Written by Daniel Jones
Today we mark Transgender Day of Remembrance which occurs each year on 20 November. Our Unitarian candlelight ceremony will take place at Golders Green Unitarians this year. In 2023, our guest speaker was Dan Jones. Here we share his reflections from last year's ceremony on being a 'trans elder'.
I am a white, non-disabled, housed trans man. As such, I recognise that I hold many
privileges. Most of the trans lives so tragically lost in the last year are black and
brown trans women and transfeminine people, whose lives have been taken by
transphobia, transmisogyny and racism. Although my body resonates with grief and
anger at the needless loss of so many trans lives, I do not move through the world in
a state of abject fear which so often comes with being visible as a trans person.
Where does transphobia come from? Many Indigenous communities around the
world have had more than two descriptors for gender and have recognised and
celebrated people who do not fit into the binary of ‘man’ and ‘woman’. The hijra
(third-gender people) of the Indian subcontinent evolved into communities during the
Dehli Sultanate and Mughal empire. In Japan, accounts of third gender people date
back to the 1600s and the Bugis of Suluwesi recognise a total of five genders. There
are many more examples besides these. The export of a rigid gender binary (along
with prohibitions against homosexuality) around the world can be situated as part of
colonialism. The ways in which Indigenous people have not complied with the
gender binary have been used as evidence by imperialists of moral inferiority, which
has legitimised violent and coercive practices. Transphobia and colonialism are
connected.
The medical treatment of trans people began in the early part of the twentieth
century. Magnus Hirschfield, a German Jewish doctor, specialised in sexual health
after the First World War. He saw the plight of gay soldiers, who were imprisoned for
their sexuality, and he rejected new psychological theories at the time, which viewed
homosexuality as inherently pathological. During his research, Hirschfield also
discovered that there were people whose nature was contrary to the gender
assigned to them at birth. In his Institute of Sexology, he found that such people’s
cross-gender feelings were unresponsive to talking therapies, and so he
recommended adaptation – facilitating them to live in accordance with their felt
gender. This led to his team performing the first gender-affirming surgeries by 1930.
He also recognised that trans people experienced discrimination in employment and
housing, and so offered a safe space for them to live and work. In 1933, Hitler
enacted policies to rid Germany of ‘lives unworthy of living’. The Nazis burnt all of
Hirschfield’s research material and books, virtually erasing his compassionate work
with trans people from history. Transphobia and fascism are also connected.
When I transitioned in my late teens, there was no internet, and I had never met
another trans person. I had little sense of what could be done for the profound
discomfort I felt in trying to inhabit my own body – my body was not the bedrock for
my being. I endured treatment with antipsychotic medication in an attempt to rid me
of my ‘psychosis’ of thinking that I was a boy before I eventually found my way into
the niche world of gender medicine. Once there, I received a psychiatric diagnosis of
gender dysphoria which allowed me to access the care I needed. My companions in
my journey were the elders who had recorded their gender journeys. I found myself
in the pages of their autobiographies, and they provided me with a sense that being
trans was a possible life.
In my early twenties, I was involved in activism in support of the trans community.
However, when I was about to train as a social worker, a well-intentioned colleague
cautioned me that I would not be allowed to work with vulnerable people, if I was
‘out’ as trans. Back then, there was no protection for trans people in employment. I
chose to largely disappear, and held the privilege to be able to do so.
Transgender bodies have become highly politicised in recent times. Over the past
ten years, trans people have become more visible in the mainstream. As Christopher
Paul Mollitt (2022, p.2) observes, there is a ‘…new generation of confident, vocal
and politically active trans people on social media’. They are lobbying for the right to
define themselves, independently of receiving a psychiatric diagnosis. It is in the
context of increasing visibility and the call for reform that we have seen the rise of
the ‘Gender Critical’ movement, whose proponents argue that trans rights are
antithetical to women’s rights, despite there being so many shared concerns
between the cisgender women and trans people. The Gender Critical movement has
been associated with a ‘moral panic’ about trans people, fuelled by the British media
and politicians. During my transition, there was the occasional ‘sex swap scandal’
story in the British press, but nothing like the targeted and orchestrated attacks we
have seen recently. If you are not trans, or close to a trans person, you may not
readily feel the impact of the daily ‘drip-feed’ of negativity towards us.
Recently, joining the psychotherapy profession, I have made a conscious decision to
be visible publicly as a trans therapist. Given my history, this feels like a risky
strategy. However, I find that, for trans clients particularly, my openness affords a
basic level of safety in a world which currently feels dangerous. As I approach my
fifties, I have become something of a ‘trans elder’ myself. Whilst I hold that
everyone’s journey is unique, I do provide an example of a life lived, despite all its
vicissitudes. I am once more involved in activism to try and make the world a little
safer for trans people in the ways in which I can have an influence.
I do not know whether this will reach any young trans people today. If you are
listening, I would like you to know that your trans elders are here for you and we are
fighting for you. I hold hope for a better future for us, more connected with the
cumulated global wisdom about gender diversity. The greatest ways to resist to
transphobia are for us to keep living our lives, to love and care for each other and to
find joy in the many, varied and beautiful ways there are to express gender.
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