Experiences of trans and gender diverse young people

I was brought up in a mixed-race household. My dad is from the north, well, not the north but—he’s English, basically. My mum is Chinese. And there were very big differences in culture. And I can’t speak with the views of every single person who was brought up mixed race or brought up in a mixed household or brought up maybe with ethnic parents. I mean, not ethnic. People of different ethnic backgrounds. I can’t speak for them. So, but from my—I know that some people share my experiences of there is very big differences in what’s socially acceptable and what isn’t. I think it’s just different cultures have different ideas of what’s appropriate. I know that for my mum it was really confusing, because she didn’t see it as like a mental health thing, because she just thought, oh my goodness, my child, it’s trying to, it’s becoming a man. What do I do? This is abnormal and it’s like my mum immediately thought, okay, I’m being influenced by the people around me and I think to a degree I was. But I was being influenced and I was not hanging out with the right people and I needed to be like taught what was right and what was wrong, because, you know, it was abnormal and it wasn’t right.

For my dad it was just like, bloody hell, oh no, what’s this? Like kind of, you know, but to be fair, I think both of them thought, okay, when it was first was broached in conversation it was like, oh, it’s like I’m 13 and it will grow out of it. This child will grow out of this and here I am, a couple of years later still just exactly the same, but you know, a bit older now. But definitely culture means that there’s different ways of trying to tackle it and deal with it in conversation. I know, one of my friends is a Muslim and when they found out, when they figured out and not found out like, surprise, I’m trans. No, when they slowly came to terms with like who they were. I’m not speaking to them anymore, but their parents I think absolutely lost it. Like I think they thought they were gonna be kicked out, but their parents just blew a fuse. They were very, very angry and I’m not in contact with them anymore, ‘cos I stopped being friends with them a while ago. It’s just, you know, different directions in life.

We just didn’t really talk very much. Over time and I think their parents did make the effort to try find information online and try find support for it, because [coughs] there are resources available and their parents were actually very lovely in the sense that they tried to accommodate and they tried looking at resources and the last thing I heard was their parents were trying to apologise for how they reacted and they were trying to help, to a degree and figure out how to figure it out, if that makes sense. And, I don't know, it’s because everyone is brought up differently. I found that western culture is much quicker to accept immediately, no questions asked, oh my goodness, okay, are we gonna like refer you to—at least from what I’ve heard. I know that that’s not the same case for everyone. But from my experience like a lot of the western like parents will almost immediately like, they’ll either accept it or they’ll take a few weeks, but they’ll come round to it a lot quicker than other cultures would.

I think, obviously It’s gonna be hard for most people with like devout religious parents to come out to them especially if they’re not accepting of the idea of transgenderness in general. But I think the hardest thing about, for me, coming out to my parents were not so much my parents’ ability to accept it or wrap their head around it. It was the preoccupation they had with the specific kind of like mosque or church or temple culture where everyone knows everyone else’s business. It’s very much more about appearances than it is about what their actual feelings are and I think that’s something to maybe look out for that if your parents are Muslim and they react badly, it maybe doesn't mean that this is how they feel about you personally. This maybe, this whole idea that there is a big idea in Muslim communities of well not losing face, I guess. I think this is why I didn’t come out for a long time because I felt like I couldn't do it to my parents and that was one of my main reasons that I didn’t come out for so long, because I felt like it was something I was doing to my parents. You kind of have to distance yourself from that and realise that you aren’t doing anything to your parents by being who you are and it’s their decision if they want to care about how they come across to other people or not. If they think you are ruining their reputation, hopefully they are eventually gonna realise that this is not the important things in life.

With my family I still haven’t come out. I don’t speak to my Dad any more so it’s not really an issue on that front. With my Mum for a very long time I just felt no need to, I think in part just being south Asian like it’s, it, because of the different like cultural understanding of like sexuality and gender, I suppose it’s just, it’s never felt like something that she really needs to be aware of, unless like you know I’m in you know a serious relationship with you know somebody where I would need to sort of tell her, like oh I’m queer or I’m trans. But over the last like couple of years I think I’ve started to think about it a bit more, just because I think there’s a part, like I think that she we have a complicated relationship, but I do often think that she would really appreciate knowing who I am, as a whole.

