Is Trans Awareness Week Over Yet?

Blending in...

I’m asking, essentially if it’s okay to peek my head round the curtains and maybe even venture out of the front door again. Because trust me cis folks, I’m very aware that I’m Trans every week. The problem is, so is everybody else. Ooh. Okay, I’m going to give you a minute to let that sink in before I continue. That’s it, let’s get the ’But I’m an ally,” indignation out of the way first…

…and Puuuuuuuuurge… …

…Better? Hope so. Still smarting? Sucks doesn’t it? In order to ease your pain, let me give you a trans woman’s perspective of a few simple scenarios we face in cis world, every week. Hopefully, by the end, you won’t feel so bad and you may even have learnt how to not be part of the problem. Not saying all of you are of course, but if the opening paragraph did get your heckles up, then chances are this is for you - sorry. Even if it’s not, I guarantee it will be for many people in both your real and online worlds.

Caught Between a Cock And a Hard Place:

Let’s start with the “B” word as it’s where most anti-trans rhetoric starts: Biology. Trans women are ‘different’ biologically, as eluded to in the sub-title above. Newsflash: We know. As science (and most rational people) have ‘discovered,’ gender and biology are two very different things. If you’re already shaking your head in disapproval, what the fuck are you even doing here? Mumsnet awaits you with open arms and welcoming vaginas. So why then, am I harping on about it if everyone still here agrees on this? Well it’s all about appearance. There are things about my body that no amount of surgeries, hormones or body positive BS will ever be able to sort out. These are things that many trans women struggle with, primarily because we know that they can be weaponised against us by the noisy, un-evolved, women's rights types et al. My hands, feet, forehead, brow and yes, ‘cock’ all conspire to make me aware that I am not a cis woman. At least my legs are better than yours. Yep. they really are. Some cliches are true. Now I could spend thousands of pounds and woman hours on well being, self help and therapy to try to batter my gender dysphoric and body dysmorphic brain into submission. To learn self love and body positivity. (Fuck. Off) But what is the point if the minute I step out in the world, I become the focal point of unwanted cishet attention?

See it’s not about how I view myself, it’s about how Cis World views me. Or more to the point, why they feel the need to ‘view’ me at all. Why they can’t just leave me the fuck alone to get on with my day, like they do to all their cis brethren that they accidentally gain eye contact with on the tube? Why? Because I don’t look how a trans woman is meant to look, according to them. Hence the image I chose to accompany this article. I don’t look like the acceptable standard of transiness that the cis mainstream media and in turn society has decided I should reflect. I don’t look like Paris Lees. I love her, but I don’t look like her. I don’t look like ‘Oh you know, that one from Netflix.’ I probably don’t even look like your Great Aunt (Cis)Celia. You know the mad overweight cat lady with the stubble. Okay, I probably do look like her, but you get my point. My stomach is bigger than my tits. I have a six o’clock shadow by 3:00pm. One that I have yet to find a concealer kryptonite for. I wear little to no make up. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I look like your dad when he does drag for his mates stag night and secondly, I have all the make up skills of a blindfolded ferret with a box of Crayola. Neither of which will lead me to the public anonymity I crave. In short: "CisCelia you're breaking my heart. You're shaking my confidence daily..."

So yes, biology matters. For all the wrong reasons. It matters because it’s made to matter by your unconscious bias.

Clothes Maketh The Trans:

'Surely this isn't a thing,' I hear you cry. Really? Trans women cannot win when it comes to clothes. If we decide to glam up for a night out at a queer club, (which may involve wearing very little as it’s the one place we can flaunt our errant penises judgement free), we are ‘betraying feminism,’ according to those lesbian TERFs that we’re all going to be forcing to have sex with us before the night is out. (*sigh*) “Oh God! Just look at him. Is that what they think being a woman is all about? It’s disgusting,” etc.

‘Sorry love. Where can I get a pair of your Bigot Beeatch dungarees please?’ Ouch. See I’ve had that. It’s not nice. So, armed with the knowledge that I do not look ‘suitably trans,’ I tend to dress quite neutrally in jeans and tee most of the time. This in turn brings out the ‘I thought you were supposed to be a woman now’ crowd. These pernicious gobshites are everywhere. I work with them, I have to deal with them at the doctors, at the GIC (for fucks’ sake), the bus stop, whenever I am tagged in a photo on social media. >>Remove Tag<< My latest bosses first words to me were genuinely, “HR gave me the heads up about you…How come you’re not wearing a dress?”

***Delete string of angry expletives*** It would really help me cis people if you could just tell me WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO WEAR THEN? How can I dress ’feminine’ without ‘letting the side down?’ If the answer to this question is the ‘Daytime TV presenter’ look, then SHOOT ME NOW.

Otherwise just let me bum around in holey jeans and a baggy tee whilst I will my tits to grow on a daily, nay hourly basis and don’t bring attire into the fucking equation. Unless asked. Oh and when I do ask, please be HONEST. It is not nice or right on, to always say “You look lovely,” if I in fact look like Mrs Brown after a night on the sauce and a kip in a hedge. If something doesn’t work, tell me before we go out please? Because when you’ve spent decades in menswear and suddenly you’re shopping at the front of Primark IT’S FUCKING INTIMIDATING. I’ve bought stuff cis women wouldn’t dress their dog in, in the mistaken belief that all womens clothes will look good on me because they’re the clothes I was born to wear. Erm No. Not so much. In fact I look like shit in that ridiculous purple lace top, combined with a lemon tutu. What the fuck was I thinking! Come on people. You’re allies! So please don’t send me out into the trenches in clothes that come with a neon sign that reads “Colour blind, late blooming tranny.”

The Summer of CIS:

Ah, good old 2018. Thanks a million. Thanks to the government's ill advised public consultation on self identification for trans and enby people, 2018 has been open warfare on our right to exist. WRA groups, fundamentalists Christians, the far right, the centre and even parts of the left have all suddenly decided that it is in fact they who should have the final say on my rights. Whilst the law change in question is purely about no longer requiring a gender recognition certificate in order to change our birth certificates, somehow the argument has become around our right to recognition period. About access to women’s only spaces. About fucking toilets. All things that were basically sorted out by amendments to the equality act eight years ago. But as Trump legitimises fascism, racism and transphobia in the US by his position of authority and his twitter account, so too the UK government has had the same effect here with their ham fisted methodology. Much has been written over the last few months about this so I’m not going to labour the point. Suffice to say it has meant that I have been under such intense scrutiny by EVERYONE over the last 12 months that it has had a hugely detrimental effect on my mental health and made me feel as welcome in 21st century Britain as a cloud of Anthrax.

So in such a toxic environment for your trans brethren, did we see tens of thousands of allies join our fight and march on the halls of power demanding action against the bigots? Not so much. What we saw was the organisers of Pride allowing a group of TERF WRAs to march at the FRONT of this years Pride in London march, waving their anti-trans banners because, ‘it would be too dangerous to try and remove them.’ I’m struggling to think of a bigger affirmation of how little we mean to cis world than I witnessed on that sorry, sunny day in the Summer of CIS. In case you forgot or have no knowledge of history, the Pride movement began with the Stonewall riots in New York and was started by... Trans women of colour.

In Closing…

I’m going to repeat the question at the top of this diatribe: Is trans awareness week over yet? Because I for one have had enough 'awareness' to last me a fucking lifetime.

Thanks.

(An angry Trans Woman)