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.
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.
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.
RudyLogic 
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