What do we do with fake allies, or do they just not know any better?

I need to write about something other than being trans, but right now, it is an all-consuming part of my life.  The sharp turn of the tide against me and my trans brothers and sisters has been swift, vicious, and alarming.

The isolated voices which called us predators or said absurd things like “so and so just transitioned so they would be competitive at sports” are now mainstream.  But really?  Are we that stupid?  I mean, first off, how many people are we talking about?  How many trans people are actually champions at some sport?  Like, not just maybe one once?

And let’s balance the thought that we don’t let young trans people put puberty on hold, and then we complain later that they look trans, not what they were transitioning into, or that they have some advantage in sports.  Granted, bone structure and physical size, lung capacity, do become altered in positive ways when the body goes through male puberty, but I am sure there is not one conscious trans feminine person, no matter how into sports they have ever been, would have been interested in trading some “edge” for never going through the wrong puberty in the first place.

It is very hard to exist in a society where people stare at you constantly, make comments, or worse, actively discriminate against you, or potentially assault you.  The one that hurts me most is the accusation that trans people are groomers or somehow abusers.  Any long-term reader of this blog will know that my deepest belief is the cardinal sin of stealing someone’s innocence.  To be accused of it, simply for being, is a gut punch.

Only I get them every day.

One of the things that has drawn me to sex work, and for which I am most grateful for, is also something that has only been possible because of my transition.  The friendships with women generally, and with female sex workers in particular have been so deep and enriching, and I don’t mean the ones where I am a client, though even those are so much better now when I was perceived male.  Why?  Because I have never felt more “seen” by people than by sex workers, so it is natural that I gravitate to a community that does not judge me.

We have all heard the term TERF.  It stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist.  What I am discovering, however, is that no matter how supportive many women are of me, or say the right things about trans people, at least to me, there is a truth of discomfort with trans people even amongst allies.

Whether it relates to the issue of trans participation in sports: why can’t trans people just have their own teams?  Does anybody know enough trans people period to make a team, or who have an interest in the same sport to make a team, better still two teams to play each other, or a league?  Of course not.  There just aren’t enough of us.  There never will be despite the accusations that we are out grooming.  I think we were all born this way, even if many trans people don’t figure it out until much later in life.

Why can’t we let teens have access to blockers so they don’t go through puberty the wrong way, develop any advantages (or not)?  It would seem a sensible solution to what is really a non-issue, but in truth, is not even about sports, but rather eliminating trans people from the public sphere.

I was out and about with a bunch of Sex Workers recently and someone brought up the UK Supreme Court ruling of two weeks ago that has left the trans community reeling.  Did you know that the suicide rates of trans teens in the UK have spiked after the Cass Review led to the removal of trans-affirming care for young people (they are coming for adults now too)?  Did you know that the government is suppressing the collection and reporting of these types of statistics as it makes them look bad?  Is anyone surprised?

Certainly not trans people, who are the minority most skeptical about discrimination and bias in society—it is our lived reality, and it is amazing that if it isn’t you, you think it isn’t there.

Two women I really admire and who have been super supportive of me, high-fived each other when saying how happy they were about the Supreme Court Ruling.  These are people who would self-describe as allies to the trans community. But how that squares with the idea that trans people are so fundamentally discriminated against makes no sense…unless it does.  Is it founded on resentment?  Do women resent life in patriarchy so much that they would dismiss a natural ally? Or that they might say, you haven’t lived it as I have…is that what it was, trying to out-victim us.  Good luck with that, and who wants to be a victim anyway?

I tried to explain to one of them with very simple, and personal language.

“Where am I supposed to pee?” I asked.

“The law isn’t about that?”

“It isn’t?  What do you think the restriction of “woman” to mean a “biological woman” is meant to be?”

“We just don’t want men in women’s spaces.”

“I don’t think anybody does.”

“But the law now says, that it is illegal for me to not disclose that I am trans, but it is also illegal for me to access spaces—changing rooms, hospital wards, bathrooms, any woman’s only space.”

“But they don’t mean you.”

“Of course they do.  The law even says that whatever my paper work says doesn’t matter.”

“You can come and pee with me anytime.”

“You going to fly with me and travel with me?”

“You have no problem going to the bathroom.”

“Until one day I do.”

I had another conversation about the trans volley ball player in US collegiate sports whose presence on one team is leading other teams to refuse to play against them, citing all kinds of absurd claims: that her spikes are so much powerful (they are not, they fall within the normal female range), or that she gives an unfair advantage in other ways (but she leads the league in no category—ie. there are cis women who are better than she is in every category).

It all seems a bit of a storm in a teacup.  I am reminded of the East German female swimming team who was obviously dosed up on testosterone or steroids and looked like men.  They won medals.  I don’t see any trans women cleaning up the medal haul.

This is the same stupid conversation that my ex wanted to have in the only words she has voluntarily uttered towards me in the past two plus years.  How many trans people are winning at sports globally?  Ten?  Twelve?  Five?  Out of the billion people or so who play?  Are we out of our minds?

I do love that on Twitter now the use of the term “cis” has been deemed hate speech.  What an absurdity.  “Cis” come from Greek and means “the same as”.   So, a cis woman is a woman who is the same as a woman—is, was, always has been.  What on earth is hateful about that?

One “ally” I stayed with via AirBnB said, “I’m not a cis woman, I’m a woman.”  By the same token, I am not a trans woman, I am a woman.  The words cis and trans exist to acknowledge that our arrival at womanhood began in different places.  And since it is already possible to transplant a uterus into a trans woman, and for her to give birth, it is also just a matter of time before we grow a trans woman’s internal female anatomy from stem cells, just as we have begun doing with cis women born with MRKS (born without a vaginal canal)—answer, grow one.

The argument that XY categorically means male and XX means female, leaves out all the tricks that nature plays on us, and how 3x more variations from this basic pattern form the intersex population than the trans population.  What’s a girl to do?

I always found the phrase “trans women are women” a bit awkward, but it is certainly my lived truth.  The particular version of hardship and pain that I feel as a trans woman is different than what a cis woman will have experienced.  My community of trans sisters, however, are even more likely than cis women of being discriminated against, experiencing a wage gap, or of being sexually assaulted.  So, I will not enter a debate about who has it worse…the problem is always the patriarchy.  With all of this.

And why do we care about who uses the bathroom?  Because men have conducted themselves as predators, largely because it is ‘okay’ in bro culture for them to do so.  This recent ruling, and the women who support it, are only increasing women’s isolation and risk.  I don’t look forward to a trans man in the bathroom, which is where they are mandated to go.

And you will not find me in the men’s room.  After all, I’m not even trans, I’m only tempted to call myself that.  Instead, I was just born this way.  That’s the lie I have to cos play for my safety.

What I realised in talking to my friends, is that we are truly alone.  Is it any surprise that trans people like each other.  Nothing like a good dose of discrimination to help a community find bonds.