I am sitting at my desk thinking about what today will be. It’s a significant day in Victoria for Trans and Gender Diverse folk. Not because it’s a diversity day for us, not because it is a day of a Pride parade, though by the end of today we do hope to be able to celebrate a significant win for our community.

No, it’s a significant day today as we sit, watch, listen and await the outcome of the passage of the Births Deaths and Marriages Amendment Act 2019 through the upper house of the Victorian Parliament. Many of us have been here before, in 2016 when this legislation failed by just one vote and dashed the hopes of the TGD community. Today we are hopeful of a better outcome.

There’s no question that this will make a tangible difference to the lives of Trans and Gender Diverse Victorians. It will mean being able to have a primary identification document that matches who we are. This is a huge step towards equality for TGD folk.

I don’t think anyone is under any delusion that this is the end of the journey for equality for TGD folk, but it is a significant step — just as Marriage Equality was a significant step.

It’s taken a lot to get here. A lot of advocacy by a lot of people has been in play to make this happen. It’s been a long and not easy path. TGD folk have travelled this path with a barrage of negative and at times hateful rhetoric thrown our way.

Whilst some media outlets at times report on TGD folk with fairness and facts many don’t. The conservative media in Australia and around the world regularly throw TGD folk under the bus as if we are somehow less than human and worthy of journalistic integrity and basic human respect and dignity.

Over the last several weeks in just one Australian publication an average of more than 1 negative article per day has been written about TGD folk. The current target is, of course, the legislation before parliament and how to stop it from progressive. Though it is not the legislation, nor the politicians responsible for it that feel the pain of it but the actual TGD community and their families.

A picture is painted of TGD people that is almost entirely negative. We are delusional, defective and destructive. We are pretenders, pedophiles and predators. We are invaders of spaces not our own and a danger to women and children.

To reads many of the articles one could easily be convinced that TGD folk simply woke up one day and made a snap spontaneous decision to change our gender. Characterised as though, there is no reflection, no therapy, no journey of working out who we are and no work to come to terms with accept and finally celebrate becoming our authentic selves.

We see the words Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and Social Contagion thrown around as if these are empirical realities when nothing can be further from the truth. We see the few and far between services that assist us in our journeys being disparaged and accused of atrocities against children.

We see people who are essentially bigoted against us regularly trotted out as experts in Gender Identity when they have never ever had an actual TGD person as a patient. They are sought over and again for comment because it fits the ideology of the media outlet for more than getting the actual information from the actual experts in the field that have helped hundreds of Transgender and Gender Diverse people navigate their journey to wholeness.

So yes it’s a significant day today for the TGD community. A day that I know will be difficult. I day that I know I will have to hear horrible things. But. A day that at the end I hope to be celebrating with my people a victory. A very significant victory that will make a tangible positive difference to the lives of my people.

I don’t want to even countenance the idea that we won’t be celebrating at the end of today. I can’t imagine how that will impact me personally or what the impact will be on my community.

As much as we go into today with some confidence and belief in a positive outcome it must be remembered that the result is not assured and we must not forget that.

Regardless of the outcome, it has been a privilege to advocate for this. It has been a wonder to work alongside amazing advocates and allies in the TGD community and beyond. Regardless of the outcome our community is stronger and will continue to grow in strength.

Transgender and Gender Diverse folk, their families and their allies have a unique insight into life and how it can be. We are stronger because of it and we will prevail, if not today then sooner or later, the date matters naught because we will prevail.

We will prevail because we will not stop fighting for equality until we have it. We will not stop agitating for inclusion until it is a reality. We will not stop advocating for our full humanity because we know, deep within ourselves that not only is it our right but it is in fact how we know ourselves to be -simply human.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.

Living as a trans person in Australia right now is a bit like being in the eye of a storm. It’s like that most of the time. There’s not really much occasion even in progressive Melbourne’s even more progressive inner northern suburbs that living life as a trans or gender diverse person is not like living in the eye of the storm.

What do I mean? Well, the eye of the storm is that mostly calm space a little bit separate from, all the relentless activity of the storm out there. But existing in that space is an exercise in constant hypervigilance. Straight cisgender straight folks reading this might think it a little melodramatic, and maybe it is a little, but it doesn’t change the reality of what Trans and Gender Diverse(TGD) folk experience to simply go about living their daily lives like the majority of those around us do.

This metaphorical eye of the storm is growing ever more turbulent to exist in and the relative safety of this eye space feels at great risk of coming crashing down around me. If it does then the already vulnerable TGD community will be at a very real risk of major damage.

Living in this eye of the storm is far from safe, it’s a fraught existence that requires constant attention. Every trip on public transport requires a high level of situational awareness, every walk down the street, every trip to the shops, every phone call received every greeting of a new person. All of these are accompanied by the need for TGD people to be concerned about their psychological safety and often for their physical safety. Was that look just a look or was it something more? It is constant and continuous.

Add to that constant worry of what will pop up on my computer or phone screen, or in the pages of the daily newspaper, or on the screens of the TV that will ridicule my identity, call me deluded, accuse me of an agenda to ‘trans’ or encourage the mutilation of children — in short the destruction of the world as we know it.

Trans and Gender Diverse folk know very well the need for self-care, the need to switch off because of the damaging public discourse about us, to find safe people where we can just be; because of the heavy toll of constant situational awareness.

