In the eye of the storm

Living as a trans person in Australia right now is a bit like being in the eye of a storm. It’s like that most of the time. There’s not really much occasion even in progressive Melbourne’s even more progressive inner northern suburbs that living life as a trans or gender diverse person is not like living in the eye of the storm.

What do I mean? Well, the eye of the storm is that mostly calm space a little bit separate from, all the relentless activity of the storm out there. But existing in that space is an exercise in constant hypervigilance. Straight cisgender straight folks reading this might think it a little melodramatic, and maybe it is a little, but it doesn’t change the reality of what Trans and Gender Diverse(TGD) folk experience to simply go about living their daily lives like the majority of those around us do.

This metaphorical eye of the storm is growing ever more turbulent to exist in and the relative safety of this eye space feels at great risk of coming crashing down around me. If it does then the already vulnerable TGD community will be at a very real risk of major damage.

Living in this eye of the storm is far from safe, it’s a fraught existence that requires constant attention. Every trip on public transport requires a high level of situational awareness, every walk down the street, every trip to the shops, every phone call received every greeting of a new person. All of these are accompanied by the need for TGD people to be concerned about their psychological safety and often for their physical safety. Was that look just a look or was it something more? It is constant and continuous.

Add to that constant worry of what will pop up on my computer or phone screen, or in the pages of the daily newspaper, or on the screens of the TV that will ridicule my identity, call me deluded, accuse me of an agenda to ‘trans’ or encourage the mutilation of children — in short the destruction of the world as we know it.

Trans and Gender Diverse folk know very well the need for self-care, the need to switch off because of the damaging public discourse about us, to find safe people where we can just be; because of the heavy toll of constant situational awareness.

Sometimes, though, this is virtually impossible. Short of turning ourselves into a hermit lifestyle with no contact with the outside world, this is an impossibility. We exist in society, we have jobs, we have social activities, we use public transport, we have families. All of this makes it impossible not to see, to hear and to read the tomes of rhetoric levelled against us and those that care for us.

In a world where a national news outlet creates a special page filled with articles that are filled with exaggeration, unfactual information, and incite a moral panic. That world is impossible to escape.

It is in that world that the Victorian Labor government’s Birth Deaths and Marriages Amendment Bill is progressing through parliament. Yes, it has passed the first hurdle and our community exists in another eye of the storm eagerly awaiting its move to the upper house. where we should be able to relax, even a little, but of course we can’t because yet more words are written and spoken about how if TGD folk have something as simple as an accurate identity document, that somehow the world has lurched to its final steps before destruction.

Personally, as a trans person living in this space, it feels as if open season has been declared against me and all TGD people. We are likened to criminals that might pretend to be something they are not to get away with a crime.

But here’s the thing. We are not pretending to be something we are not.

For many of us, it has been the fight of our lives to be able to come out and be who we actually are. For some, myself included, that fight took 40 years to win.

A perpetual narrative we keep hearing is about the dangers of self-identification. Another exaggeration and misdirect. Trans folk don’t simply one day decide to put on the clothes, mannerisms or other social behaviours and pretend to be something we are not. The opposite is closer to the truth, after deep thought, reflection, therapy and denial of our own reality, finally, we stop pretending.

We stop pretending to be what we are not. We stop playing a role that is misaligned with who we are and we come into a place of seeking to live our lives, for the first time as our authentic true selves.

In this climate we tentatively begin our lives in authenticity, we tentatively step out in public and take with trepidation our first steps along the journey of affirming who we are.

The truth is we are not a danger to others, but, others are a danger to us. On a daily basis, we hear of TGD people assaulted and murdered both here and around the world.

The ‘Gender Critical’ would have you believe Trans femme folk are men trying to invade women’s spaces. It is inconceivable the idea that anyone would take on the risk and challenges of a trans life on some kind of whim. We want nothing more than to be accepted as who we are.

In all honesty, we do have an agenda! We want to live in safety, have equitable access to housing and employment and we want to be treated with dignity and respect and humanity, pretty much just as anyone wants to be treated.

Undoubtedly living a trans life encompasses risk, danger, rejection and ridicule, but, yet, it is preferable to a life based on a pretence of something I am not and that brings with it a high risk of suicide and death.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.