It reminded me that for the past week I’ve seen a torrent of white cis people explaining that something lots of trans people felt to be transphobic was in fact not transphobic at all, because they knew better than us.
Also this morning, I read this very fine article on sexism in academia. It contains the following: “We’re often told that women overreact, taking offence where none is meant.”
Oddly enough, over the past week, lots of cis people have been queuing up to tell trans people that they are overreacting, and taking offence where none is meant.
Does anyone see a pattern here?
Still, what do I know? I’m just part of an aggressive and violent online mob that needs to be put in its place by the media, right?
Elsewhere I am still seeing people concern-trolling about how unfairly the poor TERFS are being treated by the horrid trans people. Why, people keep asking, are trans folk not prepared to debate important issues? Well, here are a few things to think about, based on stuff I have read elsewhere.
First up, the acronym TERF stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. All of those words are important. The suggestion that its use attacks all feminists, or even all radical feminists, is clearly incorrect. Indeed, most trans activists identify as feminists, and many as radicals.
I am well aware of the claim that “TERF” is a term of abuse. However, it is a simple and factual statement of their political position. If there was a better word, I’d be happy to use it. However, the TERFs themselves prefer to be referred to as “feminists” or even just “women”, this being an attempt to infer that their position has far greater support than it has, and to encourage the sort of confusion I referred to above. Claiming that any word we come up with to describe them is a term of abuse is a tactic used to prevent us from addressing their claims.
I have a Gender Recognition Certificate. Under the Gender Recognition Act of 2004 this means that I have the right, in law, to be treated as a woman. My driving license, passport, and even birth certificate say that I am female. The central thesis of this law — that I and people like me are women — was described as the “extreme form” of trans ideology by the New Statesman last week. Hopefully you can understand why I get a little irritated by constant demands that I “debate” the idea that I am not “really” a woman, should be barred from female-only spaces, and should be forced to use male-only toilets if I need to pee when out in public.
By the way, props to Roz Kaveney for pointing out that these attempts to prevent trans women from using public toilets are very similar to the Victorian idea that by not providing public toilets for women they could be forced to stay at home and not participate in public life.
If your position is that an exception can be made for trans women like me, but not for others, then you need to define how this exception will work. Note, however, that the TERF position is that I am, and always will be, a man, and can never be allowed in women-only spaces. Germaine Greer’s position is that anyone with a Y chromosome is a man, no matter how weird their biology. This include people with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome who are female-bodied, assigned female at birth, raised as girls, identify as women, and in a few cases have even given birth.*
If your idea for how to control exceptions is “PENIS!!!”, what will you do about a 17-year-old who has been living as a girl since she was 5, has not and never will go through male puberty, but cannot legally have gender surgery until she turns 18?
Note also that in order to qualify for gender transition patients at Gender Identity Clinics generally have to spend at least 2 years living full time in their preferred gender role. That includes the use of gender-appropriate toilets.
Currently some 13,000 people have undergone transition under the care of British gender clinics (not all of whom will have had surgery). It is reasonable to assume that getting on for half of them identify as trans women. To date not one of them has been charged with sexual assault of a woman in a public bathroom. (It would have been all over the papers if one had.) Why would anyone say that all of them should be punished by being denied access to toilets, just in case one of them might commit an assault?
If your position is that heterosexual men might disguise themselves as trans women in order to sneak into women’s toilets and commit sexual assaults, why is your solution to that to ban actual trans women from toilets? If you were worried that rapists might disguise themselves as postmen in order to attack housewives, would your solution be to ban mail deliveries?
Why is it that trans men are never seen as a sexual threat (even when TERFS demand that they use women’s toilets)? Why are lesbians not a danger in women’s toilets, or gay men in men’s toilets? Why is it only ever trans women who are seen as potential sexual predators?
And finally, over 200 trans women are killed worldwide every year, just because they are trans. Almost always the killers are men. TERFs know this when they demand that trans women be forced to out themselves to strangers and enter a male-only space if they want to have a pee.
