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Equal Power Equal Voice and the Violence of Representation Politics
I recently resigned from the Equal Power Equal Voice programme. Although I’ve decided to leave Twitter and Facebook in order to protect myself from the toxic discourse around trans autonomy, I feel that it’s important that I speak up about what I and my peers have experienced from the Equal Power Equal Voice programme.
Run as a partnership between Stonewall Cymru, Women’s Equality Network (WEN) Wales, Disability Wales, and Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team (EYST) Wales, Equal Power Equal Voice is once again asking for applicants for the next round of the programme. They specifically target young activists who are making a difference in the grassroots to personally reach out to in order to convince them to join the programme – I know this because it happened to me. If you are an abolitionist rather than a reformist, I would strongly recommend not joining this programme, as it sits firmly in the realm of representation politics rather than liberatory politics.
Although I have historically been fairly critical of them, I was happy to see that Stonewall, as part of Equal Power Equal Voice, had planned a project to empower people to be activists and to advocate for themselves. At least, that was the impression I had from the original communications around Equal Power Equal Voice. This programme was sold to me on the premise that it would help “develop my voice” and support me to ensure that there was a more “radical” influence in the Welsh political scene. However, from the first day of the programme, it was clear that the goal was not to champion my voice, but to repackage me into a palatable token to enable me to join rotten institutions.
As part of the initial tasks to prepare for the programme, I was asked to identify a job I wanted to attain in my quest to “make a difference”. In hindsight, I should have realised then that I was not suitable for the programme. As an autistic and disabled person, I will never be able to hold down a traditional job, and if I tried, the benefits that I live on would be taken away. This was not really understood by the staff on the programme, which I found really strange as Disability Wales was a partner organisation. Additionally, even if I could hold down a job, I didn’t want a desk job in an institution – I wanted to be supporting the most marginalised in the grassroots. It seemed unthinkable that I didn’t want to turn my activism into a career. While I do accept paid gig work from charities in order to pay my bills, I am not in this to make a living – I’m in it to support the trans community. Having watched good activists with great politics start working for charities and end up having to compromise all of their values in order to keep their bosses happy, I find the idea of pursuing that avenue myself unsettling.
I wasn’t able to attend the Equal Power Equal Voice launch event on 9th December 2021, but several of my peers did, along with my mentor. One of the speakers at the event, a conservative politician in the Senedd, declared that Priti Patel was an excellent role model for young women of colour. This, on the very day that protests against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill raged in London, was downright sick. There was pushback in the chat, but no challenge from Stonewall, WEN, Disability Wales or EYST. It would come to set the tone for the charities’ attitudes to policitians throughout the scheme – basically, the politicians could say anything they like and receive a polite little clap afterwards and a thank you for coming.
At the beginning of the programme, we were instructed to join two Whatsapp group chats – one with just the Stonewall cohort, and the other with all of the mentees across the four charity cohorts. In the latter, I immediately noticed that there was a Jehovah’s Witness, who was apparently in the cohort of another charity. I knew they were a Jehovah’s Witness because of their display name, professing that Jehovah loved me, or something similar. Having suffered religious trauma that still affects me today, from growing up in a Jehovah’s Witness family, this was incredibly distressing. The fact that a Jehovah’s Witness was allowed to take part in a scheme that catered in part specifically to LGBTQ+ people was a huge oversight and safeguarding risk. For my own safety, I am partially closeted from extended family who may harm me if they knew I was trans. Jehovah’s Witnesses are by nature incredibly insular and hostile to people who escape, and if this Jehovah’s Witness had managed to figure out I was an ex-Witness with the family name that I had displayed in this Whatsapp chat, I could have been outed to my extended family. Upon raising concerns about the Jehovah’s Witness, I had an (appreciated) apology from a member of staff at Equal Power Equal Voice but no follow up from Stonewall or Equal Power Equal Voice to learn more about my concerns surrounding the inclusion of Jehovah’s Witnesses in a scheme partly run by Stonewall. I ended up having to leave the groupchat, and be cut off from the resources, support and opportunities shared in there, while the Jehovah’s Witness was free to stay and dodge questions from other mentees about their stance on LGBTQ autonomy. I am aware that another mentee quit days into the scheme because they were concerned about being outed to their family by a person included on the programme, and as far as I know, no follow-up happened in that case either.
There was zero effective moderation in any of the Equal Power Equal Voice whatsapp groups, which were supposedly safe spaces. This meant that mentees faced, on different occasions: TERF rhetoric, unwanted private messages from serving police officers, anti-vaxx misinformation, religious trauma and ableism. This was completely unacceptable and was a real source of stress for myself and several of the other mentees. There was also a clear double standard: Stonewall and Equal Power Equal Voice staff had no will to moderate instances of bigotry or harassment, but when I called Stonewall “spineless” in one of these private group chats I was roundly told off. It fit into a wider pattern of behaviour I observed in the programme’s staff: mentees were expected to put up with endless micro-aggressions and downright violent rhetoric, but if we did anything to embarrass one of the charities or Equal Power Equal Voice, we had suddenly crossed a line.
In the first few minutes of the first training session, which happened to be with Welsh Government, Equal Power Equal Voice staff told mentees to “leave the politics out” of their questions to politicians and civil servants. I pushed back against this instantly, with the foreboding feeling that I had been misinformed on the programme’s true nature. Upon being challenged that it was ridiculous to bring together young activists on a programme purporting to support them and uplift their voices, and then tell them to keep their mouths shut, the member of staff backpedalled and changed their assertion: we could be political, but only politely.
I found, and find, this absolutely sick.
Welsh Government is not polite when it refuses to tackle police violence and police racism. Welsh Government is not polite when it refuses to implement meaningful rent control to ensure that poor people can access housing. Welsh Government is not polite when it refuses to give the Welsh Gender Service the resources to support trans children and teenagers. Welsh Government is not polite when it ignores marginalised voices asking for police defunding and instead blows money on meaningless hate crime poster campaigns. Welsh Government is not polite when it refuses to decriminalise sex work, leaving sex workers to be abused, thrown in prison, or left to suffer in poverty. Welsh Government is not polite when it allows small LGBTQ community groups to wither and die while channeling tens of thousands of pounds into one-off corporate pride events where they can showcase their inclusivity in a fun, pink-washed parade. Welsh Government is not polite when it refuses to pay activists for the high-quality consultancy that shapes their policies, leaving us to starve and shiver in cold houses.
Nothing about the way the state treats me as an autistic and disabled queer trans man in poverty is polite. And the fact that Equal Power Equal Voice would ask me to be polite while uber-privileged nepotistic parasites preached to me about simply working harder and making friends with the powerful in order to get ahead, is disgusting. I was and am proud of myself for speaking up for myself and others like me in the face of those civil servants, and in the face of Equal Power Equal Voice’s rank cowardice.
More than once, it was implied that in using my voice to speak out about corruption, nepotism, and hypocrisy in Welsh Government, I had put their stance on trans people at risk, with the implication that it was my fault if they now disengaged with Stonewall. That me speaking out and saying that the political sphere was nepotistic, would single-handedly make the Senedd change its plans to ban conversion therapy, for example. This felt real at the time, but with reflection I see it for the gross manipulation that it was. I was told to stay away from the training sessions until my “mental health improved”, as my fury at the corruption of civil servants in the Senedd was put down to me struggling with my mental health. Later, I was told that I could return to training sessions if I promised not to offend any of the speakers – a promise I could not and did not make. And all this from a programme that professed to want to champion my voice.
While I’m sitting down to write this, I wonder what I was thinking, staying as long as I did. There were so many red flags, and I am experienced enough to know better, but I felt pressured to stay and see it through. I expressed the wish to leave a few times, but it was brushed away with half-baked compromises: you can stay on the programme but just stay away from all the training sessions, you can see your mentor and leave the groupchats, etc etc etc. I wish I’d just left, or better, never applied in the first place. The whole experience made me feel isolated – like I was a nasty, unreasonable person, that I didn’t deserve a voice, or respect – that there was something wrong with me. I felt disempowered, and trapped. It all happened so gradually that I suppose I felt as though it would be petty to leave over, for example, some anti-vaxx comments in the group chat.
