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I am a trans woman. I’m loathe to admit how many decades it’s taken me to come out and simply be myself, but suffice to say it’s been a very long journey.
It’s painful to reflect on how much of my life has been wasted in feeling unable to live openly as me – and I do feel cheated in missing out on so much. If growing up and truly learning to understand who you really are is like putting a jigsaw together I, as a late transitioning trans woman, feel there is a significant part of that jigsaw missing and I will forever feel incomplete as a result.
I wish I could have had the chance to have grown up as the real me; instead of having to bury the real me away all throughout my childhood and for so long into adulthood. I was so lucky to have loving parents who did their best for me; whose unconditional love for their only child ran so deep they would have sacrificed all in the interests of seeing me thrive and, above all, be happy. One thing I do so desperately wish though, is to have had someone call me their ‘daughter’.
Back when I was a child, there wasn’t the amount of awareness and support networks for trans adults, children and their parents as there is now. LGBTQ+ Pride was not embraced by mainstream society as the widely attended celebratory event it is now, but on the contrary was a brave, desperately radical action by a brave few, still very much marginalised and persecuted for their sexualities and/or gender identities.
I knew I wasn’t a boy from around the age of five, even if I didn’t have a vocabulary for it back then. One of my earliest memories is going down a slide at kindergarten, wearing a dress that I had found in the ‘dressing up’ box. A year or two later just before primary school, I recall my profound sadness when sat around with my little friends (who were all girls), on learning that the Girls’ and the Boys’ playgrounds would be separate at the ‘Big School’ I was soon destined for. The prospect of not being able to play with my friends anymore felt so unjust – not to mention frightening. Even at that stage it was painfully apparent that I didn’t fit in with the boys.
At the primary school, I rapidly realised that it was not safe to be open as a trans girl. I was bullied relentlessly with transphobic abuse – even by some of the teachers. One particular male teacher, gave me the nickname Andy Pandy after the eponymous puppet from the vintage children’s TV show, in retrospect because a lot of people felt I didn’t move my body in a masculine way – whatever that is! As an 8-year-old, I had no idea why, of course – or even that I was perceived to be walking in a feminine way – whatever that is! As a child, I had no concept of my own human rights and I soon learnt to hide myself away in my little shell because the messages I was getting from other children and adults was that the real, natural me was not only unacceptable to them, but something downright shameful. As a trans child growing up, you internalise a lot!
By the time I reached secondary school, the realisation that I was a trans girl was growing rapidly, but my self-confidence was still very low. By that age I had learnt that it was not safe to be the real me as it would only make the transphobic bullying worse – yet it still did. My coping strategy became to hide and withdraw from the outside world. I went on to sixth form and university but by early adulthood my experiences growing ups as a trans kid in a hostile world had left my self-confidence and self-esteem decimated. This is what a Queerphobic society did to Queer kids back then and there are bigots around today who are still trying to push us back to those days.
Growing up as a trans youth pre-internet, I would cross dress in my mother’s clothes when my parents were out. I was developing a growing awareness of myself as a young trans woman, yet I didn’t seem to be any other trans females of my own age around; there weren’t any support or meet-up groups around locally and the main source of serious info about being trans came from the odd documentary on TV or the handful of trans autobiographies I could find in the local library. In the mainstream media – newspapers, TV programmes and films – trans women like me were widely mocked and derided. We were either regarded as grotesque freaks to be ridiculed and cruelly scorned by cis het males, as in the ‘Ace Ventura’ comedy movie series, or as dangerous serial killers like the Buffalo Bill character from the thriller novel and movie ‘Silence of the Lambs’.
These horrific stereotypes not only persist to this day but still comprise the basis for the transphobic propaganda that’s promoted by the anti-trans rights lobby – both terfs/’gender criticals’ or those far-right transphobes of the more self-identifying fascist kind. The truth is that cis people – particularly cis het males – are way more likely to harm trans people – particularly trans females – than the other way round, as is evident when the stories of the hundreds of trans people who lose their lives due to transphobic violence every year are recounted at Trans Day of Remembrance on November 20th.
Small wonder then, that it’s taken trans women of my own generation so long to feel safe enough to fully come out. I’ve only been out as a trans woman for a decade, but I consider it the best thing that I ever did.
One thing coming out has made me realise is that you don’t realise how much emotional and psychological baggage you are burdened with until you finally shed it. It’s only when you can exist freely and without fear as your whole self in society that you can experience life authentically and contribute and participate in society to your fullest potential. Coming out as trans after being held down by society for so long feels like being released from prison for something that was not a crime anyway – and while you rejoice at finally being free you also bear regret at feeling cheated of so many years spend imprisoned by misery and fear just for being born the way you are.
As a trans woman, you are not only subject to transphobia but also the misogyny that every other cis woman faces in a patriarchal cis het male dominated society too. It’s no coincidence that the majority of people who perpetuate the current backlash against trans people’s human rights are actually conservative, far-right, misogynistic cis het males. The perpetrators of the majority of hate crimes carried out against trans people – in particular those against trans women – are also angry and often very frustrated, insecure cis het males with retrogressive ideas about gender equality who often find trans women as a threat to their own sexuality.
As a trans woman, you are not only subject to the same pressures that a sexist society places upon all women – of living up to often impossible patriarchally constructed standards of feminine beauty – but you’re also conscious of being judged for falling short of not being feminine enough to meet those societal expectations and consequently being incorrectly misgendered into the male category. ‘Passing privilege’, as we call it in the trans community, is a very hot, contentious topic, and the vulnerability of not being judged by society to ‘pass’ can not only potentially expose us to scorn, but also to the very real threat of brutal violence. Of course, it shouldn’t have to be this way.
As women, we are all subject to the same relentless long-running societal message that we can never be good enough – either in looks or virtue – often as a crafty marketing tactic to sell us products and services that we’re told we will be fundamentally incomplete without. Centuries of existing in patriarchal male dominated societies has placed anyone who isn’t a privileged cis het male into a position of subservience to them. I guess that’s one reason why trans women and girls are treated with such contempt because we turn that notion of male superiority on its head by rejecting the male gender that was assigned to us at birth as an incorrect one.
So, in many respects, trans women and cis women are not that different to each other and we are all sisters who try to live our lives as best we can in a society that has traditionally oppressed us and sadly continues to do so.
This is what makes so much of the current, ongoing backlash against trans rights so insidious and ultimately so tragic. We now find ourselves in the perversely ironic situation whereby a fringe minority of self-proclaimed trans exclusionary radical feminists have aligned themselves with reactionary, often far-right misogynistic males to attack the trans community – and in particular trans women. They try to shift the blame for cis het male violence against women onto another group of women solely because we happen to be trans, even though trans women are disproportionately more likely to becomes victims of male violence than cis women.
This is not only an attempt to push back the scant gains we have made in trans rights over the last few years, but it’s also an attempt to destroy feminism and female solidarity by trying to turn cis women and trans women against each other. The only ‘winners’ here are going to be a handful of privileged wealthy cis het males who get to reclaim their ascendancy over the rest of us and turn the clock back 200 years when they could tell us all to ‘know your place’.
Demonising trans people and scapegoating us for societal ills is the easy ‘go to’ option for any unscrupulous politicians who are trying to distract attention away from their own failings and misdemeanours. In fact, history tells us that scapegoating any marginalised minority group is. On that note, it is as well to consider how alarmingly far right extremism has managed to push itself into the mainstream political scene by using their opposition to trans rights as a Trojan Horse.
Myself, my trans friends and cis allies were absolutely horrified at the recent Supreme Court ruling that plays into the hands of transphobes by, amongst other things, potentially depriving trans females of legal recognition as females under UK law. It has thrown my community into a state of emergency.
Even though we still remain protected from discrimination and harassment for being trans under the Equality Act, reclassifying us as male means our already precarious well-being and personal safety as women and girls will be endangered dramatically. This will have a real effect on real people in the real world.
For instance, it will mean that any transphobic employer or service provider who wants to exclude trans women from using female public toilets in a workplace, school, college, bar or restaurant will have the backing of the full backing of the law behind them should they decide to do so. Our own common sense tells us that if a trans women are compelled to share single sex public spaces like toilets, changing rooms and showers with men it’s going to put us at elevated risk of becoming victims of male violence, including sexual harassment and sexual assault. This is an utterly terrifying prospect and it’s put the already much battered, fragile mental health of our trans community into a further downwards spiral.
I know from my day to day interactions with the majority of cis people – especially women – that they are ultimately not down with this and do not bear any ill will towards trans people. I feel we’re now at a critical point in our society where we really need to choose where we want it to go and who we are going to be. If trans people’s human rights can be so easily discarded then whose rights will be taken away next?
There’s evidence to show that the same reactionary lobby attacking trans rights will move on to pushing back against gay rights and women’s rights next. Indeed, the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of what makes a woman feels all too much like yet another attempt by a patriarchal society to regulate, and thereby control, womanhood. To confine ‘woman’ to a legal definition is an insult. Moreover, how come no legislators are rushing so eagerly to enshrine into law what a man is?
That’s why instead of letting those people divide us we should unite trans and cis alike – especially those of us who are women. As a trans woman, being involved with Women of Newport has been a wonderful experience for me. It’s both a joy and a privilege to belong to such an inspiring community of women who make such a positive difference for our city, for their sisters and for all the genders that make Newport the richly diverse and beautifully unique place that it is.
When Women of Newport were attacked by transphobes for having trans women – including myself – as members they proudly fought back firmly stating that they are a trans inclusive women’s organisation and that we belong here equally as much as our cisgender sisters.
Women come in all shapes and sizes. There is ‘no wrong way’ to be a woman. As women we are all unique. To claim otherwise is to deny us our humanity.
As a trans woman, Women of Newport has not simply made me feel welcome and accepted, but also cherished in a world where sadly that can be all too rare an occurrence. I feel that this is what feminism is about – uniting together not tearing each other apart. True sisterhood means building each other up, not tearing each other down.