And have been testing the waters a bit more recently I suppose, you know, I guess like something that we have in our culture, you know we have a third gender identities she grew up with a lot of trans people in [country], so she has that awareness, and almost in a way it makes, especially being non-binary easier, because there’s already a concept of like gender beyond a binary. The thing that I think makes me hesitate is mostly just that I think, I don’t think she’d be, you know super hostile about it, or anything like that, but I think that she would have a lot of questions and because our relationship is quite complicated I worry about the emotional impact I suppose of like how is she presenting these questions, and I, if she starts worrying about you know how, how I’m going to live in the world as a trans person, you know then she, you know things might get a bit more negative I suppose. I think, you know I think my brother knows that I’m queer, we’ve never explicitly spoken about it, but I mean, I’d be shocked if he hasn’t picked it up by now.

And then with everybody else like I’ve never felt the need ever to hide my sexuality. Gender stuff I’m a lot more cautious about, because I’ve had a lot more negative experiences, I think. You know I’ve never experienced you know anybody who’s ever had like a negative reaction to you know my queerness, has not been anyone important to me, it’s always just been you know someone being a dick in a pub or whatever, and you can just, you know, tell them to go away. But with the gender stuff, like yeah, I dunno, like even small things, like I was dating someone for a while who was cis, a cis guy and like he, I remember just casually saying like, you know I’ve had like some you know screen name or something that was a different name to my own, and like you know I mentioned in passing that like it’s, what I called like my genderqueer name right, like a name that I was sort of almost trying out, or like a name that to me felt you know genderless. And he just laughed about it, and that was at a moment where it was like, “Oh like I’m dating this guy,” and like, and he knew, like I’d told him like I identify as genderqueer, but him like laughing in that moment made me immediately feel like oh he doesn’t see, he doesn’t see me as anything other than a cis woman though. Like, and so I think experiences like that where it’s like people, you know I live in [city] so I think generally speaking people are a bit more open socially. I think people are happy to be around queer people, trans people. I think with the gender stuff though, and with being trans, I’ve experienced a lot of people are happy to hear you say you’re non-binary or genderqueer or whatever, but if they don’t have to change anything, if they don’t have to use different pronouns for you, if they don’t have to you know, if they’re looking at you and can read you as X, then in my experience they’re just going to brush off anything you’ve told them about your identity.

And that’s quite, that’s been quite hard. I recently was working a second job, where I came out at work, which was the first time that I’d done that, and still you know it’s some, you know sort of everyday misgendering I suppose, but in general like it, it helped a lot to see like my manager had briefed people, and like people apologised and corrected themselves, and yeah, I’m hoping that I’m hoping that it was just become more mainstream and easy for people to understand, but like, yeah.

My background is Chinese Vietnamese first generation, sorry second generation so both my parents are yeah sort of first generation migrants from China and Vietnam and grew up sort of quite a, I would say quite conservative but also yeah I don’t know my mum’s like now a Pastor and she’s always been religious so growing up she wasn’t a Pastor but she was very involved in the church and so the sort of like influence of that was quite big in my life so both my parents were quite involved in the church and I think I didn’t really have much exposure to sort of queer or trans identities growing up until I was probably like sort of end of High School. And I think probably the first time I saw any sort of bisexual representation I was immediately like okay that’s me yeah I see, I had no hesitation I immediately felt like sort of seen by that. So I didn’t really I don’t think I ever really struggled with like coming to terms with my sexual orientation or my sexuality, that always made a lot of sense but then in terms of my gender I think because I never really saw any Trans men like I wasn’t aware of them I think there’s a real problem with invisibility in Trans men and like the fact that most Trans men sort of live under the radar and it’s just not something that’s like well, say like a sort of paradox of like Trans men being really invisible and Trans women being hyper visible and how that’s like policed in society so I think, you know, I probably did encounter Trans men growing up at some point but I just, you know, I don’t think I was ever aware of it and so that was never something that crossed my mind I might be a Trans person actually.

