On Death and Transness: Five Stories

CN: suicidalism, dysphoria

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Preface.

I am walking briskly through a wet backstreet of central London, wishing I’d worn a hat which somehow draws attention away from my smooth, feminine facial features. My sharp haircut has done exactly the opposite, and the wind is dragging lines of tears across my face as I trudge home.

I’m not crying.

In order to cry, I would have to sit down on a freezing bench in a nearby square garden, and think about how I am still alive, how blood still courses through my veins to and from my heart valves; how that must still be worth something. I don’t do a lot of thinking these days, or a lot of talking. I sleep.

It is pitch-black already, and I look for a sign to get onto Oxford street so that I can go the fuck home.

‘Why Are They So Hostile?!’: Trans* Community and the Brown Threat

Following the mounting criticism of Trans* Pride Brighton’s co-chair Fox Fisher’s initial Soundcloud segment, then two subsequent apologies posted on social media (the latter addressing the points I myself raised in my post on how the segment reflects racism in the trans* community), the Trans* Pride Brighton Committee decided to respond with the following statement:

Trans* Pride Brighton: How White Is The Trans* Community?

In the wake of increasing tensions in the trans* community regarding race and racism, a rather interesting development has surfaced online.

Namely, Fred McConnell’s coverage of Trans* Pride Brighton published in the Guardian, which caused some initial excitement among those of us who rarely see trans* issues appropriately or positively portrayed in the media.

This excitement was quickly drowned out by an overwhelmingly divisive community reaction to the embedded Soundcloud segment of Fox Fisher, “the softly-spoken co-chair of the event”, regarding an incident of cultural appropriation*:

Pride and Privilege: Being a Student in Activist Spaces

DIY Cultures 2014, London

[via tenby10zines.com]

A few days ago I had dragged myself out of bed to a zine festival in Brick Lane, and found myself approaching a Muslim woman activist and artist who had spoken on a panel. I was trying to keep calm in my rapidly surging idolisation, as I listened to her explain how she envisages the decolonisation of artistic spaces and the Arts in Higher Education facilities.

Before long, her passionate verbal flow had petered out, and she blinked at me as if finally noticing her audience. And then, she asked the inevitable question I was waiting for.

“So; what do you do?”

In these spaces, “I’m a student” never suffices. This is because the question, in true social activism-style, seems to veer away from its usual capitalist significance of “how do you feed yourself whilst contributing somehow to society” and adopts a more philosophical tone: