Trans issues

I wake up each morning and take a good long look in the mirror. ‘Wow! You are AMAZING!’ I say to my reflection. And I mean it. I truly mean it. I am literally gobsmacked at how incredible I am — and in so many ways. As a trans woman I am FIERCE. As an activist I am FEARLESS. As a human being I am empathy personified. Yet the moment I step out of my boudoir and into the virtual world of online social media, I am bombarded by negativity. Why is this? I know it’s not me. It’s YOU. Yes. I am sorry dear reader, but the fact that you are unable to handle me and all my perfections is a YOU problem. As an online influencer I am no stranger to violence. My viral videos often bring with them a torrent of abuse.

A video game with a multitude of problematic themes and mechanics has recently been released which has once and for all cemented my already unfavorable opinion on so-called ‘open world role-playing games’. Cyberpunk 2077 was launched on PC and gaming consoles this week, which generated tumultuous excitement and praise across all the major social media platforms. This unavoidable hubbub came from the majority of the gaming community who were applauding the title for its ‘beautiful graphics’ and ‘combat mechanics’ et cetera. However, there were also a small group of (decent) people who were quick to point out the darker and more problematic elements of this immersive video game.

Americans found themselves divided into two camps this week — the mildly skeptical and the fervently disinterested — when the actress formally known as Ellen Page announced she was a boy called Elliot and, in fact, always has been a boy.In the proclamation, posted to Instagram, Page not only came out as transgender — meaning she was born one sex but identifies as the other — but also as non-binary — which means she actually has no sex. Yes, it makes no sense. But try not to think too much about, she clearly hasn’t either.You’re forgiven if you might be hesitant to rewrite the science textbooks for a 33-year-old actress so gullible she wept on national television over the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax.

A worrying trend has emerged recently of non-trans uterus owners demanding the removal of inclusive language when dealing with gender-related issues. This is extremely harmful to the trans community as it is a blatant attempt to invalidate our existence as trans women and trans men. Many organizations have been making a valiant effort to respect trans and non-binary people by using more progressive and inclusive terms or phrases when advertising their products and services. This has been seen as a positive step forward in the struggle for validation for those of us who identify as non-cisgender.

After years of speculation, Lilly Wachowski has finally given us confirmation that The Matrix trilogy is an allegory of the transgender experience. Although it is obvious to anyone who filters popular media through the lens of woke issues that Neo’s struggle to understand and accept his identity represented the conflict every transgender person faces, to have it verified by one of the writers is a significant step forward in the fight for equality. Some might question the reason as to why it’s taken so long for Lilly, who is herself transgender, to speak up about this and why she chose to highlight it now: ‘(In 1999) …the world just wasn’t ready for it’ she explains in a video.

Portland, Oregon If you want to know whether you’re a racist, look in the mirror. If you are white, you’re a racist. It really is that simple. No matter how progressive you think you are, having black and brown friends cannot repair the innate racism of your birth. Your vanilla voice is not welcome. Your low-pigment opinions are invalid. The back of the bus is where you need to go when it comes to having a say about race. And don’t give me your white fragility. Thankfully two Women of Color have taken it upon themselves to educate white women on their privilege. The ‘Race to Dinner’ service offers liberal white women and other daughters of the Confederacy the chance to have dinner with proudly black Women of Color.

It seems that recent events, from Black Lives Matter protests to J.K. Rowling’s transphobic Twitter rants, have given the wrong sort of people (Trump supporters) an excuse to inject their ignorant negativity like a poisonous bile into the noble veins of identity politics.But what is identity politics? Identity politics is a beautiful way in which we can bring people of all backgrounds together, before labeling them, allocating each of them demographic privilege points according to their place on the oppression hierarchy pyramid, and finally segregating them. Think of it as scratching a societal OCD itch of needing to organize the books on our shelves into alphabetical order. It’s neat. It’s tidy. It makes sense.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you will have been exposed to the bloodcurdling realization that the world’s (previously) most beloved author, J.K. Rowling, has outed herself as a transphobe, or ‘TERF’ (trans exclusionary radical feminist). After a shockingly bigoted rant on her Twitter feed, followed by a blog post in which she doubled-down on her hatred (I didn’t read it because the things it said were far too upsetting, but I’ve been told it’s filled with unspeakable hate and as such has been named ‘The Blog That Must Not Be Read’).