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We have had enough

  • Posted on January 15, 2013 at 10:28 pm

This week I am deferring the next episode of ‘letting go’, which is due, and not writing about me at all. High time.

Last weekend, I am glad I wrote early, because everything went wild by Sunday. It had been a week in which Dr Curtis, the only private consultant on gender dysphoria, came under examination by the GMC as a result of a handful of complaints. The one lifeline for so many – and why? Because if the NHS in your neck of the woods is represented by blocking, ignorance or worse, you cannot find satisfactory diagnosis, let alone treatment for gender dysphoria. You don’t even get close to talking about it properly with a clinician.

The most positive outcome as that story circulated was a Twitter stream with the hashtag #TransDocFail representing personal accounts of treatment by, shall we say, ‘unsympathetic’ doctors or consultants. Thousands of accounts came through of not merely rejection but abuse, verbal and otherwise. And none of those complaints would be formally reported against GPs or even the Gender Identity Clinics across the land.

Why not? Well, if you have no other lifeline, no funds, and no desire to skip across to Thailand, you risk alienating yourself so far from the NHS that your hopes of receiving diagnosis and treatment are effectively ended. It’s almost an required attitude to keep your hood up and shuffle along silently in the queue so no-one notices you.

Then there was the offending remark in an otherwise excellent feminist article in The New Statesman by Suzanne Moore, regarding Brazilian transsexuals. We try not to offend minorities these days, and Suzanne I guess/hope didn’t mean to, or at best was thoughtless. She was picked up on it quite objectively, but quickly compounded the matter herself. And anger flared, because transgendered people have had enough.

We have managed to dispense with jokes that negatively stereotype races, disabilities, sexual orientation and much else, but, it seems, transgendered people are still fair game. Suzanne could have apologised straight away, but by digging her heels in a bit and becoming abusive, ended up being Tweeted back with some nasty comments, and making some more pretty nasty ones herself. And flounced off, ‘hounded out by a trans cabal’.

Good may yet come of it. Her journalist friend Julie Burchill wrote what must be the most hideous piece ever published, in The Observer, Sunday 13 January. I can’t link directly because a tsunami of protest from the early hours and lasting all day led to its removal online. Yes, that bad. PCC complaints, I don’t know how many letters to editors, countless Facebook comments and Tweets, and quite a few very good blogs from trans people, feminists and sane others. Basically, if Burchill had written a similar piece relating to Jews, gay people, black people, or even women, using such insulting, threatening and inaccurate terms, she might well have been arrested.

What better way to resolve this flashpoint then, than for The Daily Telegraph to republish the same article?!

This is not about an article any more though, it is about complex institutional and cultural transphobia, and it is now very plain to see, so a lot more people have encountered it than otherwise would. There is more to come, I am sure. A lot more.

You see, referring to Brazilian transsexuals means referring not just to beautiful people as a ridiculous ideal, but to beautiful people who are murdered there in hundreds simply for being trans. This is what cultural transphobia does. This is what respected journalists insulting and abusing trans people achieves: bolstering the opinions of the ignorant and resulting in abuse, discrimination and violence against trans people. This used to happen daily to gay and lesbian people, and sometimes still does, except in this country it is no longer commonly acceptable. We climbed out of the ‘no Irish, no blacks’ landlady culture a long time ago. But ‘no trans’ may just as well be posted by landlords, neighbours and employers (and some social groups) today.

This week I questioned the constant references to the ‘transgender community’ by asking why we don’t have a ‘red-haired community’ who we insult with ‘gingers’ or ‘carrot-tops’. (It used to happen in some places.) Community is unity in togetherness, and we cluster most tightly when in defence. There is a trans community because we are not widely accepted. Some like me, are very lucky, but very many more are not. This is why our abusers feel attacked by ‘the trans community’: it is because they abuse us. Criticise one person with red hair for daring to have red hair, and a community will not rise against you on Twitter or anywhere. Criticise one trans person for daring to be born with gender dysphoria, and you criticise us all.

It also occurred to me as the argument of ‘how dare you call me cis’ went on along the sidelines, that there was a time when people said ‘how dare you call me heterosexual’? The implication always being that ‘no, I am just normal. And that anyone not like me, gay, lesbian, red-haired or trans etc. is a freak.’ Well, all cis means is people whose gender and physiology are aligned – is that insulting? Maybe anyone in doubt should reflect on why they don’t like labels whilst applying them to others.