In my mum’s Indian soaps there were a few characters that were, well very few but still I remember being very shocked because there was a group of people in India called Hijra people. I don’t know if you are—yeah. So, they were like these hijra characters in the soaps that my mum was watching, which was very confusing to me as a child because I didn’t know exactly they were. But I could see that they were some sort of gender queer characters. She seemed quite happy to watch something that had them in it and which portrayed them in a positive light. That is when I think it, I at least acknowledged that it wasn’t 100% taboo.

Hijra people are people I think almost exclusively people that are born male that grow up and then realise that they are gender queer. There is a concept mostly located in India probably places in Pakistan as well. They, it’s traditionally starts out as people being queer men. And then identifying more as female and recognising themselves as being part of a hijra community. There is a lot of traditions associated with them as well. I think in some villages it’s traditional for them to show up before like childbirth or weddings to celebrate this joyous occasion. But their role in society very interesting because they are not, they are not like a plague on society at all. They co-exist with villages and like even very traditional mindsets. They are just an accepted part of queerness in those areas where they exist.

I mean like growing up, and stuff like obviously I’m from India so a lot of the time the Hijra Community and that kind of, like there’s a slur that that they use in Tamil which is ombothu, which literally means the number nine, and it’s like it’s meant, it’s meant to be demeaning and derogatory and like showing like, and it’s specifically for AMAB trans folk who present trans feminine. And it’s, yeah and there there’s a lot of like stigma associated and there’s, because in India a lot of those, a lot of trans people live in poverty, like extreme poverty, and obviously for like even a man there’s a worry that like you know I’d end up in that kind of situation, my biggest worry was also in India at the time when I was trapped, like if I came out like where would I go? Cos there was no real, like I know the UK support’s not great either, but like in comparison it’s miles better. Like there’s no legal, real legal protection until recently and you know like there’s just, it was scarier, like the only idea of trans people existing I had in India at the time, was like you know trans people in poverty. So that was just a genuinely frightening thing.

And then, yeah, and like a lot of the time it’d be like obviously exposure to trans people in general in media and stuff was always kind of negative or the butt of a joke, even in, and I know that, it wasn’t like I was just consuming Western media either, I was also consuming the media from like, from mother tongue and that stuff. So even then it’d be played off as a joke and stuff like that.

And so yeah it was just, it was tricky and that was one of the biggest worries I had, like coming out, was like I’d be seen as a joke, or a caricature of like, well just I’d be seen as like a mockery of the, of a woman I guess. And that was just kind of like, it was demoralising, it was a large part of the reason like I struggled so much to tell my family, and I struggled so much to even like think about transitioning, because there was such a road block of, what if I’d look hideous I guess, like you know, and it sounds weirdly superficial, but in, it really did mean like, I meant like I don’t want to, like I, I didn’t want to hate myself more than I already did, if that makes sense, like, you know. And that’s just like, like you become accustomed and you’d be like oh yeah, I can get by with this, with this body and look, I guess, for now.

I have recently been really interested in thinking about Asian masculinity like how as Asian men were desexualised on like dating Apps and in the media, like absence in the media especially in gay culture, no fats, no femmes, no Asians, you know, that sort of culture. And how like my experience as a someone who socialised as female is like I was hyper sexualised and like, you know, men were always attracted to me and they would always like sort of like pursue me like really doggedly and it was like, quite like, you know, it felt really like dehumanising in another kind of way. And so as a sort of like binary yeah as a binary male like that feels quite strange then to like feel quite invisible in certain kind of spaces in terms of like desirability and so there’s kind of this weird like sort of quandary and so that’s really interesting. I’m also sort of interested in like historical like historical Asian masculinity and what that looks like because I think there’s so little representation about like what is Asian masculinity like we’re not, that I didn’t grow up with much of a sort of other than like direct family members I didn’t grow up much with a sort of spectrum of what that’s meant to look like.

