Trans Writes Contributors

Abigail Thorn is absolutely a friend of Trans Writes and has even contributed an essay on the idea of dysphoria which you can check out here. So there was no way we were not going to review her debut play; The Prince. Kestral Gaian writes:

I do not care to weigh in on the discourse surrounding single-sex schools in general, but I am telling you that in my experience at an all-girlls school I was not protected from sexism, gender conformity, or transness (even before this became the boogeyman in the UK). Teaching LGBTQIA+ topics is an absolute must in helping equip students to understand and protect themselves from the experiences such as mine.

Rugby is community, family and recreation, and I never for a moment believed that we would see the governing body of English Rugby, the RFU, instigate a poorly thought through, mishandled, unscientific and exclusionary transgender rugby ban, yet, this is exactly what happened on the 30th July 2022.

The untold damage to the psyche of those of us in the Section 28 Generation has yet to be genuinely explored; but it might explain why many of us in the 35-50 age bracket who now understand ourselves to be nonbinary watched in horror as the parliamentary “debate” on nonbinary recognition unfolded. A ghostly recreation of the ignorance, dismissiveness, whataboutery and speculative fiction that led so many of us to be left without any guidance or support in the 80s; let alone reassurances that there was nothing wrong with us. 

To me, the trans community is like a big bag of pick n’ mix – some are sweet, some are sour, some are soft, some are crunchy. We are strawberry laces and chocolate nougat and caramel buttons. Fruity gummy bears and rainbow Skittles. On days like Trans Pride London, surrounded by my family of trans candy; I felt as happy as a kid in a sweet shop.

The debate was attended by so many, from different parties and nations. Yet all came to the same conclusion: conversion “therapy” is abuse. The overrepresentation of LGB+ MPs (the only openly trans MP, Jamie Wallis, was not present) shows that as much as the media attempt to divide us, we are a united community. 

If you are transgender and despaired at reading all this, I can only apologise. However, as a community, we will get through it. We are being made the focus of the tory leadership race to distract from the real societal problems such as the cost of living crisis because they have no solutions. The Conservatives have been in power for over a decade, these issues are of their own making. Transgender people existed long before they were elected, and we’ll be around after they leave government. We will win.

At first there was mixed feelings due to concerns about safety, not least as many of us faced harassment when we joined the ‘end SARS’ protest in 2020. Eventually we agreed. We are so tired of hiding, running away and living in fear; we had to do something and so we planned a protest for May 1st 2022. The first ever protest of its kind to be held in Nigeria!

When you take away someone’s name, you take away their right to live their life peacefully: their right to work, to study, to interact with others, and even to consume products and services without having to share their personal (and medical!) history with complete strangers.

Trans Action Warwick regard this protest as a success. They say they achieved their aim of disrupting the event, using it to make a statement that we need to oppose transphobia and those who weaponise it against us. They believe we can’t gain liberation by attending and asking "difficult questions" alone and that doing so risks legitimising the answers and normalising the negative way transphobes talk about trans people.