It is time to stop the othering of trans people, recognise that gender dysphoria is not about drag, fetish or sexual behaviour, and applaud the Dr Curtises of this world. On balance his benefit to the trans community is probably a lot better than that of the NHS as a whole. And it’s time to end the acceptability of editors and journalists to degrade a vulnerable sector of society, who are in part vulnerable because of them.

So much has been written, and much of it eloquently, in the last ten days, that surely the time has come. Because we have had enough.

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Semantic hegemony, if you know what I mean

  • Posted on July 5, 2012 at 11:38 pm

Sometimes things collide and I feel a small blog coming on. This one involves the proposition that, if gender had never been defined as strictly binary, and anyone could live anywhere in the spectrum they wished, would fewer people feel the need for a solely binary solution to their own gender identity?

A paper (‘Psychotherapy for Gender Identity Disorders’) by Az Hakeem was noted today, which proposed a form of group therapy to reduce gender dysphoria, where the author suggests that a body/mind disagreement can as equally be resolved by treating the mind or perception. His thesis that trans* people are more gender binary than cis folk is somewhat disingenuous of course, but he also proposes that sex is scientifically verifiable, whereas gender is a social construct.

Then a friend was enquiring about implications for reversing transition (which some do; it is why full transition is taken so cautiously and painfully slowly). Let’s face it, the road is very rough and the hatred and bigotry one meets requires an enormous resilience. Which is why I reckon I have never seen such generosity and such strength as I have among trans* people.

And then a relative (I have a very small extended family) that I was keeping in touch with over my own transition revealed a depth of bigotry such as I had not as yet encountered. One email a few months ago (no reply), then a helpful follow up yesterday, evoked thinly disguised hatred (or fear, I suspect) and a very commanding last word between us forever.

Finally, New Zealand is adding to the list of countries including a third gender on passports (Mx or X is used), which immediately presents non-binary or transitioning people as ‘other’, which, unless you are out and proud, and everyone is freely using a third gender in the day-to-day, is really not what you want.

And it’s all about semantics. Shared meaning and understanding.

As my last blog, words are everything when communicating. Lewis Carroll plays with this a lot in Alice in Wonderland (and Through the Looking Glass). Here is Humpty Dumpty:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’

So when we talk about gender (sorry, I do, rather a lot because it’s a conundrum to me too – I had much the same education as you) we fall immediately into what the user of the word means. All words are made up, so the problem arises when different people don’t agree about the meaning or definition of a word, and whether complimentary terms are absolute or relative (eg, black/white versus light/dark). The result is that for me to really mean ‘dark’ I might feel obliged to use the term ‘black’ (or vice versa if I want to be less absolute).

Male and female are the chief cultural terms for gender, and the rest are constructs (andro-gynous; gender-neutral/queer etc.) so it is rather difficult if you are comfortable in the middle (non-binary) but have to fill in forms with M/F. And then you ask why the telecomms company actually needs to know, or the DVLA (are we really all gender-stereotypical drivers?). And then you ask what gender is anyway (covered in earlier posts here). The etymology of the term isn’t helpful, but meaning ‘kind’ (ie, distinguishing men and women) goes back to about the 14th century, but only came to be really useful when the term ‘sex’ started to get embarrassingly common in the 20th century in terms of activity. So it isn’t really very specific.

Who wins, Humpty?

You could be heading for a fall when the egg-heads disagree with little Alice. Is it an academic thing, defined by researchers? Or is it a colloquialism? And oh dear, when you prefix it with ‘trans’ you really stir things up, because what one trans* person claims it for is not the same for another. So the construct of gender is not so much a mental or psychological status as a social consensus on behaviour and presentation.

So back to our little coincidence of events today. How can we decide whether gender dysphoria, that feeling of mismatch between an assigned binary term (absolutist male or female) is a mental disorder, a physical disorder, or simply over-prescription of the need to associate sex-identification (physiological) with gender identification (social – no, not psychological!)? Tricky ground, and one that elsewhere has created very strong feelings. Is there a disorder at all, or is it just that because we don’t accommodate the non-binary or ambiguous or mixed presentation and behaviour, we artificially create a problem that need not exist?

