This week marks the beginning of Transgender Awareness Week where internationally, both individuals and organisations that support the Transgender community help raise the visibility for transgender people and engage in communication in how to address some of those community concerns.

Trans flag drawn in chalk — Transgender flag

The week ends with Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) that was established in 1999 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil in memory of Rita Hester’s death, a transgender woman that was killed in 1999. Transgender Day of Remembrance has ever since become an annual observance whose lives are lost in acts of anti-transgender violence.

As a marginalised community it is said again and again that we have always sat on the fringes of society. I don’t believe this so much these days. Throughout history transgender, non-binary and gender fluid people have always been here. We are not something new, exotic, or exciting. The media is having a transphobia frenzy talking about our lives, our bodies and reducing the conversation to bathrooms. They talk about consent without having gained our consent to talk about our lives, or even proper awareness or knowledge when they talk about us. Even within our own therapy community ‘Thoughtful Therapists’ are speaking about us, forgetting the ethical principles they are meant to be working under.

The world could be learning about how to create community from us. As when the world, our families and friends turn their back on us we have had to create our own community and find resilience to walk through this transphobic world together. No decisions should be made for us without us sitting at the table.

We do have voices and it is time those voices are not just heard but celebrated for their talents and that despite all odds the lives we are living.

We need to have hope in a better tomorrow and pull on each other to survive in this world. We need allies to carry our message of hope for a better tomorrow.

Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002) was a Latina-American drag queen who was a gay and transgender activist in the 1960s to 1970s, she was part of the Stonewall Riots in 1969. She has always been ones of my heroes. In her famous speech at Gay Pride Rally 1973 New York City “Y’all Better Quiet Down”, the video of this famous speech shows the indifference shown by the mainly white, middle-class gay and lesbian community towards the lower-class transgender community. Today fortunately we do have the support of the majority of our LGBTQIA+ community but it is the loud voices of the few within the LGBTQIA+ and wider community that get in the way of us having full transgender liberation.

We need better allyship, we need transgender liberation and to be treated equally in the wider world. So, we feel safe where we chose to live, to work and to play. We also have the right to access good health care, where we are treated equally, with dignity and respect. We need better and more funding so those waiting for gender affirming surgery do not have to wait so long for this care and treatment, the waiting time can be seen to cause a decline in our mental well-being. We need the police to ensure our safety on the street and in the community. For those of us in prison need to be treated with dignity and respect. Transgender and Non-Binary People of Colour, and those of us that come from more marginalised communities need to have their voices heard and their needs met.