Small personal note...
@GoodLawProject is bringing some litigation to protect the rights and dignities of trans people; we've hired the legal team and sent the formal letter before action and we're just waiting for the right time to launch.
@GoodLawProject is bringing some litigation to protect the rights and dignities of trans people; we've hired the legal team and sent the formal letter before action and we're just waiting for the right time to launch.
Anyway, we recorded an interview I did with a trans woman in her late fifties. She talks about how as a child - she was brought up Catholic - she would say her prayers at night that she might wake up fully as a girl. She's in tears, I'm in tears. It's totally heartbreaking.
She goes on to talk about what her relatively late transition has meant for her sense of self and how immeasurably better her life would have been had she been able to transition earlier.
But even in the last couple of weeks, the tenor of discussion in the UK (it's a very UK thing) has changed. There's a wave of fear towards trans people, esp women, emitting from Government, from the BBC leadership, the media, etc and she's now nervous about us using the interview
Anyway, I said it was a personal note.
I get loads of messages from trans friends - they are silently asking me to do something - but I feel helpless in the face of a national tidal wave of what feels to me like ignorant bigotry and sometimes hate.
I get loads of messages from trans friends - they are silently asking me to do something - but I feel helpless in the face of a national tidal wave of what feels to me like ignorant bigotry and sometimes hate.
But what I really want to say is (please) have and (please) show some compassion for fellow human beings. You may not understand their lives. But their lives are just like yours, they have the same hopes and the same fears. Except their lives are harder - and are getting more so.
A small postscript.
Some voices on trans issues that have been particularly influential for me: @christineburns, @AlexSharpe64, @theFoxFisher and @MulreadyMolly. Follow them if you'd like to learn.
Some voices on trans issues that have been particularly influential for me: @christineburns, @AlexSharpe64, @theFoxFisher and @MulreadyMolly. Follow them if you'd like to learn.
And I also want to shout out to @joannaccherry, with whom I have a bottomless reservoir of trust and affection, that enables us to navigate our differences on this.