Sometimes, though, this is virtually impossible. Short of turning ourselves into a hermit lifestyle with no contact with the outside world, this is an impossibility. We exist in society, we have jobs, we have social activities, we use public transport, we have families. All of this makes it impossible not to see, to hear and to read the tomes of rhetoric levelled against us and those that care for us.

In a world where a national news outlet creates a special page filled with articles that are filled with exaggeration, unfactual information, and incite a moral panic. That world is impossible to escape.

It is in that world that the Victorian Labor government’s Birth Deaths and Marriages Amendment Bill is progressing through parliament. Yes, it has passed the first hurdle and our community exists in another eye of the storm eagerly awaiting its move to the upper house. where we should be able to relax, even a little, but of course we can’t because yet more words are written and spoken about how if TGD folk have something as simple as an accurate identity document, that somehow the world has lurched to its final steps before destruction.

Personally, as a trans person living in this space, it feels as if open season has been declared against me and all TGD people. We are likened to criminals that might pretend to be something they are not to get away with a crime.

But here’s the thing. We are not pretending to be something we are not.

For many of us, it has been the fight of our lives to be able to come out and be who we actually are. For some, myself included, that fight took 40 years to win.

A perpetual narrative we keep hearing is about the dangers of self-identification. Another exaggeration and misdirect. Trans folk don’t simply one day decide to put on the clothes, mannerisms or other social behaviours and pretend to be something we are not. The opposite is closer to the truth, after deep thought, reflection, therapy and denial of our own reality, finally, we stop pretending.

We stop pretending to be what we are not. We stop playing a role that is misaligned with who we are and we come into a place of seeking to live our lives, for the first time as our authentic true selves.

In this climate we tentatively begin our lives in authenticity, we tentatively step out in public and take with trepidation our first steps along the journey of affirming who we are.

The truth is we are not a danger to others, but, others are a danger to us. On a daily basis, we hear of TGD people assaulted and murdered both here and around the world.

The ‘Gender Critical’ would have you believe Trans femme folk are men trying to invade women’s spaces. It is inconceivable the idea that anyone would take on the risk and challenges of a trans life on some kind of whim. We want nothing more than to be accepted as who we are.

In all honesty, we do have an agenda! We want to live in safety, have equitable access to housing and employment and we want to be treated with dignity and respect and humanity, pretty much just as anyone wants to be treated.

Undoubtedly living a trans life encompasses risk, danger, rejection and ridicule, but, yet, it is preferable to a life based on a pretence of something I am not and that brings with it a high risk of suicide and death.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.

Of course, if we were to take the word of much of the narrative in the public sphere then we would likely believe autistic folk will never achieve independence, we naught but a burden upon our families and in many cases should be institutionalised.

It’s quite common when a tragic mass shooting or a person is murdered in the street that the perpetrator is characterised as autistic and that that was inherently the reason for the crime. Of course, this is not true at all.

There are many autistic people existing in the world achieving many great things. We are successful in many realms including academia, industry, the corporate world and of course the arts.

The elder we lost today was successful in the world of politics. He rose to such a level that he was in fact the deputy leader of a nation.

I refer of course to the former deputy Prime Minister of Australia and leader of The National Party Tim Fischer.

I’ll never shy away from the fact that I personally am somewhat of a leftist leaning progressive when it comes to politics, well when it comes to life really. I am sure it would have been a very rare occasion indeed when Tim would have been described in this way, and I dare to suggest that he would never have accepted such a description.

Regardless of our political differences, Tim was always a man I admired. He always came across as a man of integrity, honesty and one who would stand on his principles rather than his talking points.

My first memories of Tim are from back when he was the deputy PM, it was 1996 and the Howard Government was new and fresh and in some respects, many of us were struggling to believe Howard had achieved his famed Lazarus with a triple bypass move and formed a government and was leading the nation. My recollections of Tim then, I must confess, were of this somewhat comical farmer turned politician who would always wear his hat; though unlike a future leader of the National Party the hat suited Tim well.

This was the year a horrible tragedy struck Australia. It was the moment we faced what was then the worst mass shooting in history, that day when a man went on a rampage with a gun through the former penal prison at Port Arthur in Australia. A day that scared us all. I recall that day as existing in a kind of daze of disbelief. How could this happen, here, in Australia?

I suppose in reality I really was just a protected white middle class Australian existing within a veil of mediocrity and false beliefs about the glory of Australia the lucky country.

In the days and weeks afterwards the political response was to enact gun laws, and Tim Fischer was instrumental in garnering support for these reforms, especially from those of his own party, the National Party, which represented mostly regional areas.

Tim, the autistic man, who had risen to the level of the deputy leader of a country, was instrumental in ensuring that gun reform happened in this country. Incidentally, these reforms have stood the test of time. These laws are envied around the world and never again has such a tragic event occurred in this country.

To my own chagrin, I give credit to the Howard Government for these reforms an especially hold up Tim as a key reason they were possible.

Years later I would get to meet Tim. I got to meet him in a social setting at his home on his farm in regional Australia. I felt honoured to do so, as even though we are far apart politically I respected him greatly.

The meeting was not what I expected. It was relaxing, fun, friendly and joyous. We shared some wine, a meal, some social chatter, where Tim’s son joyfully extolled the virtues of the Labor Party. We sat in stereotypical fashion on the back verandah sharing a drink and watching the sunset over Australian farmland. It was a wonderful experience.