I did eventually reach my limit, though, and that came when I found out that Equal Power Equal Voice had booked Marsha de Cordova for their flagship event – a trip to the Houses of Parliament. The decision to include Marsha de Cordova, whose transphobia has been widely documented (if you google her name alongside “trans”, several articles come up detailing her transphobic disgrace and subsequent resignation), was nothing short of pathetic. Equal Power Equal Voice had a responsibility to do their due diligence to ensure that speakers are appropriate, and obviously there was not the appropriate due diligence done in this case. To make matters worse, when concerns were raised, management staff of Equal Power Equal Voice lied to a member of the cohort and insisted they were not aware of de Cordova’s transphobic history. In fact, an ex mentee had raised concerns in a previous year when de Cordova had been selected to speak then, to the point where said mentee had then threatened to quit. In this case, one of two things are true: either Equal Power Equal Voice did not bother to make a record of this concern, in which case they demonstrate their cavalier attitude towards transphobia, or they lied about having no record of this concern, in which case they demonstrate their outright disrespect of trans members of the cohort and a disregard for the harm transphobia does.
To make matters worse, when concerns were raised this year, by both mentees and mentors, Equal Power Equal Voice responded poorly. They refused to rescind the invitation to de Cordova, because “she had already said yes”, and then sent out an agenda that implied that de Cordova had indeed been struck off the day’s itinerary. It was only on my request for confirmation that de Cordova had been kicked off the panel that Equal Power Equal Voice admitted that she would still be part of the day. While raising concerns via Whatsapp, a trans mentee was assured by management staff at Equal Power Equal Voice that they could “go with questions” and that the involvement of another trans person on the panel would apparently cancel out de Cordova’s transphobia. This gave the trans mentee the impression that trans issues would be up for debate (which also would have been unacceptable as there should not be a debate on whether we deserve autonomy), and that they would have the opportunity to “ask questions” about de Cordova’s record. However, a code of conduct was sent out not long afterwards which forbade any challenge to any of the MPs or political staff, with a threatening tone that implied that those who broke the rules could be left at the mercy of House of Parliament security. In other words: if this trans person had challenged de Cordova as Equal Power Equal Voice management had encouraged them to do, they could have faced arrest. Additionally, the code of conduct forbade “political messages and symbols”, which seemed completely arbitrary and easy to abuse. Would we have had trans flag or pronoun pins confiscated from us? It was clear from the code of conduct that Equal Power Equal Voice staff would not be willing to protect the mentees from bigotry inside the Houses of Parliament.
I had been planning to attend the Westminster trip, but with the above series of events, I felt physically sick with anxiety about the prospect of going, and stayed home. I had no faith that Equal Power Equal Voice staff would properly safeguard us from potential bigotry In a moment where anti-trans rhetoric is spiraling out of control in those very same Houses of Parliament. I can’t help but feel that Stonewalll’s involvement in this lack of care – the fact that the country’s biggest charity for LGBTQ people refused to stand behind us – is nothing short of appalling.
At every opportunity, Stonewall staff involved in Equal Power Equal Voice demonstrated that if they had to pick between their cosy relationship with politicians or the safety and welfare of the cohort, they would pick the former every single time. That, to me, is not acceptable in the current political climate. The country is in the throes of fascism, and rather than supporting those offering resistance, Stonewall is complicit in silencing and smothering them in favour of retaining a friendship with the fascists voting through Draconian policy. They encouraged mentees to be the same – to swallow microaggressions and ignore bigotry and corruption in order to get ahead. The scheme helped several mentees to get into positions of power on the boards of charities or in positions with Welsh Government, as long as they were willing to keep their mouth shut and be tokenised.
In my opinion, the Equal Power Equal Voice scheme is decidedly not designed to “empower the voices” of activists – it is designed to support marginalised people into positions of power in corrupt, rotten institutions. Representation politics are important to some, and that is fine – but I wish that those invested in representation politics would stop pretending to want abolitionists as part of their vision. We don’t want a seat at the table – we want to use the table as firewood to warm the homes of the most marginalised. Equal Power Equal Voice is, in my opinion, a perfect example of the flaws and violences of representation politics, and I am sorry to have ever been a part of it.
I urge any person who is considering applying to Equal Power Equal Voice, or indeed any programme like it, to ask themselves how they’ll feel, sitting and telling their grandchildren that while the country was drowning in fascism – while GRT ways of life were criminalised and asylum seekers targeted with plans to ship them to concentration camps overseas – they managed to get a seat on the board of a charity because they were willing to smile and nod as their colleagues preached on the political benefits of networking with nazis.
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February: Loss and Love in Community
It feels wrong to talk of loss this month, but it feels equally wrong to ignore it.
This month has been, more than anything, punctuated by loss – of Dr Gary Jenkins, of a nameless young trans boy in Milton Keynes, of Shay, a wonderful activist who worked closely with Gendered Intelligence, and of course Iggy Rose, a beloved member of our local trans community. We had the news of the latter three passings in just one day.
It feels wrong, appropriative even, to hurt this much over people that I wasn’t personally close to, but the truth is I’ve been preoccupied with thoughts of Iggy, Shay, that young lad, and Dr Gary for weeks. In the pockets of joy that I’ve experienced this month, I’ve had a moment of awful clarity where I remember the loss, and their loved ones who are hurting more than words can express, and feel the warmth in my chest snuffed out like a candle smothered by cold fingers. It is, at times like these, that part of me wishes I was a spiritual person – that I had some kind of hope for those we’ve lost, a faith that they are in a better place. But mostly I feel heartbroken, and angry.
I’m angry that this world we are in is so inhospitable and cruel to queer people that we have beautiful, loving, radiant people snatched away from us in the most awful of ways. I hate being a part of it and feeling so helpless. It is so confusing to be surrounded by loss and terror and still be capable of feeling immeasurable love and tenderness. At times like these, I don’t know where to look. Leaning into joy feels wrong, but giving in to despair is equally not an option.
In last month’s reflection I talked about the unhealthy coping cycle that I have found myself in, and hoped that it would be broken after the mental health setback I had at the beginning of the year. When I feel negative emotions, or am overwhelmed by my feelings, I throw myself, frenzied, into a project or job to escape them. I hoped that I would be able to resist falling back into that compulsive circle, but circumstances made it too hard. So unfortunately my cycle continues, but it’s not all bad.
I’ve been able to leave the house alone – something which was unthinkable even a month ago – to be with those I love. A simple visit to Shash and Keira’s marked a positive turning point in my recovery from the mental health setback I experienced. It was made immeasurably easier because of my drive to make sure that the two of them had support and someone to talk to. So if I can find a positive in my continued circle of the drain, it’s that – that I can now be with the people I care about again.
It also helps that in-person meetups and events are back. A couple of weekends ago Trans Aid Cymru held a meet-up in Cathays Community Centre and 40 people showed up – which goes to show, I suppose, how much comfort we all take in community. And it does work, at least for a time. I don’t know what I would have done this month without the momentary lightness of watching a tiny nonbinary person try and walk in an Amazonian trans femme’s 8-inch thigh-high boots, or watching the exuberant joy queer people experience put into action at the Queer Gala. Equally, the relief and hope that came with seeing everyone come together to support Theo, one of Iggy’s partners, through a fundraiser to cover their rent and bills, was a reminder that I certainly needed that as well as experiencing loss together, we also experience hope, care and love as a collective.
When I was a child, I was brought up a Jehovah’s Witness, and one scripture in particular was drummed into us: Draw close to Jehovah, and he will draw close to you. For my own purposes, and out of complete disrespect for their dogshit belief system, I will amend it to: Draw close to community, and it will draw close to you. That, more than anything, is what I’m going to be telling myself over the next few days and weeks.
I am not a spiritual person, and have never been, but if there is one thing I do have faith in, it is in community’s capacity to love.
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“Transgender Resistance” by Laura Miles (2019) – Everything that is Wrong With Mainstream Leftist Movements in 239 Pages
The main issue with Laura Miles’ “Transgender Resistance: Socialism and the Fight for Trans Liberation” is that she has no idea what she is talking about.
I struggled for about 150 pages to figure out what exactly this book was trying to do, as it was incoherent, lacking in argument, and (rather badly) regurgitating other peoples’ work on moments in trans history like the Stonewall Riots. It became clear towards the end that the agenda of this book is to blow smoke up the arse of Karl Marx and big up the Socialist Worker’s Party.
