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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
RudyLogic 
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