One of the delights of doing trans awareness training is having a multi-cultural class and meeting people who know more about trans life in their own culture than I do. As a result of yesterday’s course I found out about this fabulous video in which a group of hijra do a traffic safety promotion. Thanks Bhavna!

These days we see less outright hostility to trans people in the media, but a great deal more concern trolling. Much of this takes the following form:

Trans people are bad because [long list of things that most trans people do not believe or do]. I would be much more inclined to support trans people if [list of things that most trans people believe and do].

I keep meaning to write things debunking this nonsense, but I have better things to do with my life and to be honest the whole thing gets very tiresome after a while. Fortunately I can rely on other people to do the job for me.

The most recent fuss has been to do with trans kids, because when it comes to concern trolling there’s no better line than, “Won’t someone think of the children?” The articles have centered on the claim that 80% of kids diagnosed as being trans “grow out of it”. I have written about this before, but it is a meme that has an enormous amount of tenacity.

The general thrust of the articles is as follows:

The vast majority of kids diagnosed as being trans grow out it, so huge numbers of cis kids are being misdiagnosed as trans. We must stop all treatment for trans kids so as to avoid any risk of a cis kid being forced into transition.

Of course they don’t put it so bluntly, but that’s what they want to happen, and why they want it to happen.

Part of the problem here is the question of what we mean by the diagnosis. Edition IV of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association had a 5-point test for being trans. One of those is the obvious one of, “Repeatedly stated desire to be, or insistence that he or she is, the other sex.” However, the DSM rules allowed doctors to diagnose a kid as trans if only 4 of the 5 criteria were met. So it was possible to diagnose a kid as trans even if they did not, in fact, identify as trans. See Kelley Winters for more on this issue.

There’s a lot more that I could write, but Julia Serano has done it for me, and as usual has done it far better than I ever could. This essay is rather long, but it puts the whole fuss into context and whacks all of the necessary moles. Doubtless, as in a game of whack-a-mole, they will all pop up again, but at least we now know what to do to them.

While I am on the subject of trans kids, you may have been me tweeting appeals for the crowdfunding campaign for the Gendered Intelligence Trans Youth Camping Trip. They are in the final week of the campaign, and today they finally hit their target. However, they could probably do with a bit more just in case someone has to back out.

Still on the subject of kids, you may remember that I had some young people doing their National Citizenship Scheme training on the radio show last week. Part of the NCS programme is that the kids should do a community project that raises money for people in need. This year two groups (not in Bristol) have chosen to raise money for GIRES, an excellent organization that does great work for trans people. You can find their campaigns here and here.

Photo by Sarah Savage
That’s another Trans Pride successfully concluded. Well, concluded for me, anyway. Lots of people are still enjoying the evening gig, but my feet have given up on me as I spent all day wandering round the event talking to people and getting interviews.

The photo above is from the march. Having outgrown yet another park, this time we were in Brunswick Gardens. For those of you who know Brighton, that’s the park just off the sea front which is surrounded by a huge Georgian terrace, just west of the Metropole. It was a great location, and it meant that we got to march a long way along the sea front in full view of lots of tourists. Everyone seemed either bemused or was very supportive.

I got a lot of great interviews with people, including a group of Buddhist trans people who are from the same order that Michael Dillon joined all those years ago.

As usual there were lots of stalls, mostly promoting support services for trans people. However, we are starting to see more celebratory activities as well. My favorite new stall was E-J Scott’s Museum of Transology, which bills itself as, “A mobile museum that collects and exhibits trans peoples’ stuff.” E-J is encouraging trans people to donate things that have a personal connection to their lives. Of course he’ll end up with the biggest collection of used fake boobs in the world, but hopefully he’ll get other stuff too.

This year the music was interspersed with spoken word performances, which meant we got a full set from the amazing Alice Denny. However, my favorite bit of the stage entertainment was Ren Stedman. He’s a great singer-songwriter in the classic tradition of the angry young person with a guitar. And he’s a lovely bloke too — gave me a great interview.

Also on my interview list is the fabulous Sophie Cook who is the news anchor for Brighton’s community TV network. I consider myself now well and truly out-classed in terms of trans local media stardom. Hello, Made in Bristol TV, we are behind the curve. Get yourselves a trans presenter pronto.

The weather was good. Early on it was bright and sunny, and I was a bit worried it would be another day of heatstroke and sunburn. However, it had misted over by midday and the sun didn’t get out again until late in the afternoon. I got a light touch of sun walking back to my hotel because I was going east and there are bits of my back that I can’t reach with the sunscreen, but it was much better than it might have been had the sun been out all day.

Sarah Savage tells me that numbers are up at least 50% on last year. They should be OK in Brunswick Park for another year, but after that they might have to move again. I bumped into a friend from Bristol who is now living in Essex and she told me that Brighton’s Trans Pride is a bigger event that Essex Pride, which caters for the whole LGBT spectrum.

Mostly the day was very positive, but the reality of trans lives is never too far from the surface of the party. While I was having lunch two women came and sat next to me on the bench. At first I thought they might be mother and daughter, but it soon became clear that they were therapist and trans girl. You try not to overhear, but emotions get loud and it soon became obvious that this was a conversation involving family abuse and self-harm. At least one person had come to Trans Pride looking for help. I hope she found what she needed.