During the Conservative Party conference held in Birmingham this year, former leadership candidate and MP for Portsmouth North Penny Mordaunt was presented with the award for ‘Ally of the Year’ by the Tory LGBTQ+ group called the LGBT Conservatives.
With all the talk of chest binders after mainstream media took aim at them and Mermaids UK we are seeing the same pattern. The voices of those actually affected by the issues are not being heard. Correcting that for Trans Writes is Keith Ramsted with his chest binding story about the need for harm reduction;
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:
The Gender Census 2022 is out and Tom Pashby has a little poke around inside of it. Small content warning for transphobic slurs, which will be uncensored in this article.
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.
Look, lots of people post things they call trans joy but they’re just celebrating having queer friends (set the bar higher!) or consuming other trans people’s creative content (cool, but make your own!). Those things are fun and all, but have you ever tried really living in your body and thriving in it?
Suella Braverman has come under heavy criticism from the transgender community for a series of comments regarding trans youth; with the most recent being by far the worst. Owen J Hurcum, who has an amazing thread on Braverman’s comments, writes;
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.
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.
The world is not kind to trans people right now. From news to opinion pieces to comedy specials, it can feel like we’re in our own form of an apocalypse. But we can learn from Elliot Page and from Viktor, and not let that stop us from finding our authenticity and those moments of joy.