What, for me made it especially so, was not that I was getting to meet a former deputy Prime Minister for whom I had much respect, as surreal as that was in itself, but that there I was meeting this man as a trans woman in the very early days of her transition.

As you might imagine there were layers of emotions going on for me. Not least of which was the sense of wondering how it was going to be meeting a conservative former politician in this stage of transition and how that would go down. I was I’ll admit full of trepidation, however, the reality was that Tim, welcomed me into his home, addressed me with the correct pronouns and name and made me feel included and respected, well he made me feel human.

In the years since I have had the joy of meeting again with Tim on a number of occasions and the acceptance and inclusion with which he treated me never faltered. We enjoyed chats about politics, Australian War history and of course his great love of trains.

Another event I read about since that time concerning Tim, was the time when he put himself in harm’s way and entered a property with an armed person threatening to shoot people. I should not have been remotely surprised by this, as Tim has shown himself over and again as a man who cares about his fellow human persons. Whether it was in the realm of politics or farming or war history or advocating for his autistic son what you got in Tim was a man who knew for what he stood and stood for it tenaciously.

Today we have lost an autistic elder of significance who in his own way changed the world. Thank you Tm for all you have done, and thank you especially for the love and care for your family who I know will be grieving you immensely.

Vale Tim Fischer. Autistic. Politician. Leader. Changemaker.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.

I’ll be honest, I am just managing to hold on at the moment. ‘Hold on to what?’ you may ask. Well, hold on to me I guess. Hold on to a sense of me having the same humanity as everyone else, hold on to the fact that I am just as deserving of carrying accurate identification documents as you. Well to be blatantly truthful, that I am just as deserving of living my life in safety and equality as the next human.

You might think I am being somewhat dramatic, histrionic even, but if you are a cis person — a person whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth you don’t have the reference point from which to make such a judgment.

Trans and Gender diverse folk face an ongoing, sustained and targeted campaign against their right to exist, have equality and even to carry relevant documentation to prove who they are. In many places in the world they are refused access to a safe place to go to the toilet.

Welcome to my world. That’s the space we are in right now!

But didn’t we solve all this with the Marriage Equality plebiscite? In reality, Marriage Equality legislation changed very little for trans folk. The initial legislation had almost zero effect on our rights. In time it resulted in some changes that stopped us being forced to divorce. In some Australian states, further changes occurred that made birth certificates fairer. But the three most populous states are yet to make this a reality. Yes this is hopefully in train in Victorian Parliament at the moment but is not a fait a comple and still has the task of getting through both houses of the Victorian Parliament.

It is currently 5:10pm on a Monday evening, I am sitting on my bed typing these words at a time I would normally be still at my desk working at my day job. But here I am, and I am here, because, well, I couldn’t cope in that space. All day as I tried to work I was fighting back anxiety and panic. All the while my phone notifiations were informing me of yet another transphobic article published in the media. Mostly the known culprits but not completely. There is anti trans rhetoric deluging upon us at the moment. It is now open season on the trans and gender diverse communities. Open season on an already known vulnerable community. Open season on a community with a known suicide ideation rate of up to 40%.

How is it possible that Australia’s media regulators can view this conservative media onslaught as responsible reporting? And how did we get here? The answer to that is somewhat unbelievable but quite undeniably the truth: The Liberal Majority government with the majority of blame squarely the responsibility of the last three Prime Ministers who have led that government.

So how did we get here?

Well it’s safe to say there was transphobic media being published for many years, however the saturation of it that we currently see can be traced back to the declaration of the marriage equality plebiscite by Malcolm Turnbull due to the workings of previous Prime Minister Tony Abbott. That campaign that two years ago we were in the midst of opened the flood gates for transphobic reporting everywhere. Whilst the plebiscite was in the minds of the general public very much about gay/ lesbian and bisexual folk being able to marry the major target of those campaigning against it were the Trans and Gender Diverse community. — That’s not to say we were the only target but we were the bullseye at which was aimed. And most horrendously the most targeted group were Trans Kids. The mostly right wing conservative and often religious campaigners targeted the most vulnerable of an already vulnerable community.

Let that sink in.

And lean in and spare a thought for the TGD community.

But of course that’s not all. The end of the marriage equality campaign happened, the legislation was passed and we all celebrated with great intensity, and rightly so. We thought it was all over, and in some ways it was. Much of the anti LGBTIQA+ rhetoric abated. But it didn’t abate for the Trans and Gender Diverse community.

For the two years since we have seen a steady stream of horrendous things said about us. We couldn’t go a week, and sometimes even a day without opening a newspaper, a twitter feed, a facebook feed without finding ourselves declared to be anything from an abomination, to a trend, to embodied ideology.

This has continued unabated with a steady acceleration to the current situation of where a national newspaper has dedicated an entire section of their online platform to ridiculing and belittling us.

Lean in and spare a thought for your Trans and Gender Diverse friends, relatives, acquaintances and colleagues. We are in dire need of support.

Many who are politically engaged will remember that 2018 in Australia was the year of turmoil for the Liberal Party. That is certainly true. Many will remember it as the moment that the unexpected outsider somehow managed to emerge as the leader of the nation.