Well, I have met enough different people to think that there are firm clinical and/or genetic roots for real ‘gender dysphoria’ at a profound physiological level – a clear awareness that the body does not fulfill the needs and expression of the psyche in terms of sex-differentiation. But also enough to feel that trans-binarism is not the only answer, and is entirely unsuitable for others. Women behave and dress as men frequently, but we go ape when a man dresses and behaves as a woman (even well, so let’s leave out the bizarre) – this is not, in my mind, a clear case of gender dysphoria, but social and cultural dysfunction. People should be free, but not obliged, to identify as non-binary, and free to live anywhere else in the spectrum they feel most appropriate, and that should be respected.

When someone undertakes the real life experience of their preferred (non-assigned) gender they really are finding out what it would be like to always be ‘the opposite’, and it may not fit well enough. And for others, even full transition with complete surgery is not enough for them to overcome feelings that they were ‘born wrong’. So freedom to identify in a fluid way is the socially mature way to regard gender. And finally, if we can sort out the use of ‘gender’ and ‘transgender’ flexibly enough through not needing to be prescriptive, we need to discard absolutism.

The case of my family member (‘relative’ seems strangely appropriate now), in all likelihood, is seated in religion. God made man and created them male and female. Well, did god create me? So whose fault in quality assurance am I? Old Testament absolutism is so riddled with fallacy that I shan’t discuss it here, except to say that the world’s major religions are founded on peace and love, and those who betray that ideal on spurious interpretations of ancient literature, may have to choose whether or not to shake my hand at the pearly gates as Saint Peter (and god) look on! What if they do, what if they don’t … ?

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Miscarriage of justice

  • Posted on May 20, 2012 at 9:42 am

If you read much of what I write here you may be getting fed up with my love of metaphor. I think in pictures, because they make more at-a-glance sense. But they do of course only show one aspect of a truth, and if I tell a story about a house I don’t expect to have to work out where the loo is and what it means! So don’t stretch it too far …

Some time last year I began thinking about this as a concept for a poem. I did eventually write one, but I think I want to revisit it a lot more before I let it go. It has a depth of feeling that is difficult to convey in any other way, and yesterday I was reminded of it.

A young man was released yesterday, after his conviction for murder was quashed in the courts. People believed in him, fought in places he could not, and despite previous refusal to appeal, today he is back home for the first time in eight years. It makes me think: what was I doing, where was I, how old were my kids, eight years ago. Scary.

There may not be thousands of these cases each year, but there are too many, and every one a tragedy. As usual, it was a mixture of police incompetence, processes not being followed, disadvantage feeding opinion. And my thoughts last year were about the courtroom, the trial and the intense, exclusive loneliness of being an innocent defendant. Place yourself there now, set the scene (ever done jury service? It helps.) and feel yourself in it. There is a prosecution that has just one task, to do their best to prove that you are guilty. They are being paid very handsomely to do so, on the premise that if the defence cannot succeed, you must be guilty. Yes, it’s the ducking stool again in some ways.

There is your defence. These are people, equally well paid, who do not act out of any belief or knowledge in who you are, in what you are, or in what you may or may not have done. These too are mechanics of the court, dealing only with what they have been given, using it to best advantage to demonstrate at least a lack of convincing evidence against you.

Convince and convict. Persuade, overcome, vanquish. It is a battle, and you yourself are not even a combatant. You are already a prisoner. You get your say, but a lot of the time it is felt the professionals can say it better and more safely than you. And what you do say allows for no trips and stumbles, and when you have said it, it is just another piece of evidence with equal weight to every other utterance in the court. Imagine them, as the trial proceeds, as strips of paper being scattered over the floor. Some are partially true. Some are ambiguous. Many are irrelevant and a few are misleading, almost to the point of perjury. And there are spaces waiting for pieces that will never arrive.

You, as an innocent defendant, are the only person in that court who knows that your little, few, strips of paper are the truth. Everyone else may doubt to some degree, and all must balance your presentation of truth against everything else that has been said. Even the imputations and accusations, the seeds of doubt, the persuasive argument against you: they carry equal weight in this court.

You are the only person who has nothing to decide. What intense loneliness. We can only try to imagine what it must be like then, to be an innocent person, convicted, sentenced and incarcerated.

