Trigger warnings: Discussion of suicidal ideation and self harm.
I don’t know how to express how I feel today. That I’ve resorted to listening to my dad’s favourite record because what I want is to hear him again. To hear him tell me I am loved. That it doesn’t matter that I’m trans, I’ll always be his child and I’ll always be his daughter, if that’s who I am.
Because back in 2000 when I came out that’s what he told me. 24 years ago, before most people knew what trans people were beyond the horrific caricature portrayed on TV and in film. If they even knew that. When I prepared to come out with a pile of quietly printed inkjet printer pages to explain. When I sat down with my parents having arranged somewhere to run to if my parents kicked me out – I had a bag packed ready and a friend who’d agreed to take me in at least for a few days – because so many of my friends had experienced homelessness after coming out.
But while my mum was still struggling to come to terms with the ‘loss of a son’ and hadn’t got used to the fact that she’d gained a daughter. He was the one who made clear that it would be okay. Immediately, and without restrictions. He supported me and I knew I was still loved. And I knew it would be okay.
But it’s not okay.
Because the UK just banned puberty blockers for trans kids. Not for cis kids – oh no – it’s fine for cis kids with precocious puberty to get them. But you know, just because nearly half of trans kids attempt suicide, that’s not enough of a reason to provide the treatment that we know works. Because ideology is more important than trans lives.
Because cis people – in general – don’t understand how it feels to have your body betray you. How it feels to feel a continuous and inescapable discomfort-to-hatred of your skin. Don’t understand the pain. Don’t understand how traumatising it is to go through the wrong puberty and despair every fucking day.
To be clear, I had passive — and sometimes active — suicidal ideation pretty much every day of my late childhood to early adulthood. Until I got on HRT and blockers and started to find my brain actually working again. I would look out the window of the biochemistry tower and think “I could just jump and I’d be done, and I could just stop this pain.” I’d look at trainlines when I was out with my few friends as a kid and just think about waiting for a train to wipe me from the earth. I’d wonder if I could drown myself in the fucking canal. I would hurt my body, because it was hurting me. I’d plead with the universe to let me wake up a girl, or not wake at all.
It’s so distressingly common among trans kids.
But we can stop that pain. We can treat it.
The science is on our side.
It’s really clear — really fucking clear — that what works is blockers and HRT. It’s so blindly fucking obvious that the treatment success rate is basically 100% – which y’know what that tells me as a scientist? It tells me we’re missing a bunch of people we should be trying the treatment on. Because it should fail some of the time. We should be seeing kids that we think might be trans, trying it, and they go “uh, ick, no.”
But we don’t.
Because so many cis people are so fucking scared that we might traumatise one cis kid with HRT that they’ll sacrifice every fucking trans child to that trauma rather than risk it.
Because so many cis people think being trans is the worst thing that can happen to a kid. You know what? No, cis society is the worst thing that happens to a trans kid. Being trans – actually fine. Trans culture is awesome. The vast majority of trans people I’ve met have been the best fucking people ever. They’ve been weird and interesting and had to deal with so much fucking shit that they’ve come out to be wildly cool. But it terrifies cis people.
So today was already rough. And then to put the icing on the “let’s kill trans kids” day, my house representative, Marilyn Strickland, voted for the “let’s kill trans kids, oh and also fund massive camps to deport people” military funding bill today. I went out and door knocked for her. I fucking called people. I broke my fucking mental health – because I’m tired – I’m so fucking tired of this shit – but I did things I hate – so that I could support her reelection.
And this is what she chooses to do with that.
That bill has passed the house. Who knows whether my Senator will vote against it – or enough senators will vote against it to stop the deliberate and malicious harm, and frankly killing (because once again for the people in the back – untreated trans kids kill themselves with horrifying frequency), of trans kids.
So while I’ll find my strength to find fight again, today I’m just letting myself cry for the kids who will die because so many cis people keep choosing hatred over love, and don’t have the compassion of my dad who just got that trans people needed support and love, and fucking blockers and HRT.