I don’t suppose any of that will put a stop to it. People will go on and on complaining, “why can’t you be reasonable, why can’t you just debate this point?” After all, people keep saying that we should debate the reality of evolution, and climate change, and the moon landings. But there comes a point when you have to say enough. The reality of gender identity issues, and the appropriateness of gender transition as a treatment, is recognized by the UN, by most democratic governments, and by the bulk of medical and scientific opinion. As this post on Skeptoid states, it is time for TERFism to be recognized as a form of denialism so that most of us can stop having these endless “debates”. Mostly they are just excuses for terrorizing trans women, and we need to stop enabling them.
By the way, on the subject of medical evidence, I note from Canadian news that Kenneth Zucker, the primary proponent of the sort of trans “cures” that Julie Bindel advocates, and which led to the suicide of Leelah Alcorn, has been put under a six-month independent review by his bosses.
Also the current evidence used by Zucker and his pals to claim that trans women are mentally ill is the condition of “autogynephlia”, a form of sexual fetish in which we are supposed to be in lust with our images of ourselves as women. I saw recently on the GIRES website that someone has done some proper science to test this condition by introducing a control. The research showed that, using the diagnostic criteria recommended by the inventor or autogynephlia, Ray Blanchard, 93% of cis women tested should be classified as suffering from this “mental illness”. Yet autogynephilia is still included in the current US directory of mental illnesses, and many countries still require that trans people be officially diagnosed as mentally ill before they can even change their names.
* There is a science fiction story to be written in which external incubation of babies becomes fashionable because Greer-like feminists have a horror of being “contaminated” by male cells should they male children. Every woman who has born a son has a bunch of Y-chromosome cells floating around in her body.
While I was having a go at the New Statesman over their lack of understanding of biology, people with far more knowledge of the subject than me were also beavering away on articles.
You have probably already seen this article in Nature, if only because John Scalzi blogged about it. Truly, biology is far more weird and wonderful than most of us can imagine.
I’d also recommend this follow-up piece by Vanessa Heggie in the Guardian (science pages, of course, where being nice to trans people is allowed). It points out, quite rightly, that all this is by no means new. One of the mentions goes to Anne Fausto-Sterling whose work was the basis for Melissa Scott’s novel, Shadow Man.
Something that was new to me from that article was the work of Keith L Moore who proposes a nine-axis definition of sexual identity, those components being external genital appearance, internal reproductive organs, structure of the gonads, endocrinologic sex, genetic sex, nuclear sex, chromosomal sex, psychological sex and social sex. I need to check out what some of those mean, but at a first glance it appears that trans women would count as female on only four out of nine, which would inevitably lead to people saying, “Less that half”! See, science proves you are not female!!!”
Then again, I am prepared to forgive Moore a lot for saying this:
Females have been declared ineligible for athletic competition for no other apparent reason than the presence of an extra chromosome…[these tests] cannot be used as indicators of ‘true sex’
Oh how Germaine Greer must hate him.
By the way, as Roz pointed out on Twitter yesterday, science is generally held by RadFems to be an Evil Patriarchal Plot (remember this?) except when it can be twisted to “prove” that trans women are men.
While I’m here, I’d also like to point you at a recent letter to the Guardian attacking Stonewall’s decision to support trans people. I’m often asked why some gay and lesbian people hate trans folk. This brings up some of the issues. In particular there’s this:
Pressure groups are usually single-issue institutions, and this is true of Stonewall and other gay and bisexual charities: the issue being the acceptance of same sex attraction as not being a disease of body nor an illness of the mind. This has been the central platform for the acceptance of all gay rights.
Transsexualism is defined as the disjunction between a mind of one sex and the body of another, a physical or a mental dysmorphia between gender and physical sex, requiring a cure – surgery. This is the opposite of everything that LGB groups, and feminist groups, have been fighting for…
The implication here, of course, is that trans people are sick, whereas same sex attraction is “normal”. And of course the writer claims that this is not a “transphobic” idea, presumably because he thinks it is a “fact”.
The main problem with this is that by no means all trans people either want or need medical intervention. Fighting for trans rights is first and foremost about the right to not have to conform to binary gender roles. That’s an issue that lots of LGB people ought to be able to get behind.
