Content warning: This blog makes references to transphobia, violence, abuse, and suicide.
At the beginning of March this year, I turned the grand age of 25. It also marked my three-year anniversary of publicly confirming my gender identity as non-binary, a decision months in the making. Well, I say months, I really mean since I was a youngster growing up a tomboy in the North West. But if you’re reading this, you probably have heard a story like mine before.
You may be aware of the ups and downs that trans+ people face – that first time you change your appearance, put on different clothes, makeup and hair, a binder or a pair of shoes that flips a switch in your mind and simply feels right. Being treated in ways that affirms your gender and boosts your euphoria, or that pushes a discriminatory prejudicial narrative and racks you with dysphoria. Finding your pronouns, giving yourself a new name that represents the unity and fullness of life you have, only not to have it used when you’ve made it clear you want them to at the doctors, at work, school, even in your own home. NHS England announced this month that young people will now be unable to get puberty blockers unless part of a clinical trial. This undoubtedly means that more young people will go through puberty in a body that doesn’t reflect the person they really are.
Beyond the daily discomforts and discriminations trans+ people face, there is the worst that transphobia can offer – a threat to life. Threats of violence, abuse and harassment that try to convert us from our real selves and remove us from society. The memory of Brianna Ghey’s brutal murder lies in the hearts and minds of our trans+ community, family, and friends. It should not take a life being lost to remind the world that we deserve at the very least the basic right to live.
On the Trans Day of Remembrance list of names from 2023, which exists to note the names and lives of trans+ people cut short from violence each year, there were four more UK trans+ people under the age of 25 whose lives were ended. We refuse to forget people like Ezra, Alex, Lucy and Finn, and 14-year-old Corei who died by suicide five months ago. They will be remembered, along with the 152 trans+ people killed by violence across the globe since October 2023, where at least 36 of them were 25 years-old or younger.
It can feel like there is so much further for society to go before we can get equity and decent treatment in society. Our ‘Trans Utopia’ is still way out of reach, but there are good people out there doing good things. The Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill is back in the House of Commons this month for its second reading, meaning we hopefully edge closer to a country where the abusive practice of forcing away someone’s trans-ness (or other LGBTQ+ identity) is made criminal. Whilst the media is hostile to our rights in a multitude of ways, and groups of society seem to rally against us, more and more trans+ people are thriving in their work and rising to notable positions in communities and organisations. More people are also taking part in protests and Pride, in order to stand beside us and give volume to our voices in the changes we need to see.
I am personally grateful to a number of people and places. To the people who made my workplace a safe place to come out openly back when I was 22 years old. To those friends who saw my appearance and name and didn’t turn away, but celebrated who I was becoming and whose support made me more comfortable to be myself. To my medical school who recognised the importance of their trans+ students, staff and local community by signing the Ban Conversion Therapy charter. To those organisations who’ve let me talk, exhibit, and impress the importance of trans+ healthcare and rights. With everybody stepping up to play their part in supporting the rights of trans+ people and helping us be safe and loved in personal relationships, we can make a world where that safety and joy is a truth.
I am finally grateful to the people who helped my 10-year-old cousin find the words “non-binary” years before I did. I was certainly questioning my gender at that age, but it would be another decade before I got anywhere close to imagining a world where I could live authentically, as well as having the first idea of what that world could even look like! My cousin being able to explore their identity at 10 years old, begin to formulate their place in the world, and make conscious decisions about the space they want to take up?
Yeah. That’s my ‘Trans Utopia’.