Put it this way: Miles can’t even use the word trans correctly, and somehow has the unmitigated gall to write a book about “trans resistance” with absolutely no research on or engagement with trans resistance in the here and now. In fact, I struggle to imagine that she spoke to any trans activists outside the Socialist Worker’s Party in the last ten years. Even in the ultra-basic ‘Trans 101’ Instagram graphic activism, it is widely understood that the word trans is an adjective, not a noun. And yet, Miles uses “trans” as a noun so many times that I lost count. She even uses it wrong in the title of a chapter: “The history of trans”. This is perhaps THE most basic fact about the way that trans people like to talk about themselves, and Miles doesn’t even know that, and neither, apparently, do any of the editors of the text. And that just really sets the tone with how ill-informed and presumptuous this project is.
She does not seem to have interviewed anyone involved in trans resistance, or researched grassroots resistance movements today. The whole book borrows little snippets from well-known texts and perhaps the odd guardian article, but there is absolutely no original research or attempt to understand where grassroots trans resistance is today. There’s no exploration of the issues that trans people are currently organising around, like access to healthcare and nonbinary struggles for legal recognition. In fact, if you knew nothing about trans activism then read this book, you’d be forgiven for thinking that trans activism simply stopped in 2004 when the Gender Recognition Act was passed. The erasure of radical grassroots activism up and down both the US and the UK is marked. It is bizarre that mutual aid groups, housing co-ops, anarchist zines, and a myriad of other forms of resistance to oppression are completely ignored and erased. I couldn’t say whether this is due to laziness, incompetence, or because Miles doesn’t value this resistance.
Thankfully, most of the book isn’t made up of Miles’ own ideas, but is a summary of the work done in different areas of academia. Medical theories about why people are trans, a very long list of all the films and documentaries about being trans in the last 10 years and how they were received, and a rundown of how “trans rights” are going in the US and UK. If, like me, you were looking for history of trans resistance in order to better understand our present, this book is okay, but just read chapters 4-6 and be prepared to grit your teeth against the complete lack of racial awareness – at one point, amid praising Hirschfield on page 76, Miles mentions “he was also a fan of eugenics and he became President of the Eugenics Society”. As a social scientist, it is clear that Miles is most comfortable covering historical events, as these chapters are almost readable, eugenicism aside. (heavy sarcasm)
It’s when Miles makes her own interjections that things really start getting grim.
One such toe-curling moment is when Miles decides to directly compare the hostility towards trans women in bathrooms with bathroom facilities during the days of segregation. “Grabowski,” she writes of a transphobic campaigner on page 34 and 35, “believes that if people come across trans people using their gender appropriate bathroom they should ‘speak up if they feel uncomfortable and let the business owner know. This can’t be considered transphobic or bigoted.’ No doubt in the bad old segregationist days in the US if someone had seen a black [sic] person using a white restroom they should have ‘spoken up if they felt uncomfortable and let the business owner know’ because, in Grabowski-world, that couldn’t have been considered racist.” There are numerous times during the book where Miles relies on these false equivalences between racism and transphobia.
Many people of colour have spoken up about how uncomfortable it is when white queer people invoke racism in this way. Most of the time, this example included, when this rhetorical device is used, it is in order to imply that while transphobia is very severe, racism is now over, and that things that people say against trans people would not be acceptable against Black people. This is absolute nonsense, and should be strongly discouraged in the trans community and consistently called out by white queer allies. Racism is still pervasive, and Black people are still excluded from white-dominated public spaces by over-policing and private security fuelled by the distrust that many white people have towards Black people. So to use this as a way to try and illustrate how bad transphobia is – by rhetorically insinuating that (white) trans people now “have it as bad” as Black people during segregation – is unacceptable and is downright lazy advocacy. There are not all-encompassing laws forbidding us from public spaces that cisgender people occupy and we have not been enslaved because of our transness. Racism and transphobia are simply not comparable.
However, as I have said, Miles does not know what she is talking about in terms of how different forms of oppression are similar and different, or on the day-to-day practicalities of how trans people communicate with each other and with other oppressed groups. She is incredibly far removed from leftist trans circles, at least in terms of rhetoric, knowledge, and priority. This is made clear in the last couple of chapters in the book, where she finally lays out her own belief system and where she sits in terms of ideology.
In these chapters, Miles condemns “identity politics”, “privilege theory” and “intersectionality” in equal measure, insisting that all of these theories have no interest in WHY and HOW certain groups are oppressed. She clearly has read a few academic papers but has not engaged meaningfully with the people who are using these principles in practise, because I don’t think I’ve ever come across a person who uses these theories in their praxis and doesn’t believe that capitalism is at the root of oppression. Again and again, Miles comes back to Marx, insisting that he alone holds all the answers as if he is some infallible prophet. At one point, she insists that Marx and Engels believed in the concept of gender identity over sex (in the 1840s), saying on page 44: “Marx and Engels talk about the ‘natural’ division of labour between the sexes but they mean here ‘that which seems natural to a given society’ rather than ‘something fixed or essential in nature’. Thus ‘natural’ should not be taken to mean they saw gender as biologically determined.” If, like me, you are confused, you should be. It is completely divorced from reality – like the rest of Miles’ assertions about all theory.
She argues, bizarrely, that identity politics, privilege theory and intersectionality encourage oppressed groups to separate themselves and reject any support from people outside those groups. If she’d looked out the window in the last five years she may have noticed the huge solidarity between Black Lives Matter groups, climate groups, trans groups, and disability justice advocates, fuelled by radical activists who live at the intersections of different marginalisations. I suppose she’s been too busy daydreaming about the Christ-like return of Karl Marx to lead us into battle against the shadowy forces of capitalism.
She writes on page 220: “from a socialist perspective it is one thing to insist on the right to self-organisation of oppressed groups, to develop group cohesion and confidence in safe environments and so on, but quite another to operate as if no-one outside the oppressed group can genuinely work alongside and share the demands of the group because they do not identify as being part of that group.” This is, as anyone who knows even the most basic tenets of contemporary social justice movements knows, a straw man argument. Self-organised groups rarely, if ever, insist on operating completely independently from allies – they just insist that allies not centre themselves in their struggle. Far from organising alone, these movements that consider the above theories to be foundational work very hard to reach across aisles and build bigger foundations of support, and put a lot of effort into giving allies concrete things to do to support them. Miles either doesn’t know this, in which case she is not qualified to write about resistance to capitalism, or she is choosing to ignore it in order to big up organisations like the Socialist Worker’s Party which is infamously systemically misogynistic and painfully white, abled and cishet.
It seems that if Miles had her way, all resistance would take place in trade unions and the workplace, because the pesky oppressed groups keep calling out bigots on Twitter and it’s undermining class cohesion… Or something. She refers to privilege theory in particular as “corrosive” on page 222, bemoaning “witnessing discussion forums that have degenerated into destructive accusations of unacknowledged racism, sexism or homophobia to the extent that potential activists and those offering solidarity are driven into silence and withdrawal.” Isn’t it interesting that she lists racism first, and doesn’t mention transphobia? It seems Miles is fine with people calling out transphobic people, but calling out racists?? That’s bad praxis!!
She also, to make matters worse, insists later on that same page that “Marxists deny that all men benefit from women’s oppression or that all whites benefit from racism.” And then people like this wonder why no-one wants to join Marxist organisations and why a lot of people are critical of “class above all else” approaches to leftism. To deny the impact of white privilege and male privilege is abhorrent, and it was at this point that I concluded that Miles was not simply incompetent, but actively dangerous.
In the final chapter, she calls for trans liberation efforts to be centred around the workplace and trade unions in order for all the workers to join hands and rise up a la French Revolution, because apparently that would solve all the bigotry in the world. She fantasises on page 233 about the days when “racists then have to decide whether they are going to strike and picket alongside BAME and Muslim workmates, sexists have to decide whether to accept the leadership of women strike leaders, people with transphobic views have to decide whether to link arms with trans workers and so on. […] There have been workplace disputes which give glimpses of this kind of inspiring solidarity.” Call me a class traitor but I would rather die than link arms with someone campaigning to roll back my right to access services. I don’t find it inspiring that people are willing to recognise my humanity when it gets them something. I find it despicable.
It’s strange because she tacks on disabled people to her list of oppressed groups several times throughout the text, but in her conclusion seems to forget that disabled people largely don’t benefit from worker’s rights because largely they cannot work. I suppose in Miles’ mind disabled people are just going to sit at home when the revolution comes. It’s very strange that she insists that capitalism is the source of all evil then uses capitalist notions that only those who work are valuable, but hey, it wouldn’t be the first time that her logic is seriously flawed.