My truth

We do, of course, also know that many people in court have decided they are innocent because it wasn’t their fault, and they are there through neglect of responsibility, not doing the right thing, and becoming involved where they should not. There are those genuinely deluded about their actions. Each of these has an idea of their truth too, and it may quite rightly not be that of a court of law. That is not what I am painting a picture of. I am just trying to place you in the mind of a truly innocent person whose life is changed forever and irrevocably because even though they possess the truth, there is no way they can donate that knowledge to any other person. The truth is subservient to opinion, informed well or otherwise.

Each of us has our idea of the truth. It is our truth, and it is not out there somewhere. It is what keeps us safe and sane, and it is our foundation for living honestly. It is the security on which we can direct and change our actions, habits and preferences, and it is where we can release our other prisoners, those things we would like to be part of the truth, but cannot in honesty hang onto.

The context in which I first explored this feeling of being the only one in the world who knows the truth (and may come to doubt it because for everyone else it is just a discussion so maybe I am wrong after all), was of course me. In a sense I feel that I have undergone a miscarriage of justice, in which I too have been complicit, for 55 years (or as an articulate participant, for at least 50 years). And now I feel my conviction has been quashed.

Somewhere today a young man is trying to understand what it means to celebrate after eight years in prison. I expect he has very mixed feelings, with an open door, with people around him accusing him of nothing, with no preconceptions, and perhaps most of all, knowing he is no longer ‘not one of them’, the innocent among the guilty, who all presume he also is one of them. As he steps back out into the world, seeks employment, somewhere to live his own life, he will forever encounter people who think he must have done something wrong. He is an ex-con, quashed, released, or not. No smoke without fire, not ‘innocent’ just the lucky recipient of an unsafe conviction.

This week, I received another statement of unsafe conviction: my passport, marked ‘Sex: F’

It arrived a day after an unfortunate conversation, in which I was being told I was just a man underneath (they’re women’s clothes, you understand), and that for my own safety I should behave differently. I didn’t inquire as to whether this meant I should dress up as a man, in disguise, or that I should cross my legs rather than use the ladies’ loos, or whether I should go armed with a pepper spray, a rape alarm, and stick close to my Royal Marines colleagues. The threat? Supposedly, since I was playing in a band alongside children who all had ‘normal᾿ parents, I may be subject to transphobia. And for the sake of my own safety, I had better pretend that I am not a woman. Well, I stated my truth to these folk, I played a very enjoyable concert, the kids were brilliant, I helped all through the reception and interval at the raffle table. And no-one seemed to even notice me. OK, I did look rather lovely anyway – at least that’s what other people said to me!

The parallel? My miscarriage of justice is over, the assignment of ‘male’ is formally considered unsafe, and I am no longer wrongly assumed to be ‘one of them’. But everywhere there will be someone who remembers where I used to be in prison, who remembers that people are there for a reason, and who will not wish to be associated with me lest it damage their social status or sense of self. After all, I might be harmful. And it only takes one of them to call me a (potential, of course) pervert to another person, and they feel safe while actually placing me in danger. They are saying ‘I am afraid of what you are, so you had better carry a pepper spray’.

My truth? I don’t want it to be compared with all those little bits of evidence people might use to ‘balance’ what I say about my gender. It is my truth. But only I know it.

My door is open, I have people around me who helped me get out of jail. But it can still be very lonely.

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A lurking fear … of what?

  • Posted on May 14, 2012 at 9:46 am

Disclaimer. I would like this post to be read as a question mark rather than just a personal statement, and certainly not as a personal challenge to anyone, because it is important to so many people who undergo gender transition as part of a family. It is not a statement of right or wrong, it is an exploration.

So, I come out as transgender.

‘No! For goodness sake, I’m not gay!’

By which I mean, really, please understand that this is about gender, not sexual orientation. It’s about what I am, and it doesn’t change what I do. Am I so assertive only because it confuses things? I like to think so.

‘Well, are you a lesbian then?!’

Er, yes, I think that’s a good description, but I prefer the adjective to the noun.

The funny thing is, gender dysphoria still makes you question your orientation, how it might change, and compare it with people you’ve never really had to identify with before. Suddenly, instead of being a hetero male, I’m in another minority that might not wholeheartedly welcome my membership! I’m OK with that, actually, but it does something to other people. Being associated with me, then, does two things to other people. ‘I have a friend/husband/father/colleague who is a trans lesbian woman!’ Fame – or complication. So what does that make you? I am the daughter/friend/wife/colleague of … Oh dear. You didn’t ask for that, did you? And I am sorry – neither did I.

