Calls for more funding are an understandable and desperate plea for improvements to the only system we’ve known. But funneling more money into a system which continues to fail us is not the answer.
Author: TransActual Editor
But when I started to transition medically, it took a lot longer than other transgender people. When I asked for treatment, I had to wait a long time. They asked me loads of questions, like “you have a learning disability, so do you understand what transgender means?” Someone told me I couldn’t possibly be trans, because it was “too complicated for me.”
I let the nurse persuade me to make an appointment for a check up and went along to the trans specific clinic. I live in London so actually had a choice of two trans specific clinics to go to. I think it being a trans specific clinic made it better somehow. I didn’t have that fear of being misgendered, judged or pitied. I knew that my genitals wouldn’t faze them. There is no way I would have gone to my GP surgery for a smear.
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Why the census matters
Census data matters. It is the basis on which government decisions – including the allocation of resource and spending decisions – get taken. No trans data, no dosh. Well: not quite. But it makes the arguing for all manner of things, from subsidies to protection from discrimination that much more difficult. And that is exactly why not just Donald Trump, but anti-trans groups in general have been straining every single propaganda muscle they have to get trans people either removed from census or at very least marginalised into insignificance.
It’s a difficult time to be a trans person in the UK. Over the last couple of years we’ve faced a relentless torrent of negativity in traditional media, social media and in the political arena ranging from misinformation to downright hostility. It is wearing to have one’s identity constantly denied, to be ‘othered’, mocked and portrayed as a threat to others. That’s why having allies is so important.
As my 27th birthday came and went, I gradually opened up, learned the words to express what I felt inside, and came to terms with my trans queer self. A future that previously seemed incomprehensible began to enter my sightlines, and I eventually came out as a trans woman.
What I didn’t see coming, was the warm glow of maternal desire I’ve felt in my body since turning 30. I’ve not medically transitioned, and the visceral depth of these feelings has taken me by complete surprise.