I recently went to Vietnam and I just like pass, people were like asking me if we had kids like that was, this is like sort of like, that was quite unexpected for me because you know, like every one’s the same build and like everyone’s the same height and I’m used to being like read as femme or faggy in some kind of way like and then I’ve just like got read as like a normal man [laughter] a bit like as a straight cis man and that was kind of weird. So it’s just kind of like just think about like how all these things intersect and like how societal expectations how much they’re constructed by ethnocentricity, yeah. so like even like the whole idea of like being femme like that is something that I choose to put on as an affectation and, you know, like I get discriminated for that sometimes and like, you know, like people hurl abuse at me or something like that, you know but like it’s kind of interesting to think that I always assume that that was inherent in the way I look, but it’s not its’s actually if I go to Asia I get read as like a sort of like very standard cis straight man actually so, which is really interesting to me like how much we racialise male bodies, like Asian men as effeminate in like sort of Western culture.

So prior to colonisation there were a number of societies across Africa across the Americas across Asia that didn’t hold gender in the same regard as the European or Westernised ideals did and so a lot of societies had multiple genders or had third genders had people that referred to themselves as like two spirits people were always, have always been complicating gender as soon as gender became a thing to complicate. Because it, it just doesn’t make sense that everybody falls into a category that’s either this or either that and so yeah across those across those places gender has always been something that is very complicated and complex and not binary.

So I always say being trans is one thing, but being black and trans is a totally different ball game.  You know I’ve experienced everything, racism, discrimination through jobs, through healthcare services. Even in [city], not my GP, just the A&E. The way they treat me, it's just unreal. It just feels like, you know they don't see me as a person, like everyone else.  I just always feel like I'm not allowed to have a bad day, I have to be perfect in order to be treated with respect I have to be perfect. If I do one thing wrong I am severely punished or I am treated extremely badly and that puts a lot of pressure on me and a lot of pressure on my mental health. And it also affects the way I see other people, like I try not to prejudge a situation but it's always in the back of my mind because of constant experiences. Even up to this year, constant experiences where I can see the other people have been treated differently to me. Like say for example, I went to A&E, this was this year. And basically, I'll cut the story short, I'm exempt from wearing a mask due to underlying health conditions and my anxiety. So at this point in time I just really wasn't in a great way. I was in there and I just kept, they just kept saying to me “We're not going to treat you if you do not wear mask”. And I said to them “I'm happy to wear a mask when I get up and and go one-on-one with the consultant etc. But while I'm waiting, I’m social distanced from other people, like I’m exempt from the mask”. And they kept on asking me, “why are you exempt from the mask?” They just basically just for some reason didn't believe that I could be exempt from a mask. So as a consequence, the security, basically I had security and police officers harassing me, around me, asking me “why am I exempt”? “they don't believe me” etc. And in the end, they said “I had to leave” so the nurse she came up to me with painkillers and she said to me “she's not treating me unless I wear a mask”. And obviously I stood my ground, I just said “At the end of the day, it's my right not to wear a mask because I'm exempt. You can check my file” I said, “I give you permission to check my file”. I had the exempt thing on my phone that you can download, I just didn't have the lanyard. So the government guidance says you don't have to have a lanyard, you can have the thing on your phone. You don't have to explain why you’re exempt. And you know in the end I was forcibly removed by the security for basically being exempt from a mask. And then what happened was after that, I sort of came back and I agreed to wear mask and what happened was when I went in I saw a young white girl with no mask because she was exempt. And what they had told me was even exempt people have to wear the mask. So of course, I you know, what else am I going to think? And after that whole incident I was treated really badly, the way I was spoken to was really bad and I was waiting over double the time that you're supposed to. And in the end I just ended up just going home because I literally couldn't take it anymore. That's how bad it was, I couldn't take it anymore. Baring in mind I was sent there by 111, so it got to that point where I just literally couldn't take the awful treatment. The way that people were speaking to me, the way that they was making me wait longer than everyone else. And yeah I did put in a complaint but of course nothing gets done about it. But they, you know from that incident they have apologised to me via email. But I said to them that I want to take it further and they said to me that they have kept the CCTV from when I was forcibly removed. So I want to take action but they said they've kept it but they haven't given it to me as of yet and this happened in maybe June time. So I'm trying still trying to pursue that now but this is an example of how I get treated differently to others when I go to certain places. It's apparently not possible for a young black man, I don't know whether they knew I was trans or not, but I don’t know, you know it's not possible for me to be exempt. But it's possible for a young white girl to be exempt.  And then for them to lie and say “Well every person who is exempt has to wear mask” to try and get me to wear a mask, it's just not great. So yeah it is hard, it is very hard but you know there's not much that I can do except for try and stay true to myself I guess. And anyone else feeling that just try to stay true to yourself because these people are really not worth it honestly.