I wrote at the top of the article that this book encapsulated the issues with mainstream leftist organisations like the Socialist Worker’s Party and many trade unions. And it really, really does. It preaches materialism the whole way through but declines to mention the ways that the trans community is looking after its own material needs and resisting the state, and is overtly hostile to the idea that some working-class experience greater oppression inside capitalism and victimisation due to race, sexuality or religion. It imagines that once capitalism is defeated, racism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism will also magically disappear. It’s a class-above-all-else approach that is alienating to marginalised people, and then they wonder why no-one comes to their meetings. When I was researching this book and how it was received after I decided to write a critique, I noted that all the people welcoming it were part of the Socialist Worker’s Party, and queer media and the trans community more generally basically ignored it. It makes a lot of sense why – the whole thing reeks of massaging the allyship of white Marxists and socialists who would like to call themselves allies but are not willing to do anything other than wank about the idea of a violent revolution. It disparages other movements (that are a lot stronger than whatever the SWP have going on) and is so uncomfortably uninformed that trans people would barely be able to get through it without tearing their hair out.
All in all, some say that being trans is not in itself a qualification to write or speak on trans issues. I have been reluctant to agree in the past, but this book has me convinced. 0/10, will be throwing out to avoid giving it to a charity shop.
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January: New Year, New Me (Except the New Me is Twice as Mentally Ill as Before)
[Trigger warning for discussions of disassociation]
January is a weird month for us all, but this month has really hammered home just how fragile we all are.
I ended 2021 on a relative high, happy with what I’d achieved in the year, and looking forward to a change in approach for the year ahead. For the first two weeks, I put my head down and got to work, steamrollering through a hefty to-do list and enjoying it thoroughly. I was in the zone, focussed and energised. Despite the challenges and the growing sickness of fascism in our society, I was coping, keeping my eyes on what I could change, and where my energy was best spent. I was making time for relaxation and friends. I, naively, thought that I’d found the balance, finally, between work and rest.
Because of Omicron I didn’t go out until halfway through January. I didn’t want to risk getting the new variant, as the last one was bad enough. I made plans to spend some time with Krista, for a change of scenery if nothing else, and had a great time with her playing Magic into the early hours of the morning.
I needed to pop into Cardiff on the way back to run a few errands. As I was getting off the train I felt a little anxious because masks were less common than they’d been before Christmas, but mostly was looking forward to popping into my usual haunts. A perfectly routine and innocent conversation in one of these places triggered one of the deeper traumas and fears that I carry, and my mind and body responded by plunging me into the worst disassociative episode that I’ve ever experienced.
I didn’t feel much at the time – it’s all quite fuzzy to think about it even now, but I remember a vague idea of confusion, and severe exhaustion like I’d never felt. Even thinking about it, and how vulnerable I was that day, makes me feel sick to my stomach. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t understand what people around me were saying, I could barely walk, and I couldn’t process anything I was seeing outside the muscle memory of the journey home. Thank God that I was in a place that was familiar and not somewhere I didn’t know very well. I was able to send a garbled message to my partner to come and meet me at the train station, and luckily made it home safe with her help. The moment I reached the bedroom I passed out, and it took seven hours for my speech to return and my body to stop trembling.
After the confidence and satisfaction of the weeks before, the whole episode has left me terrified. It happened so quickly, out of nowhere – at least it seemed that way. I’ve been struggling immensely with bouncing back, because if I can go from feeling so good to being so thoroughly gone, will I ever be truly safe again? How will I navigate my independence, how will I do anything outside my home? Or are the days of going out alone over? It’s a horrible thought.
I am lucky to have a very good long-term therapist, and we’ve been working on little steps to build my confidence back. One of these was to go out with Teddy. Privately, I was hanging my hopes on feeling normal, so I could write off the episode as a fluke. But even with Teddy there, upon the slightest, most seemingly benign trigger, I disassociated again, albeit less intensely. It hammered home that this was not a fluke – this was a part of my cacophony of mental illnesses that I now had to adapt to. It is so unlike the other symptoms, however, because it strips my very consciousness from me in those moments. I can’t think. I can’t even think enough to panic. I am not quite sure how to adapt to this.
My friends and family have been wonderful. Teddy, especially, has been as dependable, rational, and grounding as always. She doesn’t seem much phased by it, as she rarely is phased by anything, which has helped. Despite her preference to stay home, she’s offered to take me places so I feel safe. My friends, too, have been patient and understanding, asking if there’s anything I need.
That’s the thing that is frustrating me, though: my needs are met. I have a stable, happy home, and a chosen family. I have food to eat and plenty to keep me occupied. I don’t need anything, really. But that’s the nature of trauma. Once you are free of that which inflicted it, it rises to the front and wreaks its havoc. What a monster it is.
There’s a cycle that I’ve been in for a very long time, and I think perhaps this episode finally broke it. I would get into a rhythm of working very hard, feeling confident and capable in my abilities, and then I would have some kind of mental health setback that shocked me into wanting to re-evaluate my commitments and responsibilities. And then I would slowly get back into working, taking relief in the distraction that it brought from my troubles, amping up too quickly… And round and round we go.
This time, I have not allowed myself to slide straight back to work. Well, more accurately, my family and friends have made sure that I do not. It feels bloody horrible, especially with the rabid hatred being hurled at the trans community from Welsh transphobic activists in the last couple of weeks. I hate not being busy, and I hate sitting by helplessly as things spiral out of control. A few times, I’ve desperately tried to clutch anything that could bring me something “productive” to do, and then had to let it go. It must be very confusing for those around me, and those I work with.
I have no idea where I am meant to go from here, or how to learn to live with a lack of independence and limited distractions from the troubles thundering around my body. One of my goals at the end of 2021 was to truly become okay with being a disabled person this year – I just didn’t expect to be forced to do so quite so violently.
We are, all of us, more fragile than we realise. And I suppose, if any of us learn anything from that fact, it should be to revel in joy when you feel it, and to hold it tightly so that when it pulls away from you, it does not entirely slip from your fingers.
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2021 Reflections: Joy Amongst the Chaos
2021 was a fucking bizarre year. When I first thought about writing this blog, I thought that 2021 was fairly quiet – I contemplated dubbing it the year of “waiting for the storm to pass”. It’s been a blur. But when I sat down to scroll back through my Facebook and Instagram to remind myself of the stuff I’d been involved in, I realised that actually, 2021 was completely batshit.
From January through to July, I helped run Trans Aid Cymru’s first externally funded project – a series of zoom workshops designed to upskill and entertain trans, intersex and nonbinary people through yet another lockdown. Dealing with funders was completely new to me and although the people I dealt with were absolute angels, the pressure to deliver the numbers sucked the joy out of some aspects of the project. Looking back, I don’t think I would rush into doing that kind of externally funded project again. It cemented to me that the mutual aid model was where I was interested in working, rather than in the charity sector.
Despite that, though, the workshops definitely delivered a highlight of the year for me – I hosted a reading group for trans, intersex and nonbinary people where we discussed Overflow, a play released in the beginning of 2021 by Travis Alabanza. Travis was one of the first trans artists I followed when I was tentatively exploring gender, and I’ve been a huge admirer of their work since. It was very special to host a group to discuss their words, and I was gobsmacked when they asked to come along to do a little Q&A about the play. I mentioned to Travis that I’d written an essay where I used Burgerz, their previous project, and they asked me to send it over. I got a very sweet email from them saying that they enjoyed the essay soon afterwards. Thinking about that afternoon makes my heart so warm. It was amazing to have space to talk about writing and art with other trans, intersex and nonbinary people where the conversation didn’t start or stop at gender. Definitely, definitely one of the highlights of the year. I’m hoping to get the opportunity to do more reading groups in 2022, because it was such a joy.
The social media flier for the reading group with Travis Alabanza In February, I saw a doctor about my memory issues and gradual loss of cognition, and she told me that I was most likely suffering with a kind of “pseudo dementia” caused by extreme stress. This was a really defining moment of the year and meant that I really re-evaluated how much work I was doing and how much I was holding myself responsible for. It marked the start of a change in approach – for a long time, I’d been saying yes to everything that crossed my path, because I’d needed the distraction from processing difficult emotions, but after the warning that something had to give, I started practising saying no. I hated it. I still hate it. But in the last ten months I’ve gotten much more comfortable with it. I’m gonna be building on that more in 2022, because I’m still doing more than I should really be.
