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;

Under this government, every day existing a trans person is a trans rights protest, a protest that we will live our lives, be our true selves, and never give up despite their attacks on us writes Owen Hurcum

On the 22nd of December, after 7 years of intense toxic debate, the Scottish Parliament finally voted through the Gender Recognition Reforms bill. Since then the UK Government has outlined two plans to undermine Scottish gender reforms. Both plans have massive ramifications and will fail.

To say that the NHS is in crisis right now would be something of an understatement. Writes Alexis Chilvers as part of our push to raise the voices of trans people on trans healthcare in the UK in 2023.

The Office for National Statistics has released data from the 2021 census which for the first time ever includes statistics about the numbers of trans and non-binary living in England and Wales. Here Tom Pashby takes a look at the transgender and non-binary census data;

“everyone is talking on the scene” - What does the success of Kim Petras and Sam Smith say about the UK's attitude towards trans people? Oscar Rees 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.

Our first #TransAwarenessWeek piece is from Carrie Marshall who writes on the need for trans rage after our community was deliberately held back by societies and governments.

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.