Secondly, what medical options are offered to trans people (by responsible doctors, not by Bindel and her pals) are not intended to stop people being trans, but are quite the opposite. I quite understand the fear that older LGB people have of “cures”, because the sorts of things they remember with horror are still done to trans people. However, there is a huge difference between medical treatment intended to support someone’s sense of self, and medical treatment intended to destroy that identity. I don’t think that support for trans people is the slippery slope that the letter writer fears it might be.
What we should be doing is not trying to claim that one group of people is “normal” while others are “sick”, but to move away from the stigmatization of people who require some medical intervention to get on with their lives happily.
Intersectionality, it is about understanding that other people’s oppression is just as real to them as yours is to you.
A while back I participated in a round table discussion on the subject of violence against women for the local newspaper, The Bristol Cable. The results of that have finally gone online (and I understand that there is something in the print edition too, though obviously not the audio). If you would like to listen to the discussion, just read the extracted quotes, or laugh at photos of me, you can find the article here.
By the way, while all of the other ladies who participated in the discussion are awesome in their own way, I was particularly impressed with Folami Prehaye of Victims of Internet Crime (VOIC). To react to revenge porn in as courageous and positive way as she has done is truly remarkable.
It is LGBT History Month, so I’ll be rather busy. On the off-chance that some of you might be daft enough to want to attend one of my talks, of just catch up, here’s where you can find me.
Saturday 7th (14:30) – “A Potted History of Gender Variance” at the M-Shed (in which I intend to show that the much-vaunted gender binary is something of an aberration in human history).
Saturday 14th & Sunday 15th – I’ll be at the National LGBT History Festival in Manchester. On Sunday at around 11:00 I’ll be giving a paper: “Their-stories: Interrogating gender identities from the past”.
Monday 16th (18:00) – The Bristol University Student’s Union Festival of Liberation is hosting “How do we make the Women’s Movement Intersectional?” I’ll be there if I get back from Manchester in time, and maybe dropping in on BristolCon Fringe (John Hawkes-Reed & Stark Holborn) if I can get away in time.
Thursday 19th (18:00) – I’m hosting a book launch at Foyles, Cabot Circus. This is for The Ship by Antonia Honeywell, which is proving a very interesting read.
Thursday 26th (19:15) – I’m reprising the history of gender variance talk at Bath University.
Friday 27th – I’m giving a lunchtime trans awareness talk at a Bristol hospital. Then in the evening I’ll be at Josie McLellan’s “Glad to be Gay Behind the Wall” – 19:00 start at Roll for the Soul.
Saturday 28th (14;00) – Out Stories Bristol will be hosting “Opening Our New Chapter”, a launch event from some new local LGBT history projects at Hamilton House in the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft.
This afternoon I headed into Bristol for this event, billed at “Government’s Women’s Engagement Event for Lesbian, Bisexual & Trans* Women In the South West”.
It was part of a government initiative to gauge the views of the nation’s women on a variety of subjects. In other words, it was a sort of focus group. This, dear readers, is how the UK government consults with citizens these days.
I guess I should start by noting that Bristol was somewhat honored. You see, we were the only place in the country asked for our opinions on LGBT issues. Obviously the South West must be an exceptionally queer place. As we were the only such meeting, people came from a long way away. I met a couple from South Wales, and one woman who had come all of the way from Leeds.
There were around 30 of us I think, to represent all LB & T women in the UK. (And yes, similar groups must have represented other groups — the disabled, ethnic minorities and so on — elsewhere in the country.) Gee, I hope we were representative.
Well actually we weren’t, because around a third of the attendees were trans. That has to be more you would expect. Part of it, I am sure, is because so many of us are self-employed or unemployed, so have the time to attend such things. Part of it is that we have so much more to be worried about as far as public policy goes. And part of it is that most of the lesbian and bi- women will have jobs and won’t have the time to attend a Friday afternoon event.
There was only one obvious person of color, though I think two attendees identified as such. That’s a massive under-representation.
I can think of so many better ways to sample the views of the nation, starting with SurveyMonkey, but maybe that wasn’t the point.
We had just two hours, one hour of which was spent on speeches by the invited panel, and half an hour was given over to a refreshment break. Only half an hour was allowed for us to give opinions.
