In search of: trans rest

[CW: transphobia, mention of suicidal ideation and misgendering]

Could we have a day when cis people just aren’t allowed to say anything? I messaged my girlfriend this morning. Yesterday, I texted the hot trans girl I kissed last week that rather than laughing in the sold out Edinburgh Fringe show I booked tickets for months ago, I was sitting at home in my underwear. She told me she was proud of me.

I’m proud of myself too. I’m also tired. 

I am tired of the responsibility I feel to constantly stay aware of the unending stream of hate-fuelled, state-sanctioned violence against trans people right now. Does knowing every detail of what my community is going through actually make me a better journalist, a better activist? I’m not sure it does. I am tired of the weight I put on myself – a weight that no one has asked me to take on, a weight that does nothing but hurt me. 

I am tired of the burden I feel to educate cisgender people about what trans people are facing right now. I am tired of feeling like if I’m not talking about what is happening, there’ll be people who don’t understand how bad things are. I am tired of hearing cis people talk about how they didn’t realise how hard it is to exist as a trans person right now. 

I am tired of how I second guess myself – how I have been made to second guess myself – when I ask a good faith question about the language someone has used or suggest more inclusive wording. I am tired of the guilt I feel, no matter how long I agonise over what I say, if I say anything, because of the cis women to whom I’ve gently pointed out that trans people exist only to be told that my “attack” has made them cry. 

I am tired of how scared I have become to advocate for myself or to tell cis people how their words and actions (however unintentionally) have hurt me. 

I’m tired of the way my skin crawls when I know a cisgender person is trying – in this instance a comedian asking the people in the front row of their show if they “identify as” women. I can see the good intentions; I applaud the attempt to move away from the assumption that we can tell what someone’s gender is by looking at home. But I resent how I feel I’m expected to be grateful for the tiny steps cis people are taking when I want so much more from them. When we need so much more from them. 

I am tired of how cis people are always more willing to retweet or share the words of a cis person weighing in on transphobia and its impact than a trans person saying the same thing. I am tired of my parents deadnaming me. I am – well, ‘tired’ isn’t even close to the right word to describe the pain of watching your friends and community panic as their access to healthcare is threatened and taken away when you are powerless to stop it. 

I am so, so tired, and so is every trans person I know right now. When do we get to rest? 

Last weekend, I went down to London for Trans Pride. I’d attended in 2022, barely a month into being on testosterone, and that entire weekend shines golden in my memory. I’ve thought about Abigail Thorn’s speech – where she said: “the answer to transphobia is not more conversations, it’s not civil debate, it’s not listening and compassion, and it’s not even representation. The answer is [...] trans power!” – literally every week since. I returned home full of trans joy and trans power.

I went to London Trans Pride this year seeking those same feelings. I wanted to feel strong, feel connected; feel powerful, feel like part of my community. And stepping back onto the train home this year, I realised I did feel all of those things – but I hadn’t found them where I had expected to. 

And it's not that the march wasn’t amazing. Being surrounded by so many trans people and allies – so much radical solidarity – felt incredible. Even if any major news outlets had reported on the more than 55,000 people marching down Regent Street (which they didn’t and fuck, I’m so, so tired) they could never have captured what it felt like to be among them. Joy filled me at the signs people had made, at the laughter and rage that surrounded me, at the depth and strength of my own voice as I shouted ‘free Palestine!’ and ‘trans rights now!’ with hundreds of others. 

But I’m an autistic person on antidepressants and testosterone – I tend towards sensory overwhelm in the heat, even when I'm not marching in the glare of the sun. So before the march had reached its destination, I walked away from the people and the noise. I sat on the pavement without even thinking about my OCD and tried to tune into what my body actually needed. And maybe – maybe – I would have been ok if I’d pushed through, maybe I would have been brave enough to find the girl I have a crush on and sit next to her, maybe I wouldn’t have melted down because I was too hot and too sticky and wanted to claw my way out of my own skin. 

Maybe. Maybe not.

I wanted to be at Trans Pride with my community, but what I needed was rest. Rest that I found in walking away from the march, before I hit the breaking point where I couldn’t speak or breathe or think because I was so deep in sensory overwhelm. I bought myself a chocolate chunk cookie and downed a bottle of water in five gulps. I kicked off my boots so I could sit cross-legged on a bench in a park with sunlight streaming through green leaves. I painted my nails silver as I listened to a podcast about something entirely unimportant. I didn’t have my laptop with me, so I scrawled paragraphs of porn by hand into a notebook. 

I forgave myself for not being with my community, because I was taking care of myself. I felt the guilt and breathed through it. I thought about what I’d tell any of my friends in the same situation and I cried – but that’s ok, because boys cry too. 

