I shouldn't have to talk about this, but I'm gonna.

Here is what it's like to be trans and why the thing with the Irish media and specifically @roisiningle matters and why people are making a big deal about it.

I don't buy newspapers anymore. Stopped years ago. I have a few of them blocked by my router. Why? Because I know that pretty much all of them in the UK have made it a weekly thing to essentially tear into trans people. Irish ones are beginning to dip their toes in that muck.

I don't need that. No one does. I'm certainly not going to pay for the privilege of injecting poison directly into my eyes. Nope.

It also means, I don't get to trust media ppl. Like, I don't get to have that luxury, because even the ones cis feminists get to feel safe around...

I know they're gonna turn on me. Same with politicians, activists, etc. I know that when they say or share fucked up shit about trans folks, that will *never* be prioritized. It'll be excused, by the supposed sound media/pols/activists...

It'll be a mistake. Calling it out, no matter how polite we are, will be labeled a pile on. aggressive. bullying.

It'll be lots of cis pals and cis colleagues who also work in media and politics defending the indefensible. Except it's about trans folks. So that's ok, somehow.

We don't get to put faith or trust in any of those people, because when the choice is defend us or defend their poor put upon colleague. Well. We know the answer.

The sense of betrayal when we do allow ourselves to trust them and they do this. You can taste it.

The other day I was driving to the shop and I flipped on the radio. And sure enough, there was the woman who spewed a bunch of hate about trans kids on Channel 4, as a guest on RTÉ 1, talking about mental health during COVID. She isn't the only one with a media platform.

So, we avoid it as a career. We avoid participation in it, or at least everyone I know tried to. Which means that we don't get a voice.

If the choice is "talk to these ppl, knowing they might betray that trust for 'balance' or not participate". You just won't participate.

I don't think we're even asking for the world here. We're asking for folks to just do better by us.

When they mess up to own their shit.

To listen to us when we say "Yeahhhh, your pal.... she spent the past couple of years beating up trans ppl in the newspaper. No beuno."

But. Apparently that's just a bridge too far....

Wonder why.

And honestly. All this makes me sad af. I dunno, deep down I want to trust them. I want to believe that they can be better. I want to think that there are at least a few of them who are safe harbour who I can read without a gut punch.

Like, I don't think yiz can truly understand the sense of betrayal, the entire lack of shock we have when someone comes out with a retweet.... and then a shitty take.... and then platforming of more and more ppl who want us mandated out of existence.

We saw it with the wizard book lady. Like, I was never a huge fan of that series, but I know trans ppl who were and the.... heartbreak. Absolute heartbreak.

So I see this and I'm worried that this is the first steps of what the transphobes have been trying to do. Import a culture war from the UK. They already have people in the media. They've already been getting platformed. So when a supposed ally RTs this crap...