Greer or Julie Bindel’s frankly disgusting attitudes towards transgendered people.  But perhaps most of all, I’m thankful for cisgendered allies who love and care for their trans* friends and make the effort to spread tolerance, support and understanding within the majority.

I started writing this post hideously disaffected, thinking about my challenging relationship with my family and how far-reaching crimes against trans* people are.  But now I’ve remembered that there are people, like you, dear BadRep reader, who don’t suck, and do get it.  So thank you, too.  Here’s a comic of me and my friend having a tea-off.  You’re welcome.



You can read my friend’s companion post on TDOR here

1. I’m using the term “trans*” to specifically include anyone with a trans – transgender, transsexual, whoever. I’m using it as a catch-all inclusive term for those with a non-binary gender identity, regardless of status in transition or not, what or where.
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