Suddenly Australia had a conservative pentecostal leader. Scott Morrison did not take long to show his disdain for the general LGBTIQA+ community and in particular the Trans and Gender Diverse section of that community.

Scott was of course one of the members who ran from the chamber during the marriage equality parliamentary vote in order to abstain from voting against what his own electorate had voted for.

In short Order Scott was in the media in multiple forums deriding the trans and gender diverse community. He wasn’t standing back and trying to appear neutral, no he was on the attack to make sure we knew he considered us to be less than human, indeed as he stated on public radio something that made his skin crawl.

First we made his skin crawl

Then we and those that support us were gender whisperers pushing an agenda to turn the world trans

Then was his support in the election of openly homophobic and transphobic candidate Gladys Liu.

Then came his derision of the Tasmanian birth certificate legislation as ridiculous

Next of course was his support of Israel Folou and his transphobic comments — yes many forget that Folou’s post was one in response to the Tasmanian Law reforms.

Then comes his derision of Cricket Australia’s new policy to include trans and gender diverse players as heavy handed.

As you can see this shows a dedication by the leader of this nation to deride and speak against equality for transgender and gender diverse Australians. Of course I am sure this list is not exhaustive either. I am sure there have been comments I have missed.

I ask you to lean in and spare a thought for Trans and Gender Diverse Australians.

When open transphobia is proclaimed at the highest level of a ruling government it is as though that transphobia is green lighted for all and sundry to engage in.

You may think I am making more of it than is there, but I don’t think so. When a single national newspaper can publish 14 anti transgender articles in a period of two and a half weeks then I don’t think I am exaggerating at all. When the normally progressive and supportive outlets also go full transphobia in their articles then I don’t think I am exaggerating either.

But what does this all mean for the TGD community. Well it means we are in a state of crises. That whilst there are some good things happening at a systemic level — such as the Cricket policy and the Birth Certificate reforms passed in Tasmania and hopefully to be passed in Victoria, the individuals that form the the Trans and Gender Diverse community are in fact in crises.

We are trying to hold on to our well being. We are trying to hold on to the ability to keep the balls of life in the air and make life work. To feel safe on public transport, to walk down the street without terror, to use a public bathroom in safety.

These are some of the things that this means for our community. It is not an exhaustive list by any means. It is just a few quick examples of what life is like for us at the moment. It includes a fear of what we will see said about us everytime we pick up our phone and open a social media or news app.

As we attempt to not just keep the balls of life going but to also have our voices heard amongst the roar of anti trans voices that we are just humans like all the other humans, that we just want to be able to live our lives safely and in community with equality just like everyone else we ask you to spare us some thought and to show us you support us.

Things you can do:
Reach out to any Trans and Gender Diverse Folk you know and check in with them — not just once but regularly

Show some support visibly. Put a trans sticker on your car, a flag at your desk a supportive filter on your profile pic.

Share trans and gender diverse posts and articles in all your channels and keep sharing, one is not enough.

Write to the editors of the publications that publish the anti trans rhetoric telling them how disgusted you are.

Post supportive comments in the comments threads.

Call out people for transphobia.

But most of all.

Lean in spare us a thought and show us that you care, that you see us, that we are valid, loved and equal. Because in this time we need the reminders, we need the visible support and we need the care.

If you don’t know much about trans issues but you support us simply because we are human then that’s great too but maybe it’s time to seek out some resources and bettere inform yourselves. Google is your friend and many trans folk will happily sit with you and have a respectful conversation with you. Just don’t ask about our body parts or what surgeries we have or have not had.

Lean in and show your support for the Trans and Gender Diverse community. We are in crises.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.

If you’re in Australia and you have managed to not realise that there is a controversy around Israel Folau well I think you must be doing a bang up job of keeping your self clear of just about every single media channel there is.

It’s a bit all-encompassing at the moment, especially if you’re a part of the LGBTIQA+ community. There’s a lot of talk about homophobia, a little about transphobia — bearing in mind of course that Israel’s response was provoked by reading about the progressive Tasmanian Birth Certificate legislation passing both houses of parliament.

There’s a plethora of opinion about free speech, about religious freedom and whether or not an organisation that employs you has the right to have a say in what you do or do not post online.

The opinion is flying free and fast. Some of it considered a lot of it knee jerk reaction and sometimes as nasty as the homophobic post Folau posted to start this whole thing.

This has occupied my mind somewhat today and I’ll have a bit to say and add my opinion from a couple of perspectives but what has really gone through my mind most is that if we want to be treated with human dignity it is incumbent upon us to do the same, regardless of what a person says about us.

I am not saying we should fail to call things out but to do so in a way that does not diminish the humanity of another.

It seems a bit counterproductive to be saying Folau treated us in bigoted ways when we turn around and hurl insults back at him in return. The thing is it cuts both ways really. It’s the old golden rule to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, or as Michelle Obama said ‘When they go low we go higher’

Make no mistake Folau used his platform to make homophobic transphobic comments that did and continue to do harm to queer folk. That is a non-negotiable reality. However, Folau is a human person and should be treated as such. We do ourselves and our own advocacy progress a disservice not to do so. We also provide fuel to the right to claim we are treating them hatefully.

This may be an unpopular position, I get that, and it is a hard one to hold. There is a part of me that could easily drop down into hurling hurtful things about Folau straight back at him. It’s hard, but it’s always hard to take the high road of seeking justice.