Baroness Jolly (LibDem, Health, House of Lords) chaired the session. For her speech she mostly read from something prepared by her staff. There was a lot of spin in it. In particular it glossed over the Spousal Veto, and the fact that the Governments trans equalities program ground to a shuddering halt when Lynne Featherstone was removed from responsibility for it. I may have had a few things to say. Baroness Jolly gracefully accepted that it is a politician’s duty to take the hit when her staff write fluff for her.
There were four other speeches. My colleague, Sarah-Louise Minter, from LGBT Bristol did a kickass job, making an impassioned plea for a proper diversity policy in schools. I was also impressed by Deborah Reed of Exeter College, who told an anecdote about a vacation to the USA and discovering that Coca Cola World really gets diversity, whereas UK institutions (including hers) are still very much white, cis and heteronormative. The other two speakers, including Carol Steel from Transfigurations, a Torbay-based trans support group, were clearly much less experienced at public speaking and lacked confidence as a result.
For out input we were divided into four groups focusing on Health, Safety, Access to Services and Education. I joined the latter. In theory we had five questions we were supposed to answer. In practice we managed two. When it came time for the groups to give feedback, what our moderator said seemed to me to bear little relation to what we had actually discussed. So here, for the record, are the two points that I made.
Firstly, I am sick to death of cis people doing training on behalf of trans people. We have got a little better over the past few years, in that “LGBT” training does now sometimes actually include T. However, the chances of it actually involving a trans person are low, particularly where education is concerned. That has two effects. Firstly it reinforces the view that trans people are unfortunates who are incapable of speaking for themselves; and second it means that what gets taught may well be ill-informed. Deborah Reed said that they had asked trans people to talk at Exeter College but it proved too expensive. Cue sound of a door being firmly shut in my face yet again.
Second, the only way we will solve any of this — sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, etc. — is if we teach kids about gender, and how gender stereotypes screw up society. I may write something about this for next month’s Bristol 24/7 column.
There were a few other good points raised. Briefly:
– Yes, we need more women governors in schools, and in particular more LBT women.
– Yes, teachers are only human, and can’t be expected to be experts on everything (which is one of many reasons why I love the folks at TIGER).
– And yes, sometimes the trans community it is own worst enemy, with the insistence of young activists on adherence to an ever-shifting set of language rules and terminology.
That was my experience of being asked my opinion by the government. If I sound a little cynical, well I guess I am. I have run focus groups before. I remember well one I did for a government organization in California at the end of which the civil servants complained about how the invited members of the public said all of the wrong things, and they had to find some way to make sure that the next focus group gave the answers they wanted.
The net result of this one will, I suspect, be that the Government ticks a box to say that it has consulted the LBT women of Britain, and that a report will be written that reflects what the civil servants in charge of the program want said.
I have been boring you on Twitter for days now about the Queers Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarter, but I’m going to mention it again because I can reveal that I have a part in it.
You may remember that last year for the Women Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarter they asked various people to write personal essays to entertain visitors to the campaign website. I wrote one of those, and as the campaign hit the necessary stretch goals my essay got included in the final book.
Well, for #QDSF Wendy Wagner kindly asked me to contribute another essay. That went online today. Given the title of the book, I felt that it was only fair that I should actually destroy something, so I have trained my queer pink laser canon on a classic text of Feminist Science Fiction, The Female Man by Joanna Russ. If you want to know what I said, go here.
Of course this does mean that I have been kicking TERFs twice in one day. That was a coincidence. Or maybe it is something I do every day, but not as publicly. Anyway, enjoy.
And while you are there, please consider backing the campaign. I’m pretty sure that the stretch goal for including the essays in the final book has been met, but I have this flash fiction story that I’d really love to submit to Queers Destroy Fantasy, should that be open to submissions, and for that book to happen we have quite a way to go.
Here I am channeling my internal Ben Grimm. Or possibly my internal Drax. Whatever, it is time to destroy science fiction again. This time we are doing it with glitter.
Yes, as you may have noticed from Twitter, the Queers Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarter campaign launched yesterday. In under 24 hours it not only fully funded, it blew through its first stretch goal. There are still 31 days to go, but that’s OK because there are more stretch goals to come. These include funding the companion Queers Destroy Horror and Queers Destroy Fantasy titles. Destruction is good, right?
