Trans Writes Contributors

On #TransDayOfVisibility we wanted to do our extra best to give the spotlight to the least visible members of the transgender and gender diverse communities around the world. Thank you to Michael for reaching out and writing this piece on culture specific identities they titled "What an Indigenous person would like the queer community to know":

Like many trans people recently, researchers at Trans Safety Network have joined with our communities to attend, speak at, and help organise vigils so that we can mark the death of Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old trans girl from Warrington. The question we hope to answer in this letter is a difficult one - what is a vigil?

Following a piece by a tory councillor in the Daily Mail who alleges that a trans woman attempted to intimidate her in a bathroom we may have tracked down the so-called "penis woman"! Sophie writes;

"When offered the chance to read Twenty Eight: Stories From the Section 28 Generation, I had some preconceptions about what the book was likely to be." Laura Kate Dale writes;

As a Black trans person and long-time resident of San Francisco, I was excited for the opportunity to review Miss Major Speaks. While I haven’t had the honor of meeting Miss Major Griffin-Gracy in person, I have met and worked with many trans folks whose lives she has touched, several of whom are named in the book’s Acknowledgements.

On healthcare for young trans people; There is no magical moment at which a child becomes an adult. No single instant at which we may safely declare that a young person has exited adolescence, and is fully equipped to enter the world of mortgage stress, Saturday morning food shopping and running arguments about the thermostat says Max Morgan

Billy Connolly used to talk about arsehole detectors. Flamboyant trousers. Beards dyed in primary colours. These things upset the arseholes so much, just by existing, that arseholes reveal themselves by complaining loudly. Sam Smith is a perfect arsehole detector. Their body, their music, their gender, their pronouns, their videos: arseholes can’t help but comment loudly and persistently.

On the 20th of December, I sat down in the Scottish Parliament viewing gallery watching Scottish democracy at work. Almost every MSP sat in the chamber preparing to debate one of the most disputed issues of the last five years - reforms to the Gender Recognition Act.

Between striking nurses and ambulance workers, twelve or more hour waits in A&E, and patients getting passed from service to service with no actual care provided, a lot of people are seeing what a non-functioning National Health Service can look like. A sight we are all to familiar with when trying to access trans healthcare on the NHS.

Self ID in Finland is on the horizon so we asked a Finnish trans writer to tell us about it and the wider context it exists in. Vilja Heikkilä writes;