Around this time I got involved in challenging the civil service over their handling of a hate crime awareness campaign that championed reporting hate crimes to the police, with no consideration of the institutional violence in the police force. The way that civil servants engaged folks over this issue and others during this year was incredibly frustrating. They started to routinely demand our presence at meetings with as little notice as 48 hours without paying us, and then cherry-pick which parts to include in summary documents so as to erase the demands to tackle the police, and any others they considered too radical or uncomfortable. It was the beginning of the end of my engagement with them – after I insisted that they include the words “institutional racism” in a set of minutes and quietly enquired why Welsh Government weren’t paying consultants from marginalised groups, I mysteriously stopped getting asked to attend meetings. Honestly, it’s no great loss – the civil service’s fervent worship of neo-liberalism doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
February truly was a month where my faith in cisgender allies in power hit a low; Youth Cymru invited Helen Mary Jones, a vicious transphobe in Plaid Cymru, to their hustings event and consequently kicked my friend Shash out of the event for displaying a trans flag. What came next was a toxic mess of racism and transphobia, with Youth Cymru publicly denying any wrong-doing, scape-goating their young service users, and then refusing to do a proper investigation. It also renewed the fight to pressure Plaid Cymru to ditch Helen Mary Jones, but they insisted on keeping her as their Senedd candidate for the election. She posted a bizarre apology and promptly deleted her Twitter account, and nothing more was said about it. This series of events further reinforced my sense that I was right not to pursue a career in politics or in the charity sector. The lack of accountability and the naked disdain for marginalised people wasn’t surprising, but disappointing.
I finished my MA in English Literature in March. I was supremely relieved to hand in my dissertation. Although I love learning, and I love having space to talk about literature with other lit nerds, the institutional ableism and transphobia at Cardiff University made the course much more difficult than it should have been. Nonetheless, he persisted, and got a distinction overall. Maybe one day I will return to academia (I would still love to be Dr Harries), but not for the foreseeable.
My dissertation front page, titled “The Impossibility of the Innocent Poor: Charles Dickens, Homeless Children and Poverty” That same month I spoke at the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists’ national conference about how the trans community generally tends to distrust gender clinics due to systemic transphobia, racism, fatphobia and ableism. Since I started speaking at conferences in 2019, I’ve learned to manage my expectations when working at these events. I’m not so arrogant these days to think that I can change deeply held beliefs with a ten minute presentation if it has exactly the right words. And accordingly, while everyone was seemingly open to listening to what I have to say, trans and nonbinary people are still getting gatekept for nebulous reasons, and surgeons are still turning away fat people. Nevertheless, the room needed to hear that as a group they are not thought particularly well of by the community, and I’m glad that I did it.
In April I found out that I was scheduled for top surgery in June, and reached another quintessential trans milestone: crowdfunding in order to access healthcare. The costs of the trip to London were ridiculous, and there was no way I could’ve afforded it without community support. I was really blown away by how quickly I was able to reach my goal and it was a real boost after a stressful few months.
May brought the Senedd elections, and I wrote an article about the failures of electoral politics for the Raise Your Voice project, which aimed to engage young people in politics. It proved to be a bit controversial to say that I was considering not voting, but I stand by the article – the election was a horrible period to be politically engaged, young and part of a marginalised group. We’re expected to accept that our needs are simply too much to ask for, and that we are acceptable collateral damage for liberals as long as their team wins. This was further worsened by Yes Cymru and their support base; transphobia on the left ran wild, thanks as well to Plaid Cymru. In the end, I didn’t vote because I believed that any of the available parties would improve my life – I voted to prevent the tories gaining power, which was held up as a very real threat throughout the election campaign. It turned out to be a lie, as the Welsh tories got nowhere. It felt very much like blackmail. “Vote for us or else” was the overwhelming vibe I got from the whole thing. I have to admit, though, I was delighted to see Plaid Cymru flop so dramatically given their miserable failure to tackle racism and transphobia in their party and base. We had warned them since the last election that if they didn’t take a strong stand against institutional bigotry, they’d pay the price on election day – and they did.
In the weeks before top surgery, I realised that it was unlikely that I’d be able to see my grandparents again after surgery. Due to their extreme religious beliefs and conservatism, I never came out to them, and I knew that my lack of breasts would be impossible to hide behind make-up and feminine clothes. We’ve grown apart in recent years, which was my choice, but they helped to raise me, and realising that I had very little time to say goodbye brought a wave of grief. I went to see them at the end of May – they were very happy to have me there, not realising why I’d distanced myself, or that this would be the last time they saw me. It was hard, one of the hardest days I had this year. I don’t think many people outside the LGBTQ community know what it’s like to sit with your family knowing you’ll never see them again while they potter around acting like you have all the time in the world. I’m glad that I did that visit, but thinking about it still hurts.
The run-up to surgery was a very strange couple of weeks. At my medical check up a week before, I was told that I was too fat to have surgery, and that I needed to lose at least 3kg before I checked in or surgery could be cancelled. It meant that I was incredibly stressed and angry. I quickly realised that it wasn’t possible to safely lose that kind of weight that fast, so I spent the week preparing myself to be turned away. On the day of, in the taxi to the hospital, I was thinking about what I’d say, of the scene I would make, but to my shock, my weight wasn’t checked or even mentioned as I was prepared for surgery.
My tweet the day I got back from the health check-up that told me I was too fat for surgery. I remember walking down to the operating theatre in a daze; I genuinely couldn’t believe it was about to happen after so long waiting and that I had had nothing to worry about. I don’t know if I felt happy, but I certainly felt pleasantly surprised. When I woke up, I still felt quite surprised that it had actually happened. The relief came on slowly, and though the early days of recovery sucked (I am infamously terrible at sitting still and relaxing), it was an amazing experience to watch my new chest heal and develop. I’m still endlessly grateful to my partner Teddy and my friends at Trans Aid Cymru who made sure that I had everything I needed.
The time off was transformative not just physically but mentally; I’d not had extended time away from Trans Aid Cymru since its inception, and seeing it thrive and tick over without me was a huge relief and took so much pressure off my shoulders. I can’t stress enough what an incredible team of people we’re blessed with. I returned slowly, with the knowledge that if I needed space, I could take it and not have it impact the work. Walking around outside after top surgery was the first time I really felt how much dysphoria had been weighing on me. I never considered myself as having chest dysphoria much; I rarely wore a binder and mostly wanted top surgery because of back pain and to make it easier to find clothes that fit. But it was life-changing emotionally, too. My baseline anxiety is lower, I feel more confident and outgoing, and it reignited my sexuality. Affirming surgery’s not just for those with intense conscious dysphoria – it’s for anyone who thinks their life might be better, or easier, or happier, after surgery. I’ve connected with other trans guys similar to me since, who are wondering whether to have surgery. The way I’ve learned to frame it is, how likely are you to be happier, and how likely are you to genuinely miss your breasts? If the former outweighs the latter, then you’ll probably benefit. Top surgery isn’t a finite resource – gatekeeping makes it feel like it is, but it’s not. You having top surgery won’t take it away from someone else. You deserve the happiness it’d give you as much as anyone else.
A rare picture of me smiling in my post-op binder During the latter part of recovery in July, I was published by voice.wales for the first time with an article on the ridiculousness of the media circus around trans people while most of us are struggling to pay rent. It was my first pitched article, and I’m really happy with it. It was nice to flex my writing muscles outside academia, and I’m really keen to do more in 2022.
The summer brought the Senedd’s consultation on the LGBTQ+ Action Plan. It’s a document outlining the plans to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people in Wales. I, along with other radicals in the community, had been part of the group who informed the construction of the plan alongside the “usual” folks that Welsh Government go to about LGBTQ+ issues. When the plan came out, I was incredibly frustrated. All of the things that would make a real difference to the every day lives of working-class and poor queer people and people of colour had been watered down or left out. I was particularly annoyed that Welsh Government had prioritised devolving the Gender Recognition Act, which would involve devolving births and deaths and marriages, but showed no inclination to devolve asylum seeking. At the end of the day, while having a devolved self-ID GRA process would help trans people who wanted to get a mortgage or get married, the current GRA process is not literally killing people. Devolving asylum seeking and creating an asylum process that focussed on protecting people at risk of harm would save the lives of queer and trans people of colour who are uniquely vulnerable. In my view, Welsh Government should not have prioritised the GRA when so many people in the working groups I sat on said that, while it would be nice, should not be a priority over protecting the most vulnerable folks in the community. We also asked for LGBTQ+ people to be guaranteed a certain percentage of places on the upcoming Universal Basic Income trial and for the police’s institutional racism and queerphobia to be seriously investigated and tackled, but that too was ignored.