Why do we need this? Well the first personal essay is up on the campaign page. It is by Michael Damian Thomas who quotes from a 1-star Amazon review of his Queers Dig Time Lords anthology:
“Just another attempt to gain civilizations approval of their flawed agenda. What does LGBTQ have to do with Sci-Fi and Doctor Who and what is there to celebrate? Kinda desperate to me….â€
What does LGBTQ have to do with Doctor Who? Oh, that poor, hopelessly sheltered little dudebro. He has no idea. I think we have a duty to educate, don’t you?
In case you need further encouragement, here’s Mark Oshiro:
Much of the conversation in the round table last night revolved around how solving issues such as rape and harassment will require us to tackle deep-seated problems with the way human society works. This has to start young, and it has to involve tacking the media. I’m in the process of writing an article about this for my next Bristol 24/7 column, but in the meantime I saw a tweet from my friends at TIGER Bristol today that pointed me to an organization I had not heard of before, but which seems very promising.
The Representation Project is a Bay Area based charity whose mission statement is as follows:
Using film as a catalyst for cultural transformation, The Representation Project inspires individuals and communities to challenge and overcome limiting gender stereotypes so that everyone, regardless of gender, race, class, age, sexual orientation or circumstance can fulfill their potential.
The Project was started by Jennifer Siebel Newsom after she showed this film at Sundance. Obviously, being a media-oriented California charity it is big on celebrity endorsements and fundraising, but it does appear to be trying to be intersectional. Their website includes some interesting infographics, several of which focus on issues of race. I was particularly struck by the fact that only 6 of the top 500 grossing films of all time feature a woman of color as the lead. And of those the top five are all animated.
The project’s latest campaign is getting people to take a pledge as follows: “I pledge to use my voice to challenge society’s limiting representations of gender.” That was pretty much a no-brainer for me, because it is what I do. The video that they produced to support it (see below) contains a mention of Laverne Cox. Also Ms. Newsom’s husband has as good a reputation on LGBT rights as one can hope to expect from a successful California politician. All of which is encouraging.
In any case, I am firmly of the opinion that if we can get away from the hierarchical notion of gender with which we are currently inflicted then much of the opprobrium directed at people who are seen to flout gender norms will evaporate. More power to you, Ms. Newsom. Go kick some Hollywood ass.
Oh, and while I am on the subject I was delighted to hear a few days ago that Geena Davis has started a new film festival that is specifically aimed at highlighting diversity in the industry. I look forward to finding out about new trans-themed films and talented trans film makers.
This evening I took myself into Bristol to the offices of The Bristol Cable, where I participated in a round table on the subject of violence again women. Assuming all went well, this will be podcast sometime soon. My fellow panelists were as follows:
My thanks also to Yaz, our facilitator, and to Drew and Arvind from the Cable for making it happen.
I’m not sure how much useful I had to contribute beyond assuring listeners that the local police do take hate crimes seriously, and talking a bit about why transphobic hate crimes happen. However, I was happy to reinforce the general feminist message. We did also briefly discuss the Reclaim the Night marches, and I was pleased to note that the Bristol march was free of TERF harassment.
Probably the thing that stuck in my mind most from the discussion was Emma’s figures on who is responsible for sexual abuse. Your chances of being raped by a stranger are only around 5%. In contrast, 29% of rapes are committed by family members, and a further 29% by a current or former partner.
I should also note that Folami is absolutely awesome and is doing a very brave thing in fighting back against revenge porn. Laurie, Stavvers, Bri — if any of you happen to be reading this, check out her website and get in touch because she needs help & support.
I have been lucky enough to be in Toronto when they had an author event on at the Merril Collection. This was Jill Lepore on tour with her new book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Naturally I went along. The event was packed, though aside from a few Merril staff there was no one I recognized. Lepore, it turns out, is an excellent speaker, and I’m sure I am going to enjoy reading her book. I should note that she is an historian, not a comics expert, and her main interest is in the life of William Marston, the man who created Wonder Woman. But he did have a very interesting life, and his work has a prominent place in the history of feminism.
Most of what Lepore had to say was about the early 20th Century. Marston died in 1947. However, Lepore did talk a bit about the late 60s and early 70s when Wonder Woman was adopted as an icon by parts the feminist movement of the time. This was of particular interest to me because I had been looking at what was happening in the comic at the time — specifically the horrendously homophobic #185. That issue makes much more sense when you know that Diana was being used by prominent feminists to promote their cause.