This thought-piece is not about what has been lost. We all lose something when gender comes into question, because we hung a lot of washing on that line. This is about what is not lost. This is about the person who has the gender dysphoria, who always had it but mostly hidden. And mine isn’t hidden any more.

It’s about that thought: Oh my goodness! What do I make you?

I would like to question whether I make you anything at all, other than someone who understand, loves, cares, empathises, stands by and so on. You are only what you willingly make yourself.

Homophobia

Alex Drummond, in her book Grrl Alex, recounts a conference speaker asking if members of the audience would be happy to read Gay Times openly on the train. We are not homophobic, are we? Not at all. But there is a hiccup in there for many of us. We describe the feeling as ‘being misunderstood’, not as being homophobic, heaven forbid!

So what is the fear? ‘I don’t dislike it, it’s just not me!’

Is that all? I wonder whether there is a fear, and a secondary fear too. Richard Beard in Becoming Drusilla (recommended reading!) records a sensation of ‘transphobia-phobia’, interpreting his discomfort of being with Dru (in her transitioning phase) in the presence of people who might be less than friendly. Yes, we are afraid of having to show we are unafraid to people who are afraid. People who are afraid, I suggest, that happy LGBT people undermine not just social order, but personal security in being ‘normal’.

‘What if I get too happy being with gay/lesbian/trans people and I feel too comfortable? Does that mean … that I might not be straight??! What will people think of me? What will I think of myself?’

Personally, I think it is vitally important that we come to understand exactly why we have any discomforts. Is it that we feel ‘unselfed’ by misidentification as something other people don’t always like? Or that we become a proxy target? Perhaps those discomforts are nothing more than our insecurities.

What I make you

I hope this isn’t an unfair thought experiment, but try it anyway, and don’t blame me if you don’t altogether like it. It’s about understanding, not about making decisions.

Disclaimer. Again, this is meant for people in relationships everywhere, struggling with this experience. Swap the genders round – it’s the same story.

You are lying in the dark with your lover. Their hand is gentle, and you trust it. The hand treats you with respect and with tenderness. It explores, it reassures, it loves. It feels safe. It feels good. Very good. And it is just as it has happened a thousand, ten thousand, times, catching you in all moods, interpreting you.

You are lying in the dark with your lover … you drift off to sleep, you awake. Their hand is … there, at rest. The sun has risen; you turn. And you see in your lover that something has changed.

Not their love, not their intent or respect. Not their eyes and the look in them when they meet yours. Not their hand. Not their tender kiss; not their tongue. These are all the same.

Your lover, you know (you may not see), has changed their gender.

This, you realise, is the hand of a woman. These are the eyes of a woman, the kiss and tongue of a woman. And their hand is … there. As it has thousands of times before. Respecting, loving, even worshiping … you.

What does this make you? Why does it give such discomfort? What is the fear? Do you feel drawn into a strange world from which you’ve always felt safe? And from all those ‘other people like this’ that you are being made to feel one of? Are you just afraid of being misidentified? When you lay there in the dark, before the sun rose, what was in your mind, or either of your hearts? Why was it so important, in this situation, your lover’s gender?

Here we are not looking at the procreative possibilities, they may be long past. No, we are talking about the expression of love. If the touch is not different, nor the intent, the love – what is the fear? What causes the tinge of distaste, and the – well – inappropriateness? What was it you liked, there in the dark? What is it really that you don’t like, in the risen sun?

(I like to end as I began:)

‘No! For goodness sake, I’m not a lesbian!’

By which you mean, really – what?

That accepting what is offered changes your sexual orientation? That it changes what you can and cannot do as an expression of human love? That it changes what you are?

And what is it, that you think changes you? The hand? Or you?

 

I only mean to encourage a deeper probing of why we are so unsettled by gender, and why, I suspect, homophobia (even heterophobia) and transphobia can lurk in every one of us. None of us changes anyone else without them being changed by their own fears and insecurities, not ours. Given how we have all been educated in the meaning of gender, it is quite understandable. And it is strong; strong enough to block the love intended or given in intimate spaces, often over many years. But that does not make it the only possible response, when we allow ourselves to reinterpret gender for a better fit. For all of us, it’s not about trying harder, it’s about letting go.