I have a few thoughts about what is going on.

Firstly, the freedom of speech angle. For all the talk from some quarters that Folau’s freedom of speech is being impinged, it isn’t. He has not been stopped from saying the hurtful homophobic things he has said, nor is he being prosecuted for them. He continues to live freely and unabated from making these comments.

I believe freedom of speech is important. But let’s actually think what that means. It is freedom to say, without fear of prosecution what you think. There is a false belief this means freedom from consequences, but this is clearly false, just ask the media outlets that just lost to Geoffrey Rush.

The right to freedom of speech also does not include the unfettered access to any platform of your choosing to blast out your comments. I can say what I like but I can’t rely on being provided with a platform — be it social media or otherwise from which to proclaim them.

But he was just quoting the bible, no actually he was expressing an interpretation of the Bible, one that fails to hold up to any robust theological critique. There is much that I could say on this point from a theological point of view, but in the simplest of terms if Folau was truly simply posting a bible verse then surely he would have actually quoted a published translation of the text. There is, after all, a plethora of reputable translations available to him.

But he didn’t, because his intention was never to simply quote a bible verse, it was to declare damnation to those of us who are queer. Some very minor points of theology — because I just can’t help it — firstly the word homosexual in the apparent text Folau was misquoting — The Greek word it comes from is something of an oddity and was only first translated as homosexual in 1949 when the RSV was published. — There is much written about this word in theological spaces with very credible theologians showing that homosexual is likely the least best translation of the Greek word in question.

The theological argument of the word translation though is not the most stand out issue, of course, the stand out issue is in fact that Folau adds an interpretation of hell to a text that has no mention of hell in any way shape or form. I’ll leave the theological argument about the existence of hell to others more qualified, but what the text actually says is one will fail to enter the kingdom. Now is it just me is that startlingly different to eternal damnation in burning flames?

The idea of Religious Freedom. This is just bollocks. Folau has not been stopped from practising his religion in any way shape or form. The free practice of religion in Australia is not at risk. Indeed, Folau just in the last couple of weeks stood in his church and damned us all to hell all over again and after doing so is at no risk whatsoever of not being able to do so again on this coming Sunday. The mere idea that the practice of religion is at risk in Australia is clearly laughable.

What is really going on is that the religious right doesn’t like being told that what they are saying is hurtful, harmful, bigoted and unwelcome. The religious right long for a Gillead like a theocracy. They lament the supposed disappearing of a Christian nation. Australia is not now and never has been a Christian nation. Australia is and has been since it’s federation a secular democracy. To pretend otherwise is just untrue.

Fired for religious belief. Again this is untrue and a misdirection perpetrated by the right. Falou was quite entitled to be paid lots of money to play Rugby for various clubs whilst maintaining his religious beliefs, indeed captains of the Wallabies — The Australian National team, have done so previously.

Falou has form for posting things not in line with the culture and direction of Rugby Australia previously, that being the case he entered into a contract that prohibited him from doing so. It was Israel Falou’s signature on that contract, not some random person. He willingly agreed to those terms and then went ahead and willingly breached them.

The simple reality of his contract being ripped up was his failure to adhere to it.

It is wrong to think that this whole thing is just about the contract. It really is far complex than that. But his termination was without question about his failure to adhere to that contract.

Imagine our world, though, if those so upset about the so-called injustice against Falou activated about real injustice. You know like:

• Refugees held in endless detention
• Homelessness
• Working poor
• People being denied housing for being trans or queer
• Trans folk being murdered on a regular basis
• Queer folk being regularly bashed and beaten
• People fired for coming out
• Treatment of disabled folk
• Indigenous incarceration
• Deaths in custody

Imagine it though, it could be a kinder more just world than it is.

So many want to appeal to the scripture. Well, I can do that too. As Jesus faced death the command he had to give to his followers was to love one another. Time and again Jesus appealed to love. To love one another, to love God and to love the other.

Of course, it wasn’t just Jesus the Hebrew prophet known as Micah sort God and asked what does the Lord require of me? The answer — To Do Justice, To Love kindness and to walk humbly before one’s God.

Imagine the world if these folk stopped banging on about the religious freedom they already have and started practising the words of Micah. Imagine that world.

Yeah just imagine that.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.

Research is emerging and there is beginning to be a genuine body of research that empirically points out to anyone who takes the time to read it that one of the most common aspects of this diversity is in the realm of gender identity. It is a well-known reality to #actuallyautistic folk that quite a lot of us are not cis. Quite a lot of us do not identify with the gender we were assigned at birth. Quite a lot of us identify as trans and gender diverse.

In short in large proportions autistic folk do not fit into the social construct of the gender binary. I have written a bit more about this here https://transtistic.net/q-is-for-queer/ in terms of queerness in general and here https://transtistic.net/g-is-for-gender/ more specifically in terms of gender.

This post is not about proving or explaining all the stuff that goes with this reality, but with that in mind seeks to call out the Autism Peak Bodies that have a role in supporting, advocating, servicing our community to, in effect, get with the darn program and catch up!

Yes, it really is time to catch up. This applies I believe to such groups globally. This is not an issue confined to a local context but is an issue that is in place largely due to a combination of cishet normativity seen as the default and natural order and concern of a ‘what would the parents think’ variety.