So why didn’t you like this one of the professionals?

Oh [laughter] he was just, I just didn’t like his attitude he was, he said something weird like I felt like he said something weird about like my race and I was just like yeah you’re, you’re not the one I can’t remember exactly what it was that he said but it was something about like whether I’m gonna keloid scar or not but like the way he said it was like hella unnecessary and like other practitioners spoke to me about like keloid scarring in like black communities and like in like Irish communities or whatever but the way that this one said it I just felt really uncomfortable and was like you didn’t need to, that was like quite uncalled for. And then like when I took off my top and like for him to do his examination like the first thing he was like, honestly like a professional, he was like ‘Oh those are big aren’t they?’ I was like you’re fucking kidding me [laughter] I can’t believe I still paid the man, but yeah it was, it was horrific, it was horrific, I was like this guy is something else.

And then also like pregnancy is something that I consider like within my transition and like something that I might do like later on in my life innit and so I wanted to know about a procedure called like button hole where they like keep whatever the duct that in, that you can chest feed and so I asked him about it and like fair enough if like whatever you’re like because of like the size that they can’t do it like cool just tell me that, be professional about it, cool, but he said that in like quite a uncomfortable way and then he went on to be like ‘Well I think you really need to consider this because I do think like breast feeding is very important for a child and so whether you want to do this now or whether you want to do this later is something I think you really need to consider’. I was like [laughter] you’re actually wild [laughter] I was like this is not okay like how are like how are you telling me like, I was just, I was shocked honestly.

Yeah, I think medical racism, especially, I think one could possibly put more emphasis on that in a way, especially with the way of our current culture, but like it is a genuine thing like, like you know these archaic text books as well, that kind of thing, but also just the understanding of like that there is differences in the sense of what ethnicity means, and like risk factors and stuff like that.

But there’s also like things which are just not true or like, and it’s kind of it’s tricky especially, like I just, especially like there’s the issue of like I haven’t really experienced it myself but I know other PoC women have, and it’s kind of like where their pain is not taken as seriously and it’s a serious issue of like I can’t, oh, it’s happen, it happens in America, or there’s so many documented cases now, but like it happens here too.

But like I said, like a cis black woman will go into a surgery or something and they’ll, she’ll say like “I’m having crippling like abdominal pain,” or something like that and they’ll be like, “Oh it’s just your period,” but, and then it’ll be like they’ll go home and then it’ll still continue, days and it’s like well the doctor said it was my period so I’ve got to, like what else am I going to do at this point? And like it’ll turn out to be something very serious, and it’s kind of like, it’s taking that pain seriously I guess, and like really asking about what, what issues, like what, what, like taking to an extent, because there is like a, and it’s partially due to how, like society works on the fence of, because we live in a society that benefits white people. It just is.

And so a lot of PoC learn to hide pain, if that makes sense. They learn to like minimise the pain they’re feeling. So, a lot of the time it is kind of understanding about like when they’re saying they’re in pain, they are in pain. Because a lot of the time like, so I think it’s, the thing that best explains it, trying to explain this is like white people will, if they get ill with just almost anything, a lot of the time they will just rush to the doctor, like straight up, and that’s because they feel comfortable and confident doing so.

But whereas PoC on the other hand tend not to, and that’s pure, that’s due to like the issues of racism and and it’s because it’s become a weird cycle. And it’s kind, to kind of break that cycle essentially is like for doctors to understand and, like empathise with us that, and also kind of like just like take the kind of pain seriously, and stuff like that. Like I know I’ve been bad for it, I’ve minimised my own pain, even though like I should go to the doctor for something, like you know, and I’m terrible for it in the sense of like I’ll tell other people to go to the doctor for it, but when it comes to myself I’ll minimise it for myself because like I don’t want to put, I don’t want to be a burden essentially, that’s the issue, and like a lot of, it’s kind of an entrenched kind of, well I don’t know, maybe it’s a thing within, I guess it is, it is a thing within like PoC communities where like the sense of being a burden is an, a worry, especially on like, because like on your family or something. Like you don’t want to add more cost or anything like that, or like cause more issues and that’s, that’s the thing that you kind of want to avoid.