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Courage

  • Posted on March 25, 2012 at 11:55 am

As so often, several little things come together with a common theme, and invite reflection. This morning Jane Fae had written some comment for the Scottish Sun about her own experience of transphobic violence. Nothing new, and sadly commonplace. Last night Grrl Alex added to her blog ‘Familiarity breeds acceptance’, dealing with transphobia on trains. And yesterday, more fellow musicians told me how brave and courageous I was to come out by addressing the entire band.

All of this speaks of the motivation, the response and the inevitability or the trans life. As Jane said: ‘I’ve got used to a level of violence which, had you said to me this will happen every couple of months, I’d have been horrified.’ I can’t think that anyone would actually choose to be trans in a starkly gender binary society. But we don’t choose to be like this: it really isn’t anything to do with lifestyle. But do we have a choice at all? In a way, most of us have chosen for considerable time: to repress our true nature and live as best we can in the physically-apparent gender. Coming out trans is the result of giving up that choice. Hence what happens to us isn’t altogether avoidable if we want to live normally. So where was the courage? In the life lived-best-but-wrong, going against the current, trying daily to not feel uncomfortable, out of place as an outsider? Or in giving up and then taking whatever is cast at us? At best it is a different kind of courage.

Grrl Alex reflected on dealing with society’s curiosity, not just deliberate transphobia. We can forgive ignorance, but we can give understanding. A trans person on a train is cornered, and it does take courage to travel in a way that leaves you tremendously vulnerable and trapped. Alex’s book relates her own early experiences with trains, and I have had the feeling of surprise in going for a quiet late train, and arriving to find it was football night and packed with striped scarves. Again, no choice. But Alex raises the question of vulnerability and courage. If you act very ‘just leave me alone!’ you can become a target, whereas if you address the ignorant attacker honestly, confident in who you are, you can realise that the problem was really transphobiaphobia (coined perhaps by Richard Beard in Becoming Drusilla, which I recommend). So clearly an active courage can be a great help – so long as you want to be out and visible, and not pretend to be stealth (ie, so convincingly gender binaried that you are indistiguishable from cis-gendered people) when you are not. Alex resolves this by being herself (and I always hesitate at pronouns for Alex) and rather than being brave, is assertive (the blog and cover of the Grrl Alex book speak for themselves).

Which brings us to me. I chose on several occasions this past week, to stand up in front of between 30 and 40 people at a time who have long known me as a man, and effectively say ‘I am a woman’ – with a bit of explanation. For ages I scrubbed off nail varnish, changed my watch, as well as everything else, after a day lived as a woman, just to go and play the trumpet. And I admit there was no courage there. I tired of that, and soon people were noticing – even admiring – my choice of colours, which maybe matched a bracelet also left on. I relaxed. That wasn’t courage, it was just starting to be myself. And anyone who asked, increasingly got a direct reply that I was transgender. Was that courage? No, it was just getting safer to be honest. Compared with the first time I went out as a woman, speaking in public about myself as a woman was almost trivial. So I protest now that I am only doing what I have to do and that, being authentic, it is just being honest. I don’t have a choice, when the alternative is a denial of self.

So why am I so visible? Is it just that I can never be pretty enough to ‘go stealth’? Maybe age is on my side after all! No. I have shared with people around the world what it is like to be trans, and have found so many scared people, in very unforgiving circumstances, or in fear of what they might have to admit to themselves and to partners that, like Grrl Alex, I feel compelled, at least for now, to say ‘It’s OK to be trans. You don’t have to be a 100 per cent man or woman, indistinguishable from cis-gendered folk. This is part of normality and the way the world is.’

So if I show any courage at all, it is because I want to give a little more confidence to people who need it in order to realise themselves. I can’t make life easier for them or for me. This is tough. This can tear your emotions apart like nothing else. But it is OK, whoever in your life can’t cope with it. And it is far, far better than trying to pretend everything is fine in gender-land when it is not.

Courage is what you have when you enter a place, not where safety is not guaranteed, but where you are positively likely to get threatened. These are places we simply must eradicate, but they won’t go until trans people do stand up and be visible, be assertive, write in our newspapers, blog and live normal lives – like people of different races, or gay and lesbian and anything else between increasingly can.

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