I am here to say, well that is just plain wrong. cishet normativity is not the natural order it is just a commonality, a commonality that is an awful lot less common when it comes to the autistic community. And quite frankly if the parents have an issue with ensuring the peak bodies have the capacity to ensure their child is catered for and encouraged to be the very best autistic human they can be then I think they have an issue with being good parents, no let’s be honest they have a problem with being good humans.

This might seem a bit harsh, and sure, maybe it is, but it is also time for these organisations to bite the bullet and shape up to the reality of the life and experiences of a large cohort of the group of people they purport to represent.

As a human person who is trans, there is very little available to me from the autism peak bodies that cater to me. Be that face to face programs, be that support services, be that peer resources, be that informational resources. This is tantamount to neglect of your key stakeholders.

For humans folk who identify under non-binary identities, the support and resources are even less and the face to face spaces to access are few and far between. Again this is tantamount to neglect of one’s key stakeholders.

Now, of course, I don’t just want to be seen as a key stakeholder, I am a human person, but you can bet your life that we autistic folk are identified in their business plans as one of their key stakeholder groups.

Peak bodies it is bloody well time to stop neglecting us catch up with the research, catch up with the embodied knowledge of the autistic community and to catch up and stop leaving us out there on our own with nowhere to turn to find the support we need.

Some will say but this is a queer issue. Well in a way that is correct, but it is just more complex than that, because, it’s intersectional. Yes, there are absolutely lots we can gain and benefit from as queer people from the queer communities, however, there is the intersectional stuff that we can’t get there and we sure as hell are unable to find it in the peak autism groups.

Surely as a peak autism group, at the very least the provision of information around perhaps the most common intersection for autistic folk there is, is the very minimum one could expect. Sadly this is not the case.

Surely these peak autism groups should be looking to support their queer key stakeholders and finding them common supportive programs and services to support them having the best lives they possibly can.

It’s time to catch up peak bodies. We’re autistic and queer, we’re here and we will not live in fear! But we do long for you to hear us, to listen to us, to honour us and to include us.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.

What! The TERF’s are correct. Did I really say that? Well yes. I did. What could they possibly be right about I hear you say? Well, it’s a bit complicated and possibly a little bit unpopular but they are correct about one thing. That I as a trans woman didn’t have the same experience of growing up as a cis woman did. Yes, that’s correct, the thing is though when the TERF’s say this they are implying that I had a typical upbringing of a cis male and enjoyed and enacted all the privilege that goes with that. Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth than such a statement.

Hang on, What’s a TERF I sense some asking. TERF is an acronym that stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. It is, in essence, an oxymoron because feminism is inclusive and not exclusive. TERF is a slur is a statement often shot back to trans folk and trans allies. It’s not, it is a factual acronym describing the ideology of a group. They would prefer we call them gender critical but they aren’t gender critical, critical thinking about the nuances and complexity about gender seems beyond them. Rather they are stuck in biological essentialism that says genitalia and assigned biological sex is all that matters.

But yes, on this point they are somewhat correct and at the same time incredibly incorrect. In their rush to say trans women — and yes it is pretty much only trans women they talk about, are merely privileged men invading women’s spaces they at the same time totally miss any insight or understanding of what the life and experience of a trans person are.

I as a trans woman can only really talk from that perspective. I can only talk about how for me enjoying male privilege was never a thing. I can’t talk of what the experience is for any other trans person but my own.

No, I absolutely did not have the same experience growing up into womanhood as cis women do.

I didn’t experience a first period.

I haven’t experienced birthing children

There are lots of experiences I haven’t had that a cis woman has. But at the same time, there are lots of experiences I have had that a cis woman has not had. This doesn’t make me less of a woman, it just makes me a different category of woman. Just as a white woman hasn’t the same experiences of growing into womanhood as a woman of colour, or a disabled woman.

Let’s be honest none of our experiences of growing into womanhood are exactly the same as any other woman’s. We are all unique beautiful amazing humans deserving of dignity, respect and honouring and celebration of that unique identity.

There is though commonality. As women, whether that be trans women we have all experienced marginalisation and oppression simply because we are women. That is something we all share. And that is the point that the TERF narrative seems totally oblivious too.

There are aspects of my life as a trans woman that are so oppressive that these TERF proponents could not begin to fathom the impact of. As a young child trying to be who I was I was beaten and raped by my so-called father simply for trying to be the girl I was. This was not an isolated incident but one that occurred on an ongoing basis well into my teenage years.

No I haven’t the same experience as a cis woman — different but no less oppressive.

Throughout much of my formative years, I experienced intense gender-based bullying that was not the same as the gender-based oppression cis girls faced but it was nonetheless still gender-based oppression. I was teased, laughed at, beaten up and made to live in fear because to those who observed me I was perceived as different to the gender I was meant to be.

No I haven’t the same experience as a cis woman.

Prior to transitioning, I could not enter a public bathroom facility without living in fear because this was a prime place of gender oppression being heaped upon me, because my gender was perceived as not ok not the same as what it was meant to be. Yet I was forced to endure it.

No I haven’t the same experience as a cis woman.

As a trans woman I walk down the street in fear, I find myself in a group of cis men and I am in fear. In so many situations across life, I live in fear because I am a trans woman. This is not so different from the experience of a cis woman but yet it is still not the same.