Overall, it showed a neoliberal focus on the concept of “rights”, like legislative rights can solve the poverty and minority stress that queer people disproportionately face in Wales. It was another indication that I didn’t need that electoral politics is simply not going to save us. I also feel that having a consultation on the plan was offensive in itself. As we saw during the GRA consultation in 2018, giving the general public the opportunity to comment on the rights of marginalised groups will only lead one way: an uptick in bigotry in the press, hostility on social media, and hate crime. Tax laws against the rich are never up for consultation; why are reforms for LGBTQ+ rights always considered fair game for debate? It is itself a systemic mechanism that ensures that any gains, no matter how small, come with a concerted effort to scare the community into gratitude for the watery crumbs we’ll inevitably get in the end.
This consultation proved to be about as toxic in Wales as the GRA consultation was across the UK; it led to a boom in transphobic organising in Wales, culminating in a protest outside the Senedd. Luckily, transphobes are terrible at organising offline, and the protest was a tragic affair attended by less than 70 people. But it could have been so much worse, and I do not, from the bottom of my heart, understand why exactly the decision was made to do a consultation. Welsh Government had already heard from a multitude of queer people. Why did they need the opinions of cisgender allo-heterosexual people? As I said, you simply wouldn’t see this kind of large scale consultation for reforms on tax laws or police. All these consultations are designed to do is protect the ruling class and terrorise marginalised groups.
I filled out the consultation, but made the decision that it would be the last consultation on LGBTQ+ rights that I would ever fill out. I no longer want to be part of the charade. I am done with talking to a brick wall and trying to shout over bigots. It’s just not worth the energy, not when the best these consultations can offer is vague promises to reform neo-liberal laws that won’t have a particularly significant effect on the wellbeing of the community. Towards the middle of the summer, I disengaged from politics and turned my attention to enjoying the break from lockdowns and the fact that my dysphoria was gone for the first time since puberty.
A photo taken at the end of one of TAC’s meetups in the summer Reconnecting with my friends and the wider community through Trans Aid Cymru’s meetups in Cathays was a balm during the toxic days of the consultation. It was nice to get away from social media and hang out in person where no transphobic dickhead could barge in and ruin our fun. Seeing others make new friends and be eager to hang out outside the meetups was another highlight of the year. In August, the Welsh Ballroom Community held their first large-scale Kiki Ball at the Wales Millenium Centre, and I eagerly attended with my friends. That was another magical space of joy and gender fuckery. It was exhausting, but I absolutely loved it. I haven’t missed a Cardiff ball yet, and I hope to continue that streak in 2022! I made some new friends in the ballroom community too, and seeing the way that they love and care for each other has made my heart full. There is no love like the love that queer people have for their chosen families.
Teddy and I also welcomed a new addition to our family in August – our first cat, Badger. We visited the shelter he was at to look at another cat, but that one was clearly an outdoor cat. The volunteer pointed Badger (then called Noddy) out to us. He was hiding under the little stairs of his pen, curled up tight. He had severe anxiety and was really scared. The volunteer let him out of the pen to meet us and he darted to the furthest corner trying to put as much distance between us as possible, visibly shaking. She picked him up and he relaxed, letting us pet him. We fell in love instantly. I was a little nervous when we brought him home a week later that it would take a long time for him to warm up to us. Sure enough, when we let him out of the carrier he went and hid under the bed. The two of us went about our usual business, and I’d almost forgotten he was there when I sat down to sort out some clothes three hours later and Badger came bounding out for cuddles. He was so insistent that he wanted to be petted that he kept head-butting me! Ever since he’s been our constant companion, sitting on us or near us at every opportunity. Neither Teddy or I have ever wanted children, so this is as big as our family is likely to get. Sometimes I look at Badger and Teddy snuggling and think about how shocked I would have been if you’d told me ten years ago that I would be sitting in my own home on a Sunday afternoon watching my partner and cat together, feeling utterly at peace in my body and my relationships. I didn’t think I’d ever get this stability, and I certainly didn’t think that I’d ever experience this kind of tenderness. Despite the raging political meltdown going on around us, our home is quiet and happy, and I’m endlessly grateful for that.
A picture of Badger lying on top of Teddy while she snoozes At the beginning of September, an article I wrote about trans homelessness during my top surgery recovery was published by Trans Actual. It was my first personal essay and I still really like it. It was pushed back because I got targeted by transphobic activists and I didn’t want it to get swarmed by hate. That episode led to me taking steps to limit my use of Twitter, so I started reading before bed instead of checking social media. I started with Da’Shaun Harrison’s ‘Belly of the Beast’, which was an incredible book to start with. I really enjoyed reading it and highlighting my favourite parts on Twitter and Instagram. It was really nice to engage with books again, and it felt good to learn and reflect on things. Fat politics are still fairly invisible, and I hope that more folks start to read about them in 2022 – the diet talk already cropping up is deeply depressing and indicates just how far we have to go even in circles invested in social justice.
September also brought my second health scare of the year – I was admitted to hospital with severe breathing difficulties and chest pains. It turned out to be a bad asthma attack because I’d forgotten to take my pumps for several weeks. It pushed me to take steps to be more present and ensure that I was looking after myself. That led to me completely quitting Twitter at the beginning of October. I’d been trying to limit my use for over a year, but I still found myself using it every day. So I made the decision to quit properly. I went several weeks at a time without tweeting. I still check it once a day and occasionally will retweet something or tweet for work, but I am mostly off it now, which has been a huge help for my wellbeing. I’ve been using Instagram instead, and unfollowed all the celebrities and influencers aside from a couple of trans people of colour. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve done for my mental health this year. I don’t miss endlessly scrolling through Twitter at all. I also don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything – I still get the important stuff through Instagram but I’m not constantly aware of every move transphobes make.
I started this blog in October so I won’t hash out old ground, but that month I was featured on voice.wales again – this time in a piece they asked me to write about transphobic and ableist state oppression and the similarities and overlaps between the two. I was also featured as part of LGBTQymru’s #WhenYouAreReady campaign about coming out, which was very sweet. I’ve meant to submit writing to LGBTQymru since its inception, and maybe 2022 will be the year I do it!
October also brought an opportunity to meet up with some other trans folks to learn about rope and practise tying. It was my first time in a kink space since I experienced sexual violence at the hands of someone I met in a kink space. It helped that some friends were organising, and it was really nice to be in that kind of space where trans bodies were celebrated and there was no weird pressure. Again, it was definitely a highlight of the year. COVID permitting, it would be nice to explore that stuff again.
Me trussed up in rope for the first time in many years Halloween weekend was the best one I’ve had since I was an undergrad – Saturday we went to the Queer Emporium for a cabaret and Sunday to a house party. These moments felt even more special after the isolation of covid. I’d missed house parties so much – I much prefer them to clubs. There’s something nice about sitting on someone’s sofa, drunk as a skunk, talking everything and nothing. I went to a couple of house parties this autumn, and thoroughly enjoyed both of them. I hope we get another summer-slash-autumn of low-key house parties this coming year.
I spent a fair bit of time at the Queer Emporium over the past few months – it’s a space I feel comfortable in and I’ve become friendly with the staff, and it’s lovely to see LGBTQ+ folks who are younger than me mooch around and have that feeling that they belong. Growing up here was fairly bleak, and I often felt like no-one around me could relate to what I was feeling. I am so glad that Cardiff has the Queer Emporium, and I’m so glad that it’s become a permanent fixture. It definitely gave a lot of us something to hold onto in an otherwise fairly stressful year to be queer. It also showed that there is a real appetite for queer spaces and events in Cardiff that are unabashedly geared towards trans and nonbinary people.
In a similar way, Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue showed the same appetite in literature. The last time I checked, it had sold 25,000 copies. That is huge, especially considering the proudly socialist roots of the argument in it. I finished it this week. It didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know, having worked in the community for over a year now, but it did condense fairly complex things in digestible but nuanced summaries, and I know I’ll be quoting it for years to come. I know it’ll have been invaluable for cis folks to read to really get to grips with the issues. I was also featured in the first chapter, which was a huge honour. It was surreal to read my name and know that so many people would be reading about my experiences with homelessness. I’ll definitely be pulling the book out to show my grand-nieces, niblings and nephews when I’m old.
A picture of the page where my name is mentioned in ‘The Transgender Issue’ Since I gave my speech to Shon, I’ve largely moved on from talking much about my story specifically. I got tired of repeating myself, if I’m honest. Instead this year I designed a short training session for housing organisations to give them practical steps to take to make their practise more genuinely inclusive of trans, intersex and nonbinary people instead of just seeming inclusive through language and pronouns in emails. I partnered with Tai Pawb to deliver this session to several organisations, and I have a couple more planned this year, and I’m enjoying it. In the experience I’ve had so far, it seems that the will to make things better is often there, but it’s the practical direction folks need. It’s also nice to do some work that I’m getting paid for!
I’ve gotten into a few new hobbies in 2021 as well, all of them alongside my close friend Krista. We dabbled with streaming Fortnite, which was a lot of fun. I’m hoping to do more of that silly stuff, because it’s nice to not be Rudy-the-guy-from-TAC sometimes. Krista and I started going to the cinema regularly with our fancy Cineworld memberships, which has been great because I really do love sitting down to watch things. I also got very into Magic: The Gathering, and Teddy has gotten into it with us. Our Christmas consisted of very good food and opening a LOT of booster packs. Thanks to top surgery, I also felt comfortable experimenting with makeup again, and have loved wearing it and using bright eyeshadows and all that stuff. It’s freeing to not be so anxious about my gender expression. I’m glad I made a decent chunk of time for hobbies this year and broadened my horizons.
A photo of my first MTG commander with a bunch of my vampy gay dice The last two months have been a rollercoaster, and again I covered most of it in my previous blogs, but I’m doing a lot better than I was at the beginning of November. I’m using a walking stick regularly, which has helped my pain levels, and I’m getting used to relying on it. Perhaps my biggest highlight of the year was the trip to London on my birthday weekend – it was a really great few days. All in all, scrolling through my social media, I had an overwhelmingly positive year despite some physical and mental health setbacks. I experienced a lot of joy.
If I experience as much joy in 2022, I will be happy with that. Some goals I’m setting for myself this year are:
- Read more. I’ve really enjoyed the reading I’ve done this year and can’t wait to learn more and support more writers in 2022.
- Write more. I really want to get at least one short story submitted somewhere this year. It’s been so long since I’ve given myself the space to write fiction, and I’m hoping this is the year.
- Put some time and energy into passing the mic and empowering other trans people to get involved with organising. That’s going to be my focus with Trans Aid Cymru this year.
- Most importantly, I want to really be okay with not working in 2022. In the last month I’ve been working on an application for a 20 hour/week job, and I knew deep down that it would be too much. So I gave myself permission last night not to apply. I really want to truly come to terms with my status as a disabled person unable to work this year.
I don’t dare to hope for much to improve politically, but I know that resistance and joy will be found, come what may.
Me, Teddy and Badger -
November Reflections: Navigating Pain and Bitterness in a World Invested in Respectability
In last month’s blog I briefly mentioned an encounter with a transphobic doctor. I made a point not to talk about it much on social media, and not to divulge the details in that post either. But November has mostly been spent trying to process it and give myself space to heal.
I took it hard at the time, and I was frustrated by how much it got to me. The confusion and pain I was working out worsened in the first week of November when I had a deeply triggering transphobic exchange in a work environment. If you know me you’ll know that there are few cisgender people that I genuinely trust, and unfortunately following the fallout of that exchange, that list shrank. It was a heavy blow to learn that some people who I trusted so implicitly were not willing to stand up for me or to protect me when it came down to the crunch. This deeply disturbed me and shook the fragile faith I hold in other allies, and I still have no idea quite how to regain that trust. I can’t really put into words how it feels to be secure in the knowledge that the people around you have your back, only to be let down so spectacularly and then treated nothing short of callously afterwards.
I was lucky that in the second week of November was my birthday, and with it a mini holiday to London. It was a brilliant four days with my platonic life partner Krista – I desperately needed time away from home and from the heartbreak I’d just experienced from those allies. We spent a fair amount of time in She SoHo, a lesbian bar. I was nervous about going into a bar explicitly for women, but the atmosphere couldn’t have been more welcoming. I’ve been in a lot of gay bars dominated by men and there’s usually that feeling of judgement. Not in this place. By the last night we were there the bartenders were chatting to us like regulars, and the locals were incredibly friendly – something which London isn’t exactly known for being. Last month I talked about queer spaces and how special they are, and this one was no exception. Krista said (drunkenly, but honestly) that she didn’t want to leave, and part of me didn’t want to leave either. But we had to come back eventually, and I knew that I needed to face the emotions that I was able to push aside while I was away.
Me and Krista in She Bar SoHo Although it was a lot of fun, London was exhausting. I spent the weekend after we got back horizontal. My body needed the rest, but my brain really did not want the time to think. I waited for an apology from the allies who’d let me down, which never came. I resigned from working with them a few days ago.
It’s hard, as it is, not to be bitter about the way you’re treated when you’re trans in this country as it slides deeper and deeper into fascism. When you add in the emotional fallout of being let down by people you trust and then the performative horror show that is Trans Awareness Week… Let’s just say I’m thankful that I wasn’t active on Twitter this month, because that would not have been pretty.
By the time TDOR came, I was ready to boil over. I didn’t plan to speak; I knew that with my state of mind the way it was that it would have a huge emotional toll to attend the traditional vigil at the Senedd. This year, as every year, Pride Cymru hijacked it with their pretty branding while leaving unpaid trans volunteers to do the legwork of organising. I wanted nothing to do with it, especially after the downright disrespectful way that they had dealt with a group of queer people (including myself) who raised concerns about cops in pride last summer. I wonder if they even stop to think that it is inappropriate for them to put their logo on an instagram post about a remembrance ceremony for those we’ve lost, who are mostly migrant Black trans women and trans women of colour, when it is those very groups who are most negatively affected by Pride Cymru’s insistence on licking cop arse. Their logic, of course, is that they deserve to claim the event as their own because they bring a big trans flag and a microphone and make a post about it to their 7,000 instagram followers to publicise it. The joke, of course, is that Pride Cymru’s involvement puts most local trans people off attending, meaning that the crowd is always more cisgender than it is transgender.
So I was going to give it a miss, just to keep the peace, and to preserve my sanity.
However, a few days before, someone mentioned that most of the people who’d volunteered to speak were allies, and I got so angry that I signed up then and there. I’ve been to enough of the vigils to know how those speeches would go. Allies would stand on the slate steps and wring their hands, decrying the evil of transphobia and declaring that they all needed to do more to protect trans people. Elected officials would do the same, and then have the gall to ask for a photo opportunity with the flag afterwards before scurrying back into the security of the Senedd.
I wrote my speech the night before, thinking of all the political decisions that Welsh Government has made in the past year to waste money that could have better been spent reducing economic inequality and building good quality services. I was late to the vigil; I missed almost all the speeches. It turned out that the fancy microphone that Pride Cymru had brought didn’t work, so when I got up to speak I had to shout to be heard. I thought that was the most perfect metaphor for Pride Cymru’s relationship with the queer community – come in, take over any grassroots action with their government-funded resources, which they use completely ineffectually, leading grassroots activists to pick up the pieces and work around their incompetence.
In my speech, I expressed my anger with the Senedd and with allies in general. When I stepped down to talk to some of the trans people there, they shared their shock that I had so publicly called out the politician who’d spoken a few minutes before me. It turned out she had in fact gotten up, wrung her hands and said that they needed to do more to protect trans people. I just laughed, bitterly.
You get to a point when you’re trans that you just expect it. It doesn’t surprise you any more. These declarations of allyship are so empty, and repetitive. I wouldn’t be surprised if these politicians use the same speech every year and just update the number of deaths. Others there thanked me for “bringing the anger”. It made me deeply sad (and angry) that none of the allies had even pretended to be angry. I felt for the trans person who organised the event only to have it hijacked, and for the group of trans people who had done it every year before with the same results. They deserve better from the local pride organisation, and I hope that those involved in this co-opting of TDOR away from the trans community feel ashamed of themselves.