But yeah medical racism is something that’s, needs to be taken seriously, especially when it’s, especially now, with not only the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, but also Covid, it’s terrible. It’s like so many of like the front, like we don’t know quite why, we know to an extent, but obviously studies are gonna be, there’s still going to be ongoing way after this but like as preliminary stuff shows that like BAME people are more effected by Covid, and the theory is that it’s because that BAME people seem more expendable as front line workers, and I really hope that isn’t the case, but it seems more and more likely. But I also want to like people to understand, especially with the word BAME, because that’s the way that it’s, that they using an acronym, and it’s like, the, it means, it’s a meaningless word in medicine really, it really is, because like in medicine, like BAME covers too many ethnicities for it to actually matter.

Like it’s not, like we talked about it on the panel but something like DVT affects people with more melanin differently to from people with less, you know like and so it is very much like a complete useless word in term of medicine, so when people like, so like yeah it’s, and want like skin conditions and things appear differently on like and people like it’s a common, a common thing that PoC people will minimise, like heart attacks, like pain from heart attacks. And say that it’s like less, and like you know and that can cause a risk factor. So it’s like trying to, it’s a hard, it’s a hard thing, especially for something like pain, to understand that like it is, because it is very subjective in a sense, but like it’s too, it’s trying to make it a bit more relatable to your own pain scale, if that makes sense. And try and say like, when we’re doing like the one to ten pain scale, like when, when you say like, ‘Oh ten is like crippling pain,’ is the same kind of crippling pain that they’re feeling in a way, like is that what they mean? But yeah, that’s about it really.

They’re just like, so they give you this like, you can this talk, okay so they, they, it’s like this group, group talk about like what to expect and what to go, and like, and they give you these guidelines about, mostly about dilating and but they kind of treat you like you won’t know how to wipe your own arse after having surgery. And yeah which is, is really, I guess is quite patronising. And yeah it just, it just seems quite, it seems quite ridiculous and they give you like an, a hygiene regime which is like, like really intense and it involves using quite harsh chemicals, I had a really bad reaction to those chemicals. And they couldn’t, they like didn’t really clock that that was what was happening. they, yeah, and just like saturated with whiteness, like I got, they show you like this like, this is not, obviously not exactly what they’re called, it’s like a big book of vaginas, or whatever, of like a big book of vulvas, in terms of like cosmetic appearances after surgery. And I think it was like they’re all, like people, like white people’s like post op vulvas, and I was like, “Oh, this is, is this, does this say something about like trans people of colour not getting the healthcare that we need? Or is this just like the classic like whiteness is a, you know, the blinkers of whiteness, not paying attention to lack of diversity.” Yeah, I could, I could go on, and like but I could go deeper into like what kind of, yeah, it was just like very, very weird like, it felt like very not like, it’s almost like pre-third way feminist ideas of like what, what gender is, is around this surgery. Yeah, it was not so, not, not prepared for like how, to encounter that degree of like gender conservatism again, after so long, you know having not, not really engaged with the GIC as a site of gender conservatism for a while.

I think in general, there’s, especially in the gay male community is not the best for anti-racism or even queerness honestly. There is a lot of, you know, patriarchal bullshit in the gay male community and a lot of people that are unwilling to acknowledge that a preference can be racist and your preference are maybe predisposed by your racist upbringing or like your idea that you are not attracted to any black people, any brown people is maybe more than just, you know, a harmful preference, a harmless preference. That thing is hard. It’s hard to also kind of feel like you’re educating people on issues of racism, especially ‘cos some people who are queer are convinced that they do not have any issues because obviously they’re queer. They are a minority themselves. So then, they are not willing to accept that they can still also even be homophobic even while being queer, like those are things to look out for and have patience with but any, that’s the main thing I think, the preference thing that people don’t recognise as it’s more than a preference. It’s pretty difficult. But other than that, it’s not been the worst.