As a woman, I have experience oppression like other women. As a trans woman, I have experience double oppression. For me, that meant that for 40 plus years I pretended to not be who I really am. It meant that I tried to be what I was assigned at birth and failed again and again and again.

As a trans woman, I have not had the experience of birthing my children. The TERF’s will say this means I am not a woman, what it means to me is an experience of great loss of that experience. Yes, I still get to have my kids and love them and spend time with them, but I receive the message that I can’t really be their mother because — the uterus.

The TERF’s will say as a trans woman I am a pig in a wig and don’t comprehend what it is like to live in fear of assault at the hands of men. This is simply not true. I not only know the fear of it but the reality of it.

Yes, there are many experiences of cis women that I never experienced. Some of these are experienced as a great loss and some not. But in the end, my experience as a trans woman is more similar than it is different from a cis woman’s experience.

Surely we should stand in solidarity with each other than try and judge each other’s right to call ourselves women and to be a part of womanhood.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.

If you’ve had the joy of spending time with us autistic folk you would probably realise that we love our phones but we don’t love talking on them so much. We often laugh about that time the phone rang and I just stared at it. Yes, we do really love our phones and we use them a lot, just not for talking. We do the socials, the email, the photos, the text and all of the good things but not so much the talking.

You may wonder why this is so. It’s an interesting thing to me that this is actually very common for autistic folk, I mean it could almost be a diagnostic trait. Yet it’s not so much that we can’t use the phone but that it is not our preferred communication channel. Many of us prefer text/written forms. There are lots of things that go with that.

Written communication says what it says and there is no extraneous information to translate. There is no hidden curriculum. Even when it is shorthand txt type written communication we tend to do a better job of interpreting what is being communicated correctly.

And yet I can spend hours talking on the phone with loved ones, with friends. This doesn’t make it my preferred channel of communication, it doesn’t mean things have suddenly changed but it is quite interesting. Why is it that I can spend all this time talking on the phone in this way but when a call comes in on my phone it produces a response that has aspects of an anxiety response.

I have to use the phone as a part of my employment role all the time. Multiple times every day I have to engage in communications that are telephone voice-based communications. Often these encompass video conferencing as well which then adds the complexity of visual cues as well as audio cues added into the communication.

I do this every day. I don’t love it but I do it and generally manage to do it reasonably well. So why is it that when I am walking down the street, or sitting at home relaxing and my phone rings I want to run away from it. There must be something going on here.

I really think there is. I think it is that when the phone call is transactional from the start that it is more difficult. When I have to make communicational transactions with others over a phone call that this can be really quite difficult for me to manage. So what do I do, I avoid it.

Yet there are some calls I see come through that I rush to answer because they are people I value and people I want to spend that time with. I want to exchange thoughts, feelings ideas, joys, sadness, losses and gains. I want these conversations and even though it may not be the preferred method I am up for it and so answer those calls without hesitation.

Today at work I was involved in presenting some new information to a bunch of people who had dialled into a conference call. This is definitely not my preferred way to convey information. Put me on a stage to public speak in front of people and I’m fine, sit me in a small group discussion and I am fine, a face to face meeting to discuss and I will negotiate that with aplomb.

I believe I manage these situations where I have to do like I did today pretty well. I am even actually pretty good at it. But I do stress it is not preferred. As I said I do ok but I do have hiccups. If I lose my flow I get quite flustered. If I have to stop for something, be it a technical hitch then I can be all at sea.

Often in these situations I will need to take questions. In order to manage that I think and reflect on what the questions I may be asked and so I am ready with a response. It’s when questions come that I haven’t anticipated that I get flustered and flounder a bit. It is these times that I lose my train of thought and where I am and I feel my responses are not up to the quality or detail that they should be.

In short it is when the communication becomes transactional. It is when I need to start interpreting the unspoken cues and work out the tone and intent and all that hidden curriculum of communication. It is when I as an autistic have to apply my neurodivergent and wonderfully different self to the interpretation of largely neurotypical rules of communication. It is this transaction that is difficult not the communication itself.

It’s because it’s transactional…

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.

Would it be a wonderful world if we could all bloom into our very best life. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing. Imagine the joy and wonder that each of us would bring to, well, each other. It is such a sad reality that so many of don’t get to bloom into the wonderful beautiful amazing humans that we could be. We are so often held back due to trauma, expectations, self-doubt or any number of other things. There are so many of us that don’t get to be all we could be.

I truly thought for many years that that was the case for me. I was riddled with self-doubt, I was recovering from trauma, I was not aware or accepting of my own neurology and I had repressed my true self so strongly and deeply with in myself that I was unable to see how that was toxifying so many aspects of my life.

I am now an out proud and visible autistic trans woman and because of this, because of knowing this, because of understanding this, because of accepting and celebrating this I have been able to, albeit far later than it should have been to bloom into life. To emerge, grow and blossom into a beautiful and wonderful person.

You can probably not imagine how empowering it is to be able to write that last sentence. For much of my life I saw myself as a useless, ugly, failure of a person. That was my everyday, I believed I would never amount to anything.

There are so many reasons why that was the case and they are complex, dark and difficult and far too big to pull apart and unpack here. Needless to say they controlled me, what I thought of myself and consequently what I was able to do and achieve in my life, be that personal or career.

