(UPDATE: Content Warning - references to suicide, hate crime, murder and assault, verbal & physical abuse)
It’s Transgender Day of
Remembrance (TDOR) and I want to say a little about why all of us should treat
it with the seriousness it deserves.
While it’s true that, in broad
terms, our society has made leaps and bounds in its understanding and
acceptance of trans people in recent decades, recent headlines and columns
indicate we’ve a long way to go.
Repeated
trans-negative and mocking headlines and think-pieces indicate that discourse
about gender is a fault-line that reaches far beyond politics and theologies
into visceral bile and fear.
I’ve witnessed
Christians (who, in faith, I still want to claim as kin), radical feminists
(they are kin too), and terrified conservative-reactionaries want to make trans
people and their allies the vanguard of a monstrous deconstruction of society
and culture. (It would be funny to ponder what these powers of destruction look
like, if only these claims weren’t so damaging.)
Why does TDOR matter?
Well, let’s start with some startling truths.
This year looks like
becoming the deadliest year for trans people on record. Around the world over
three hundred trans people have been murdered (go to the GLAAD website if you
wish to see the list).
Furthermore, over half
of trans and gender-questioning students in UK schools have been bullied.
Many trans people around
the world have been assaulted and attacked.
Suicide attempt rates
among the trans community in the UK are fearfully high and our identities are
consistently traduced, questioned and mocked. These rates reflect a lack of
support and understanding from within our society.
But if you’re reading this, you
probably knew that already.
Perhaps you want to
say, ‘Well,
that’s
all very well, but what makes you lot so special? Why have a special day of
remembrance? Lots of people – non-trans women, people of colour, disabled
people –
are traduced, violated and murdered simply in virtue of being themselves. Are
they remembered?’
In response I want to
say, this isn’t about special pleading or victim-signalling.
I stand in solidarity with
those whom our prejudiced, patriarchally-ordered and violent world kills, damages
and injures.
I am furious about the
crap faced by anyone who does not fit religio-kyriarchal representations of ‘the human’ and am determined to
change a world that still privileges white, patriarchal, heteronormative ways
of going on.
If trans people
represent a tiny percentage of the population, the murder stats worldwide are
mind-blowing. Three-hundred-plus of us have been murdered this year alone simply for being trans. It’s a horrifying
statistic. Three hundred deaths among a minuscule minority is terrifying. It
signals deep fault-lines of violence and terror.
I am an exceptionally
privileged person in many different respects. I am able to be trans and be out
about it, and (within the limits of these things) respected. I have a fine job.
I have lots of shiny-sounding titles and styles. I can make myself sound ‘grand’. My voice is heard.
Yet… I too have received
hate and threats, including a death threat, simply because I am trans.
I have been called
nasty, nasty things.
I know people who are
polite to my face but have claimed – simply in virtue that I am trans – that I am unfit to be
a priest or hold a bishop’s licence.
I have received many
professional slights, dis-invitations and exclusions simply because I will not
apologise for being me. These slights add up and present challenges to the most
resilient.
Why am I telling you
this? Not to stir up pity for me. I don’t need it. I’m doing well and am alright.
The point is this: if
this is what it looks like for someone who is a so-called ‘successful’ or privileged trans
person, what the hell is it like for trans people facing the full-on nexus of
mockery, aggression and violence, without my privileges?
The fact is that trans
people, young and old, simply would like to get on and live and flourish. We
want to have our stories and lives cherished and respected as we define them.
We want our stories to be honoured as anyone would like their story honoured.
In case you were
wondering, trans people are no more engaged in self-indulgent narcissism than
anyone else. We just want to live.
Our need to ask
questions of gender, explore gender possibilities, transition and so on come
not from capricious self-obsession, but deep, passionate wrestling. It’s bone deep.
Most trans people I
know have thought more deeply and carefully about the possibilities and aporia
of identity than most non-trans people. We are not ‘screwy’, ‘damaged’ or ‘nut-jobs’ any more than
non-trans people are. We’d like a little respect.
So, woe to you, woe to
me, woe to us, when we seek to erase trans lives – erase their dignity, seriousness and
ordinariness…woe to us when we seek to erase and control trans bodies
through violent speech or gesture.
Let us remember the
dead because we are them and they are us: people longing to live, people with
dreams, people bewildered and foolish and loving, by turns.
Let us commit
ourselves to changing the world.
For the love of God,
let trans people live! Let us flourish. You might discover the world is richer
and more full of grace than you thought.