Shon Faye Quotes

Everyone’s got their own battles to fight.

When we talk about trans people, we’re usually referring to individuals who were either recorded as male at birth but who understand themselves to be women (trans women) or, vice versa, were recorded as female at birth but who understand themselves to be men (). Not all trans people, however, find simply moving between the pre-existing categories of man and woman satisfactory, accurate or desirable. Such trans people, who are less well understood, generally unsettle mainstream society more than trans men and women, because they challenge not only the prevailing idea that birth genitals and gender are inseparable, but also the idea that there are just two gender categories. Often, these people are accused of making up their experience out of a need for attention or a desire to feel special – though in reality the political, economic and social costs for such ‘non-binary’ trans people (who don’t straightforwardly see themselves as men or women) can be immense.

Both trans and cis patients alike have good reason to fear the increasing NHS reliance on the private sector, which drives up costs and introduces a profit motive to healthcare, including gender identity services and surgeries. There is an irony here: it is generally conservatives who make specious claims about money-making schemes preying on trans people, but, in fact, it is conservatives’ own policies of cuts and privatization that actually allow the private sector to behave vampirically.

Many homeless trans people stay off the streets by ‘sofa surfing’: either staying with friends or, in some cases, exchanging sex for a place to stay. Inevitably, some end up sleeping rough. For trans people on the streets, life can be brutal.

Labour itself is innocent of transphobia, both within its membership and from some of its key figures, who have failed to show full and public solidarity with trans communities. Anti-trans discourse is very much alive on the left in Britain, in trade unions and in local party branches.

‘’ is a term sometimes used to describe this process, by which corporations and brands try to veil unethical practices or boardroom avarice by publicly claiming to support LGBTQ+ rights. Yet even if corporate cynicism is the motivating factor, surely if it can be successfully harnessed by LGBTQ+ organizations to improve conditions for some trans workers, then the net effect is positive? The problem is that such day-to-day improvements in some workplaces, beneficial though they may be, are piecemeal, isolated and entirely dependent on the discretion of individual employers. The bigger picture at a societal level remains unaltered – particularly, the ongoing problems that remain for the most vulnerable trans people – and no amount of employer-led diversity schemes can provide any progressive, structural solution to the oppression endured by trans workers. This must be said: corporate diversity schemes can never guarantee the safety, dignity and prosperity of the transgender worker – or, indeed, any worker – in the way that a strong and robust trade union movement and a properly funded welfare state can.

‘Trans’ [...] is an umbrella term that describes people whose (their personal sense of their own gender) varies from, does not sit comfortably with, or is different from, the biological sex recorded on their birth certificate based on the appearance of their external . The standard view of how sex and gender manifest in the world is as follows. Babies born with observable penises are recorded as male, referred to and raised as boys, and as adults are men; babies born with observable vulvas are recorded as female, referred to and raised as girls, and as adults are women. To be trans is, on some level, to feel that this standardized relationship between one’s genitalia at birth and the assignment of one of two fixed gender identities that are supposed to accurately reflect your feelings about your own body has been interrupted. How the person who experiences this interruption reacts to it can vary hugely – which is why ‘trans’ is a catch-all word for a diverse range of identities and experiences.

The same hormone therapies that today are associated with helping trans people – the use of feminizing oestrogen for trans women and masculinizing testosterone for trans men – were used by endocrinologists in the middle decades of the twentieth century in attempts to ‘cure’ sexual inverts and intersex individuals, by administering hormones to ‘remedy’ the imbalance which caused their ‘disorder’. Homosexual females, for instance, would be treated with oestrogen. Homosexual males were sometimes treated with testosterone and, in some cases, with oestrogen in order to chemically castrate them and prevent them acting on their desires. In the 1950s such hormonal ‘cures’ for sexual and gender variance diminished (largely because they didn’t work), only to be replaced by psychiatric and aversion therapies – the underlying belief in sexual inversion and disorder remained. It must be stressed that the non-consensual, coercive and violent use of hormones to interfere with the bodily integrity of LGBTQ+ people and those born with intersex conditions destroyed countless lives and should be considered a stain on the history of Western medicine. This shared historical experience is also a point of unity for trans people and cisgender lesbians, gays and bisexuals, demonstrating our shared struggle against our pathologizing and mistreatment over the past century and more.

A key tenet of the drive by trans people towards ‘visibility’ in mainstream media in the past decade has been the belief that, the greater amount of more accurate media coverage, the more chance trans people have of encouraging empathy in the wider population. This, it is hoped, will make people want to treat trans individuals better both in daily life and in policy. This strategy hasn’t worked – or, at least, it hasn’t worked sufficiently to materially improve the lives of the majority of trans people. The problem is that it involves a rose-tinted view of the media, which is imagined as some kind of benevolent megaphone, which amplifies our voices, uncovers truth and educates. This is an apolitical understanding of the raison d’être of the media in a capitalist society, which – as for any other industry – is first and foremost to make money.

The reality is that transition is an act most trans women and girls see as lifesaving, and one for which they can be punished severely: with violence, with community and familial rejection, with poverty, with mental illness, with sexual abuse, with domestic violence and, yes, with murder. That we can be both highly at risk of rape by men and blamed for rape by feminists is made possible because the media constructs trans women simultaneously as deviant men and as dangerous women.

Suicide attempts occur at a higher rate among trans people than the general population. Indeed, the statistics are truly alarming: research by the UK charity Stonewall published in 2017 found that 45 per cent of trans young people had attempted suicide at least once. Yet, behind the statistics are individuals, suffering in private and leading complex human lives: there is rarely one simple explanation for such a tragedy.

Anti-trans feminists’ repeated claims that they were being silenced were in fact highly effective in getting their viewpoints aired on television, radio and in the press.

Human beings rely on familiarity to understand and empathize with others, and we find it easier to extend compassion to those we can relate to. Given that, like any minority, trans people are unfamiliar to the average person, we rely more heavily on media representation, on political solidarity from people who aren’t trans and vocal, and ongoing support from public institutions to create the right conditions for understanding and compassion from the rest of society. By the same token, we’re especially vulnerable to the spread of misinformation, harmful stereotypes and repeated prejudicial tropes. And the latter, unfortunately, are widespread in public culture, just as they have been throughout history. Trans people are discriminated against, harassed and subjected to violence around the world because of deep prejudices that have been embedded into the fabric of our culture, poisoning our capacity to empathize, and even to accept trans people as fully human.

The reality of trans life today is often hidden from public view.

It is only through solidarity, compassion and radical reimagining that we can build a more just and joyful world for all of us.