It’s not that way anymore and this is largely, almost entirely due to my comings out. My coming out as autistic and my coming out as trans and lesbian. Yes those comings out are that important. Since those comings out I have seen amazing things happen for me. I have felt more alive in the few years since than in the rest of my entire life.

Of course it wasn’t all because of this. There are other issues like processing of lifelong trauma and working on my mental health. These too were of course important but in some senses they were peripheral. Yes I could absolutely work on my PTSD, my dysthymic depression and my high anxiety and yes that would and did absolutely impact my life. But these were not the root of why I was a crumbling mess rather than a blooming spring flower.

It is absolutely in the acknowledging, accepting, celebrating and having pride in who I am at my core that has allowed this to be the case. It is knowing and learning to love me for me that has fertilised and grown me as a person that is largely unrecognisable from the person I was.

Over the last few months I have been working on accepting that I am a good person and have some great skills and talents. This has been a challenge for me as even when faced with all the evidence the internal messaging within me has been that I am a destined to fail useless piece of garbage. I have made immense progress, but of course there is work still to be done. I am working hard on taking it as true and genuine when I am complemented for something. This is a huge part for me in truly integrating the reality that I have bloomed into a beautiful woman who has much to offer the world.

Last week I obtained a new tattoo. It is a beautiful colourful piece which includes flowers, a cocoon and a butterfly. But they are not just those things they are the whole of the thing and also they are more than the some of their parts. These things have a message. It is a message to me to remind me that I have bloomed. That I am valuable and good. That I can fly free in the true person that I am.

I can look down at my arm now to remind myself of those things. I can look down at those flowers and remind myself of my growth in someone wonderful. I can look down at that cocoon and remember I don’t have to hide myself away anymore because I am not a horrible thing to be hidden but valuable and worth and I can look down at that butterfly as it flies free from its cocoon, and remember that I too have flown free, emerged from darkness and transitioned into a person of deepness, beauty and wisdom.

This tattoo is quite new but as I look down on it as it heals it reminds me that I endured pain and struggle in order to emerge. I am reminded that who I am has been fired in a crucible of experiences that were really tough. Once it has healed I think it will be a reminder that I am no longer stuck in that crucible, that I have endured that pain, that I have indeed bloomed. This of course won’t stop me from looking down at needing to wipe a tear from my eye as I remember just how far I have come.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.

Q is for queer. What’s that got to do with autism and being autistic you may wonder. Well as it turns out a significant amount. Large portions of the autistic community identify on the LGBTIQA+ umbrella. There are quite a lot of us that are autistic and queer.

Recent studies show empirical data that 35% of autistic folk are queer. Anecdotally many of us believe this is a conservative result and believe that the real number is somewhat higher than this. Whether we are correct on that belief or not is not that important because we already know that the intersection of autism and queerness has a high prevalence. A much higher prevalence than for the non autistic community.

Why does this matter? It matters for a bunch of reasons. Not least because it places us in a situation of being twice marginalised, twice oppressed and fighting for our human rights in multiple domains.

Lots of ink has been marked in hand wringing asking questions about why this is so and whether this is just an interesting correlation or is there something more significant that has created this human situation.

I don’t know the answer, sure it is interesting to speculate that perhaps the same genes and epigenetic factors are in play. Maybe that’s true maybe that’s not true, interesting but not really that important.

What is important is how queer autistic folk are able to make our way in the world and have the best life possible. That’s the important piece here. In the end we are autistic folk who are queer here and refuse to live in fear.

Autistic folk struggle for self determination. We struggle to see a reality of nothing about us without us. We struggle to see our lived experience, our insight and our insider knowledge about what autism really is like recognised by both the professional and the parent communities around the autism space.

Queer folk struggle also for self determination. Just recently in Brunei we have seen a horrendous law of the death penalty by stoning come into play. Bi+ folk are regularly and consistenly erased and told they are selfish, promiscuous, undecided, just not decided and equally horendous things. Trans folk are forced into sterilisation in order to simply have their identification documents reflect their correct gender. Non-Binary folk are continually told they are deluded. Asexual folk are almost completely erased from visibility. Some of these issues occur not just from those outside the queer spectrum but within it.

Living as a queer person is hard. We are subjected to people deciding on the validity of our existence throughout the world on a regular basis.

Living as an autistic person is hard. We are subjected to actions designed to fundamentally change us. We are subjected to a public narrative that people must be aware of us. Whenever a lone gunman shooting occurs we are subjected to the shooter being said to be autistic in the media.

Living as a queer autistic person has the combinations of those difficulties, they are compounded and then there is the unique difficulties that come with those thing. For example trans autistic folk being denied care because their identity is declared invalid and simply a special interest. Other queer identities who are autistic find similar discarding of their identity by professionals and family because they are not seen as able to have adequate self determination of themselves.

Being a queer autistic also makes moving between those communities as a queer autistic person is also difficult at times. We face accessibility issues accessing queer spaces due to a range of different circumstances, some are ableism, some are sensory factors, some are ignorance. Being queer in autistic space can also be difficult due to the predominance of cis straight and mostly white men who are dominant vocal and powerful in those spaces.

You would think that our access to autistic spaces would be easier given there are a lot of us. Well things are on the improve I think, but cis white male homophobic and transphobic views are still certainly in play.

Q is for Queer.

I’m a queer autistic person and I am fabulous.

Q is for queer

We’re queer we’re here and we will not live in fear!