I was glad to have the distraction of the Welsh Ballroom Community’s Trans Day of Remembrance Ball at the Queer Emporium that night. I hosted a panel talking about TDOR before the show, and I put together an absolute dream team of speakers. We worked hard on what we wanted to say, and in the end I think the conversation really captured the frustration and pain that the community is feeling not just on TDOR but all year round. My dear friend Shahbaaz spoke directly to the trans people of colour in the room, reminding them that despite the horrors of colonisation, “we’ve been here and we will always be here.” It was a raw and beautiful moment of real solidarity and fierce love, and exactly what TDOR should be about. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m tired of listening to allies expressing shock and sadness. I desperately needed that space to hold our community tight and remind each other that we are not alone.
The panel for the Welsh Ballroom Community’s Trans Remembrance Ball at Queer Emporium (Left to right: Rudy, Frankie, Alia, Shahbaaz) It’s been one hell of a month, in a personal sense and in a community sense. I’m tired, I’m angry, and I’m bitter. I’m not really sure when it’ll ease. It feels very big and difficult to shake off. Lately I’ve been trying to approach my problems as I would if it were a friend coming to me for advice. I know that for anyone else I would tell them that what they’ve gone through recently means that they are more than entitled to feel angry and bitter, and that they shouldn’t let respectability politics shame them for a natural response to their circumstances. Despite that, though, I suppose the roots of respectability still live in my brain somewhere, because I feel guilty for being like this.
Maybe next month I’ll have some answers.
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October Reflections: Community Spaces and Quitting Twitter
Being trans in this country is exhausting. There are two things I’ve been doing in the last month to deal with it.
First, I quit Twitter. If you know me you know that I lived on that app. I had one account or another consistently for upwards of ten years. For ages I’d tried to stick around by blanket blocking transphobes to avoid harassment, but in the end it was the constant transphobic trending topics that drove me away. It felt like a little goblin sitting on my shoulder constantly reminding me that there are people out there invested in the destruction of me and the people I love. Of course, those people are still out there, but outside the Twitter bubble they don’t feel nearly as powerful or nearly as frightening. However, I’ve definitely seen a reduction in work offers since quitting. I’m faced with the choice of having work and compromising my mental health, or protecting my mental health and having less to live on.
At the moment I’m choosing my mental health, because I just about have enough to get by.
Honestly, I thought I’d miss Twitter more than I do. I followed a lot of incredible people who I learned a lot from, but most of them are on Instagram, where I’ve drifted over to. So far I’ve not seen one transphobe on there. It’s been bliss. Quitting Twitter has greatly reduced my baseline anxiety levels. I highly recommend it for anyone who feels overwhelmed or is finding themselves doom scrolling. Being in my own queer little part of Instagram instead of immersing myself into the worst humanity has to offer is definitely one of the better decisions I’ve made for my mental health.
I was worried about being “left out of the loop”, but I still hear about the major stuff without having to stress about what an individual TERF did or said. I feel like I’m still as aware of the inferno raging in this culture war – I’m just standing in the distance seeing the flames instead of throwing myself into it to see how hot it is.
The second thing I’ve been doing (too much, as my bank account likes to remind me) is hanging out, in person, with groups of trans people. That shit is magical. I don’t think I’ve said no to anyone asking to hang out in weeks. This Halloween was brilliant (if a little cursed in places) because I spent it laughing and talking with other queer people. I had a very weird couple of weeks so I needed the camaraderie.
There is nothing like walking into a room and knowing that you are safe. That feeling is in short supply when I’m in the street, and before I quit Twitter I had that feeling creeping in even when sitting at home looking at my phone. But sitting with trans people, having the opportunity to talk about things are bothering us without worrying about a cis person butting in to give their opinion or to tell us how brave we are, is healing.
A couple of weeks ago I met up in a cafe with three other trans folks. I only knew one of them well, and only two of them knew each other. Yet, after an hour, we were all chatting away like we’d been friends for years. There’s a feeling of warmth for each other, of wanting the best for each other, of feeling safe to talk about the pressures we feel, and the security of knowing that the people around us will give space to those things.
I was lucky enough to work the door at Trans Aid Cymru’s recent Big Lunch event in Cathays, where 100 trans, nonbinary and intersex people and allies came together to eat some food, listen to an open mic, and meet trans artists and trans-friendly organisations. It was set up like a little fair, and it was honestly one of the best days I’ve had in a long time. It rejuvenated us all. There were even trans children there with their parents, some of whom hadn’t met a trans adult in real life before. It must have been extra special for them, seeing so many trans people in one place even in a city as relatively small as Cardiff. The excitement in their faces was enough to make all of the organising worth it. It’s been so long since the last trans-friendly pride event in Cardiff, and the relief at being around other queer people again at an event designed for us was palpable in the air. We all agreed at the end of the day that it definitely needed to be a yearly event.
Trans Aid Cymru’s Big Lunch on the 23rd October
There is so much joy in being queer, and especially in being trans. It’s so rarely seen outside our community that many of the allies who came along to the Big Lunch were surprised at the feeling in the room. I think it’s very special, and something that privileged communities don’t get to experience. We are often defined by our struggle. We are constantly forced to publicise and emphasise our struggle to get access to basic resources. Our dependence on GoFundMe is a great example.
I recently helped a friend set up a GoFundMe, and explaining that you have to put your marginalizations and vulnerabilities out there on display in order to get traction with it got me so frustrated. We shouldn’t have to do that. It was awful telling my friend these things, and we were proven right, because her GoFundMe is doing pretty well. There is such an emphasis on making yourself vulnerable in order to access help, and it’s not sustainable or safe.
I have no idea how we move past this point, or how to resist the structures that make putting our trauma on display our only option to get the help we need. For myself, I’ve sort of opted out of it for the moment. Quitting Twitter was a huge part of that. I constantly felt pressured to talk about the hardest parts of my life, and it took its toll over time. It’s been nice to just keep some things to myself and the people I trust. We’re led to believe that talking publicly about our trauma is the only way to make things better for ourselves and other people, that talking about it will lead to change.
I believe that less and less as time goes on. While public pressure on specific services can be incredibly effective, tweets alone can’t take down structures of power. I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves as trans people to “educate” and “raise awareness”, and it seems to pay off very rarely. What I’ve found to be more effective, personally, is to know who to speak to and where to go with certain issues.
Last week, I had an appointment with an incredibly transphobic doctor at a sexual health clinic. My first instinct was to go to Twitter and spill the beans, in order to “educate” people about what trans people go through. But I stopped myself, because I quit Twitter, and also, I knew that was not the most efficient use of my time. What I did instead was reach out to my supportive GP, the Welsh Gender Service, and the equalities department in the NHS. Those people are best positioned to tackle this transphobic doctor. Me publicising the traumatic rhetoric and behaviour that I was exposed to would not have done much. Perhaps it would have shocked some cis people. But the reality is that shock very rarely translates into change. The act of putting my vulnerabilities out there doesn’t feel worth it any more. It feels much easier for me, and much more effective, to go to the source of the problem.
I’m privileged enough to know where those sources are, and I hope that in future we can move towards signposting folks who are struggling to places that can actually help, so folks know where to go with what problems, and so aren’t pressured to perform their struggles for the masses. We need to work on making sure that the community is collectively informed on how services work, how to flag up concerns, who the allies in said services are and how to contact them. To me, that feels like a much more constructive use of our time. The focus should be on meeting the needs of the trans person and not using the trauma of that person to make a point to allies. Keeping things more private also has the positive side effect of keeping transphobic activists away from our efforts to tackle inequality in services.
I think there is a place for raising awareness and being open about our experiences when it’s safe to do so and we don’t feel pressured to do so. I’m not suggesting that we all retreat and keep everything about ourselves private. Of course in some circumstances it’s great to break down stigma and offer some hope to closeted folks and young people. But endlessly extolling our trauma is not good for us and it isn’t going to break down the systems that cause the trauma. We as individuals don’t have that power. If we want to tackle the systems, that comes with a strong community connected to other strong communities.
And with that, we circle back to the importance of community spaces.
For a while now I’ve been lucky enough to run meetups twice a month in Cardiff, where trans folks have been coming by to meet others and share stories, resources, ideas and laughs. After a long, LONG series of lockdowns, it’s clear that these events are desperately needed. One of the things I like about it is that you never see exactly the same group each time; there’s new people coming all the time, some who pop in once every now and then, along with the regulars who come most weeks. It’s so easy to feel like we’re alone, a tiny minority with little power. But the trans community is much bigger than any of us realise, and despite the difficulties we face and the crushing pressure on all of us, there is so much joy in the room when we come together. That is very special, and a form of resistance in itself.
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RudyLogic 