Rest does not come easily to me, but I found it on that bench as I scrawled paragraphs of porn by hand because I hadn’t brought my laptop with me. I found it on a friend’s sofa, where we talked for hours about vulvas and pinkwashing and being neurodivergent in academia without me realising how long we’d been there, because I was so delighted to connect and spend time with someone I hadn’t realised I would feel so safe or seen with. I found it in accepting that friend’s care – and her cooking – without guilt. I found it in reading my book on the tube, ignoring the urge to check my phone until it faded.

I found rest in kissing a hot trans woman on the North-bound Victoria line platform at Oxford Circus, after a date where I hadn’t worried once that I was too much or not enough. 

Right now, the fight for trans rights, for trans existence – which cannot be separated from the broader fight for our collective liberation from colonialism and white supremacy – is overwhelming and unrelenting. We are being attacked from every angle; it feels like standing under the shower head, facing the spray, trying to snatch a breath when it's simply not possible. It’s hard to remember that we can’t keep going if we do not rest, if we don’t take care of ourselves and each other. 

Last night, someone in a Discord server I'm part of asked for recommendations for reading and research about trans and intersex athletes. As I read their post, I felt my brain shift into educator mode. I began compiling a list of links to podcasts, journalists, and articles in my head. And then I stopped. Took a breath. Closed Discord on my laptop. 

Did I need to be the person to do this? And if I did, did I need to do it now? Spending five minutes – which undoubtedly would turn into fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, maybe longer – pulling together resources would force me to wade through a slew of transphobia. It would be exhausting at best, and trigger my suicidal ideation at worst. Educating cis people at the expense of my own emotional wellbeing, I decided, could wait. 

We need trans pride. We need trans joy and trans love. We need trans community and trans solidarity; trans rage and trans power. We absolutely need trans sex. But maybe we also need trans rest.

• I was so honoured to interview the incredible Devery Jacobs about their role in Backspot for Refinery 29! We talked about the importance of inter-generational relationships within the queer community, how their queerness is “intrinsically entwined” with their Indigenous identity, and what queer audiences are finding hot in a film that deliberately subverts the male gaze and the way cheerleaders are usually sexualised in media. (Spoiler: it’s how mean Evan Rachel Wood’s character is.)
• The Bureau of Investigative Journalism published two vitally important pieces of reporting about Bayswater Support Group – a parents group who TBIJ found operate as a conversion therapy activist organisation – covering the group's influences on policies rolling back trans rights in the UK and how abuse by parents in the group included destroying their trans children's belongings, blocking access to Childline, and sending them to conversion therapists:

In May, the CPS updated its domestic abuse guidance to remove withholding money for gender-affirming treatment as an example, and narrow the definitions of other forms of transphobic abuse. “Destroying medication” became “destroying UK regulated medication that has been prescribed to the victim”, effectively failing to protect the significant proportion of trans people who self-medicate because trans healthcare in the UK is inaccessible.

• Ready for a tonal shift? Girl on the Net wrote about self-acceptance, reclaiming bravery, and deliciously filthy-yet-playful fucking in her blog post about sucking a dick at Glastonbury: "Sometimes you just have to do the things that make you smile. Maybe if you keep doing that and doing that, one day you’ll turn around and realise your life makes you happy."
• Like much of her writing, Ella Dawson's essay about getting laid at her ten-year college reunion and why tattoos are extremely hot made me cry – in the best way. (It's on her Patreon, but I think it's absolutely worth the price of a coffee to read it.) "I stop hesitating. I am trustworthy. After the reunion, after my book is published, I get a tattoo. The needle kisses me hard and kind."
• Continuing my love of queer sports romances, I really enjoyed How To Get The Girl* by Anita Kelly. I'm always here for hot sex scenes between two characters who are pretending that they're only "practicing" and not actually falling for each other.
• And after seeing Gay's The Word describe it as a 'butch for butch romance', I read My Own Worst Enemy* by Lily Lindon. I thought the exploration of butch identity throughout the book was really interesting and I loved the rivals-to-lovers flirtation.
• With the recent hot weather, please check out this super important reminder from Dee Whitnell for folks who bind. (Especially if you're also on antidepressants – which I am, even though I consistently forget that they can affect my body's temperature regulation.)
• Trans Kids Deserve Better spent an incredible 75.5 hours occupying the front of the NHS England building as a protest against trans young people being kept out of decisions about their own lives. Their direct action was so brave – and a reminder that we need to listen to and show up for trans kids in their fight for dignity, healthcare, and a voice.