I think I learnt about it as something quite separate to myself before I was able to allow it to be something that I can accept within myself. And so learning about it through like the internet and seeing a lot of representation especially of black Trans feminine people or Trans women and just like looking at their experience and just thinking like yo this is lit like how, I just was like you’re, you living in your truth like that’s a really beautiful thing. And then making friends as well that were like Trans feminine and going to like their events or like holding events for them to come and speak and that kind of stuff has been like a massive part of me like learning about gender. And then just having conversations with people that identify outside of cis binary gender has been like massive and just seeing I think when I was first able to like in real life see representations of black Trans masculine people was when I was able to kind of transfer that learning as something that was outside of me to something that was inside of me. And that was like, that representation even though I don’t always believe in representation politics as something that is gonna save the world but it’s something in that sense that really like helped me and like allowed me to live in my truth.

Seeing a black Trans masculine person allowed me to see myself in the Trans community because I guess the most representation, the main representation of Trans people I saw were either white in general like Trans feminine or people that were just like right at the end of their transition, well not right the end because it’s a process but that, I never really see people on the journey of transition and yeah I saw a few like pregnant white men in like newspapers and stuff but I never really understood and like it was, because whiteness is often something that I see so divorced from myself it’s like this is like as in a lot of cultures like my, like my own this is something that is white like Transness is white like being gay as white all that kind of stuff and to be able to break that dichotomy of who is allowed to exist in those spaces was what I needed in order to feel that I could also exist in that space. And so then following a lot of black Trans masculine people on like Instagram has been like massive and just watching them live their life, it allows you to feel not like an outcast, it allows you to feel like a part of something, it allows you to feel as, not as hard on yourself and as like ostracised because it’s so easy to feel ostracised within your community. And to feel like you’re the only one and to feel like only one is to, to feel like an outcast is to feel othered is to feel like, no there’s something wrong about you, about you and so to see that representation both in real life and online has been like transformative.

So yeah it's not easy, I've been through the works with it but you need to stay true to yourself. It's not easy because a lot of people and especially in the BAME community come from backgrounds of tradition and strong religious backgrounds and culture, so often this type of thing is not accepted. So my, I haven't spoken to my mum in coming up 5-years in March because obviously when I told her it, she was just kinda like “why do you want to do that? Why do you want to do that? And I just said to her, you know “speak to me when you're ready?” and I haven't heard from her since. And that for me has obviously been very very, it's been quite damaging in terms of, think about how much you grow within 5 years so you know I'm nearly 30 now, so yeah it is tough but you just have to appreciate the people around you. And you know, just remember you can't control other people, how other people act and other people's decisions but you can control how you react and how you get on with your life. So you know it is tough but you know we've got to keep going. Like, the best thing, the best thing that we can do, the best revenge is to live our lives to the fullest and let them watch on the sidelines. When we become our best people, when we become the best people that we can be, the people that were supposed to be they are going to sit there on the sidelines and not get to enjoy that with you. So don't worry about that, don't worry.

I think that I think that BAME Trans people need to be prioritised in sort of like all aspects of life like really like, you know, for equity to exist like people need to make sure to platform us, to sort of share our story, [video glitches a few times] to listen to our experiences, to you know more funding opportunities I’m trying to start a especially because of sort of Covid related xenophobia I’ve started, a East Asian, and South East Asian Trans support network and we’re trying to get some sort of seed funding I really want to work, we have a specific sort of interest in the sense that like we all feel like there’s queer East Asian people kind of written out of history because of sort of like the cultural erasure of queerness in those communities, in those cultures and so that’s something I’m deeply invested in but I’m also really interested in working and advocating for sort of Trans femme sex workers and beauty industry workers in South East Asia I think who were disproportionately like sort of like affected by Covid and like out of work and homeless and like sort of working in unsafe situations. So I just really think that there needs to be a big focus on like asking BAME Trans people what we need because we’re the only ones that are gonna be able to tell you, you know, what our concerns are and how we’re disproportionately affected. And also just to showcase more individual stories because I feel like there’s sort of like very prescriptive ways to which our people envisage what a Trans narrative looks like and I think if you’re black or working class or disabled or brown your experience of being a Trans person is going to be just like sort of vastly different from you know, white middle class trans person and actually unfortunately those are the narratives that we see most of, those are the people that are sort on the media like being exposed people those are the people that are represented like on like television. Academia as well is full of white, like middleclass Trans people, that’s a whole sort of field in itself like that sector is overly saturated with like sort of white people. So I think really like [laughter] just yeah platforming yeah black and brown writers who are Trans who are telling you about our experiences and like saying this is what we’re going through, this is how it intersects with race and class is really important and, you know, people who care like should be championing that by like sharing stories and making films and putting funding into it.