Nothing changes, of course. That issue of Wonder Woman was a key part of the talk on LGBT superheroes that I was giving last year. Another key element was the character of Alysia Yeoh, Barbara Gordon’s trans woman friend. Gail Simone deftly had Babs and Alysia sharing a house together before revealing that Alysia was trans, and then showed clearly that this was not an issue in any way. Gail has since left, and only a few issues later the new (all male) creative team has made a point of establishing that Barbara is horrified by trans people. I am so unsurprised.
Update: I see that Cameron Stewart has posted an apology about that Batgirl issue, which is progress. Also my apologies to Babs Tarr whose name didn’t come up when I looked up the creative team online. Thanks to @ariadnesisland for the tip-off.
You may have seen this poster before, because the campaign ran last year around this time too.
Full details in this report on Bristol 24/7. I’d just like to highlight the following:
Next year Bristol City Council will increase its funding for sexual abuse services from £75,000 to £115,000 from April 2015. Councillor Gus Hoyt, assistant mayor for public health said: “Research has shown that a large number of people wrongly feel that women bear some responsibility. This is a perception that must, must be challenged.
“Blaming the woman removes the responsibility away from where it always should be: the perpetrator.â€
And yes, victim-blaming must stop. That applies to a whole range of different things. #BlackLivesMatter
Our TDOR Remembrance Ceremony took place last night. It was attended by 28 people, most of whom were trans, and at least three of whom were people of color. (I say “at least” because I don’t know how everyone identifies.) Inevitably it was a solemn affair, but we did also have a constructive discussion about progressing trans rights in Bristol afterwards.
Thanks are due to the Rainbow Group, the City Council’s LGBT staff network, who provided the money to hire the venue, and to Sarah and her colleagues from LGBT Bristol who provided the refreshments & flowers and did most of the work.
My apologies to Jamie and the rest of the Bristol University group for missing their event. Lots of people wanted to talk to me after the ceremony, and I needed to stay and listen to them.
The discussion, perhaps inevitably, focused primarily on health issues. There is a huge amount of anger amongst the UK trans community at how badly we are treated by the NHS, and how specialist gender services appear to be getting steadily worse. Sadly there is not a huge amount that the City Council, and bodies funded by it, can do about this. However, there are other things that can be moved forward, and hopefully I’ll have more news in a few weeks.
The raising of the trans flag at City Hall has made it into the Bristol Post (I’m guessing only the website, but if there is a paper version I’d love a copy). The caption for that photo is: “Bristol City Council equalities officer Simon Nelson, Lady Mayoress of Bristol Sarah Watson, Lord Mayor of Bristol Councillor Alastair Watson, Martin Spellacey and Amy Mosley of Bristol City Council Rainbow Group, Bristol City Council employee Jessica Davidson and Cheryl Morgan of TransBristol” and the photo credit is Amy Jones, the Council press officer I have been working with.
I would have liked more trans people in the photo, but many of those who attended are naturally nervous of such things. My job in TransBristol, such as I have one (it being an anarchist collective), is to be the person who fronts up to the media so that other people don’t have to.
What I’m much more pleased about than the photo is that Amy and her colleagues used quite a bit of the material I sent them for the press release. The Lord Mayor then quoted me at the flag raising ceremony, and the Post used the same sentence:
By raising the transgender flag over City Hall on this important day, Bristol is sending a clear signal to the many trans people who live and work in the city that they are valued members of the community, with as much right to life, health and happiness as any other citizen.
Yeah, that.
By the way, a number of City Councillors attended the event. I don’t know them all by sight so I can’t give you names, but I did spot Daniella Radice, the leader of the local Green Party. Simon tells me that there was good support from Labour, and the only Tory to turn up was the Lord Mayor.
Well that went very well. We had a large group of people at City Hall to witness the raising of the Transgender Flag. Many of them were trans. There were also lots of allies, including the Rainbow Group, the Council’s LGBT staff network, who had organized the event; Simon Nelson, who I had on the radio yesterday; Out Stories Bristol, witnessing the historic event; Bristol University LGBT+, who ran such an awesome trans awareness campaign on Twitter this week; Bristol Pride; and LGBT Bristol.
