Trans Twitter Topics

So I got a DM from a trans woman asking advice about how to build the strength and confidence I display on Twitter in the face of the challenges we go through. Violence, homelessness etc.

Okay, so let me share this with you all.

Firstly, you must know that what you see on twitter is an edited, stylised, exaggerated image of a person.

We all have a public face and a real face.

I am no different.

Secondly, I want to acknowledge my privileges. I am a well educated, white, l middle class, English woman living in places where access to services are (or once where) available. I had a strong career before I transitioned.

I am also intersex, so my transition was fast.

That said, my transition story features a lot of the traumatic experiences we go through.

Sexual assault, police brutality, police corruption, homophobia, harassment, death threats, transphobia in the workplace, systemic trans exclusion and homelessness.

I lost friends and family, my marriage, my job stability and, of course, I handed in my privilege card, so have all the bullshit that goes along with that.

It has been a six year ordeal.

But here is the thing.

Ordeals shape you.

You get tougher, you get wiser, you get smarter and you get kinder.

And I knew that even if I didn't think I could handle it, the woman I was going to be in a few years, well, she could. She was awesome. And she was coming to help.

With transition, you make a trade.

You trade in dysphoria and that zombie like unlife you are living.

What you get back is a world that suddenly is against you.

It is a huge shock to the system. It is hard. Gruelling, and requires a massive shift in the way you think and deal with those challenges.

You are moving the challenge from interior, to exterior.

An exterior challenge is an environmental one. So your defenses need to be environment based.

Your environment and the people in it need to be ready to help you make this change.

I would have, and I am not exaggerating, been dead without my friends and fans.

Income which one flowed easily for me dried up, contacts I relied on for work vanished, clients who loved me for years suddenly turned on me.

Friends, former students, people I had helped in my pre transition years gave me beds, food drops, money, meals and hope.

I cannot begin to list the people who helped me below but I remember it all.

It was them that made me who I am today.

I am confident of two things. I know my craft, and I know I have amazing friends.

I am funny because my humor was forged to survive dark times.

If we can fight for a better understanding of what transgender people actually are, tell our story and get the science out there as common knowledge, the painful trade of inner to outer conflict will no longer be a thing.

We need to stop the scapegoating, the propeganda campaign

And for that to happen, those of us with a voice and skills that can entertain and educate need to stand up and do so.

Currently I can. So I do.

So the person you see in this Twitter feed is that side of me.

You don't get to see me snotty nosed sobbing, or locking myself away when it gets too much. Or the times I just stare at the wall thinking about everything and everyone I have lost. Or how angry I get at how brutally unfair it all is.

You don't see my weak sides here.

So stand up. Get on with it and focus on the future you.

They will have some stories to tell. They will save lives. They will be kinder, stronger, braver and tougher.

And you get to be there one day if you just hold on for one breath at a time.

Also you have fuckers to prove wrong.