It just terrifies me the fact that there are people who, who don’t have the privilege and the benefits that I have, trying to co-ordinate all of this and have these conversations. Like if I think it’s hard, I dread to think what it’s like for other people who feel more disempowered and don’t have the privilege that I have, you know. I think even going in, even walking into a room you know me being a white person, and speaking to a white healthcare professional, race is something I never think about, race is never something that, that makes me feel disempowered, whereas for somebody else, for somebody who isn’t white that can, that could be totally disempowering immediately, before you’ve even said anything.

So, there are privileges I have on a number of levels that I recognise that help me feel empowered before I walk in a room, and even I come away feeling small and invalidated sometimes. So I think, yeah, there’s a lot to be said really for power dynamics and certainly there’s a, there should be a responsibility on professionals I think when they’re speaking to trans people in particular to think about that power. They should be thinking about that anyway, but yeah that, I think it’s particularly pertinent and when it comes to supporting trans patients.

I think I’m in a very privileged position because I’m from like a white middle class family and I think that, if that’s what you mean, I think like going to my GP and knowing exactly what to ask for and being someone that like is lucky in that I’m white and like I kind of come across quite articulate, I think I kind of got a better reaction, I mean she still didn’t know what she was talking about but she like found out whereas I think if I’d have come from like maybe a different background or been more unsure or not, maybe not been with the University health service GP it would have been a really different experience. So I think I’ve been luckier than others.

I think the systemic sort of structuring of healthcare at the moment is completely inadequate. Let’s not get it wrong. This is one of the best countries in the world to be trans in. It’s still like yeah, as I’m fond of saying, I’ve got it pretty much as good as it comes and it’s still really hard.

You are talking about as it comes in terms of financial—

I’m white. I’m privately educated, more than that, I’m a medical student. I know how to navigate a consultation. I know what I’m entitled to. I know how to ask questions. I know how to seek out services. I know what I can work out for myself how to self-med and how to do that as safe it is possible to do without any medical sort of interventional blood taking laboratorial sort of, you know, oversight. I know where all the services here are. I’m highly educated. I’m, you know, other than having pretty severe mental health issues, right, you know, I’m well supported. I’ve got a good support network. I’m, you know, English speaking you know, well spoken, whatever else you wanna say, right. And it’s still really difficult.

We cannot have a white middle class narrative being the thing that drives what it is to be trans. Some of that is access to the history and information about the fact that you know women of colour, transwomen of colour have always been at the heart of the trans right movement, is very important. And I think highlighting people, you know people like Asifa Lahore, and they’re sort of, heard her story of coming from like a Muslim background and the challenges of that as a trans woman, and the intersections of those things. I think these are the narratives that need to be out there more. That’s not to say that obviously there aren’t the, that white people don’t have intersections but I feel like there’s a certain amount of the, I’ll be honest, there’s a certain amount of white people who are like me, where I’m like fine, our narratives are not particularly interesting or particularly driven, and I’m not particularly representative of many people. Whereas I think there are other stories that are more interesting and deserve to be told. And I think it’s the job of trans folk to make sure that we remember that not to take up spaces that belong to other people. That we can amplify the voices of people who are intersections of more than one minority. Because that’s also going to be really important for kids. I think, I think we need, we need some real heroes and I think we need to be able to see that like you can grow up and you can be happy and beautiful and successful, and also have issues with mental health and also be going through medical transition, and you can be imperfect and you can also be an entire person. And I think that’s something that kids should be able to aspire to. You know I think people like Munroe Bergdorf, the way that she handles criticism and the stuff that she’s gone through, and yet somehow managed to do it with, with an incredible amount of grace, I think is a great example if you’re a young black trans woman.