The flag was raised by the Lord Mayor of Bristol, the Rt. Hon. Councillor Alastair Watson (who is a Conservative).
Some of the very many people in attendance are pictured below.
I was interviewed by Edward from Made in Bristol TV. I have no idea when/if that will air, but it was great to have them there. I just wish we’d had someone more photogenic lined up to talk.
Also I have edited a clip from the Lord Mayor’s speech for broadcast on Shout Out tonight. My guess is that it will go in the news section at the front of the show. I’m pleased about that because the Council folks cribbed much of the speech from the press release material I had written for them.
This evening we have two remembrance ceremonies: one in the city, and one later at Bristol University. I am reading The List at the first one, and hope to attend the second. There will also be people from LGBT Bristol and the Council on hand to engage with the trans community and hopefully take forward some of the issues that Simon and I discussed yesterday.
While TDOR is still a very sad and solemn event, one of the benefits is that there is increasing media interest in it. That means slightly more favorable coverage of trans issues than we are used to. In yesterday’s Guardian there was an article giving the results of a mental health survey of British 16-24-year-olds. They found that 48% of those who identified as trans had attempted suicide, as compared to 6% of the general population. So young trans people are 8 times more likely to try to take their own lives than non-trans people of the same age.
Those numbers tally well with a 2012 survey of British trans people. In fact the number is exactly the same: 48%. That may strike you as odd. You would have thought that the percentage would go up as people got older. I’ve seen suggestions elsewhere, though I don’t have a source yet, that trans people are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide during the transition process than before or after. That is, while they are under the “care” of the NHS they become distinctly more likely to try to kill themselves. But there are two good reasons why the number doesn’t go up.
Firstly, a lot of trans people know that something is wrong very early on in life. Being a teenager is hard enough, without being trans. So if you are trans the likelihood is that your first suicide attempt will be when you are very young.
Secondly, these surveys only count attempted suicides. They don’t count the dead. So 48% of young trans people attempt suicide. And 48% of those who survive to be older attempt suicide.
As Paris Lees notes today, actual suicides are a reality for trans people. I want to talk about one she didn’t include.
Jacqueline Cowdrey from Worthing, Sussex, is on this year’s TDOR list. When her body was discovered, the police assumed that she must have been murdered because of the extent of her injuries. However, further investigation, and a coroner’s report, revealed that, yes, she had been very badly beaten, but she had made it home, and had then taken her own life.
No one knows why she did this, but there are two strong possibilities. Firstly she may well have wanted to get away from neighborhood bullies, but also she may have been afraid to get medical help for her injuries, on the assumption that this would only result in more bullying and humiliation. Because that happens, a lot.
The main point of TDOR is to raise awareness of the appalling body count in places like Brazil and Mexico. But if it can also help educate people in the UK and other supposedly civilized countries, and stop them treating trans people as badly as they do at the moment, that would be a very good thing.
It being Trans Awareness Week, I figured this would be a good time to post the interview that I did on the Kizzy Morrell Show last month. It being live radio, it is not perfect. I’m particularly annoyed with myself for having failed to mention trans guys and non-binary people. I should be better than that. On the other hand, Kizzy, while knowing next to nothing about the subject, was wonderfully supportive, which always makes a huge difference.
Last night (UK time) a new ebook appeared on the Twelfth Planet Press website. It is the Galactic Suburbia Scrapbook, which advertises itself as containing, “some of the highlights of 4 years and 100 episodes of Alex, Alisa and Tansy speaking to you from the Galactic Suburbs!” This is entirely true, however, it also contains various guest articles and pieces of feedback received by the show, and one of the guest articles is by me. The title of the article is, “Curse You, Tansy, I Bought Another One”, which probably gives you a good idea of what it is all about.
Naturally the book contains lots of other content, all of which is fabulous, so you can safely ignore the two pages of mine in it. All proceeds from the book go towards keeping Galactic Suburbia on air, which is a very fine cause. You can buy it here.
Also, my latest column for Bristol 24/7 has just gone live. It is about trolls. The boring kind, not the nice Nordic creatures.
