What rights do trans people not have?

May 5, 2023May 8, 2023 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

This question has been coming up more and more online in public spaces and 9/10 its not in good faith. Cis people who lean towards anti-trans rhetoric or are out and out transphobes seem to think trans people are equal to them, or indeed that we have more rights socially and legally.

In this blog I aim to address this and add to the community knowledge base. I will try to stay emotionally uninvolved, even though these issues affect me personally.

Marriage
Gender Affirming Care
Anti-discrimination Law
Prison
Gender Recognition
Passports
Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault
Homelessness
Trans Broken Leg
Toilets and Changing Rooms
Dress Codes

Marriage

When cis people get married, they provide identification and then give notice of intent to marry. This is regardless of sexuality.

For trans people to get married in a gender other than the one assigned at birth, we require a Gender Recognition Certificate. This requires months of work, medical transition which can and does take years and then approval by a panel of cis people who have not and will never meet you.

Nonbinary people aren’t legally recognised in the UK, so they aren’t able to get married as a gender other than the one assigned to them at birth.

If the person officiating the marriage believes you are trans and you haven’t jumped through enough hoops, or if you are in a religious establishment that doesn’t support marriage equality and/or trans people, they can refuse to marry you and you will be removed from the premises.

If you are already married and then medically transition, to remain married you will also have to jump through hoops if you are transgender.

Gender Affirming Care

Cis people can access gender affirming care whenever and however they like. For example a cis man can access viagra and a cis woman can also access HRT (eg oestrogen for menopause) at the chemist. Not to mention puberty blockers for precocious puberty in cis children, breast reduction or enlargement for cis women. (The list for gender affirming care that cis people can access is immense by the way.)

Trans children in the UK can’t currently access any gender affirming care due to the closure of the the only NHS clinic that would prescribe puberty blockers. This is under review and may change. However, before it’s closure the waiting time for getting on puberty blockers was three to five years, meaning that quite a lot of teenagers would age out of the service having had the trauma of going through the wrong puberty. Some don’t make it.

Trans adults in England and Wales have to convince a cis doctor that they are trans. Then you go onto a waiting list of three to seven years to get in front of another cis doctor who you have to convince you’re trans. Then you may or may not get various forms of gender affirming care, for example HRT. Sometimes they then take that away if there’s a change in your circumstances or a transphobic practice manager starts at your surgery.

No trans person can legally access gender affirming care without going down a gate-kept, medical pathway.

Stethoscope and LGBT rainbow ribbon pride tape symbol. Medical support after sex reassignment surgery. Grey background.

Anti-discrimination Law

Nonbinary people aren’t recognised in UK law so technically aren’t covered by any anti-discrimination protections.

(I will cover the recent discussions on the Equality Act later.)

Prison

If you happen to be sentenced to time in prison as a cis person, you will automatically go to the prison with the facilities that match your gender without question.

If you are nonbinary, you will go to the prison dictated by the assigned sex on your birth certificate because UK law does not recognise your existence.

If you are transgender and have managed to acquire a Gender Recognition Certificate, you will not automatically be sent to the prison that matches your now legal gender. Each prisoner is assessed on a case by case basis. This includes risk assessments relating to other members of the prison population. If you don’t have a GRC, even if you have medically and socially transitioned, you will sent to the prison dictated by the assigned sex on your birth certificate.

Transgender people as a % of the UK prison population: 0.28% ( 230 declared trans prisoners out of a prison population of 79,514.)

Gender Recognition Certificate

When cis people say who they are, society automatically believes them.

Trans people on the other hand have to acquire a GRC. This requires months of work, medical transition which can and does take years and then approval by a panel of cis people who have not and will never meet you.

You can then mostly access the services you need as the gender you are. (There are exceptions under the Equality Act and are likely to be more going forward.)

Nonbinary people aren’t able to acquire a GRC.

Some things are quite strangely not covered by a GRC. For example, if you are transmasculine and have a GRC stating you are a man, you are still not able to inherit your father’s estate or any hereditary titles as a cis man would.

Passport

Cis people apply for a passport by filling in an application form and providing identification.

Trans people can only apply for a passport in the gender that they are, if they have medically transitioned and if a medical professional approves of the transition and will write a letter to the passport office stating that we are who we say we are.

Nonbinary people can’t have a passport stating they are nonbinary.

Domestic violence & Sexual assault

The majority of domestic violence and sexual assault services in the UK are still gendered, with the vast majority of funding going to women who are victims/survivors, and men who are perpetrators.

Amongst these services, there is a divide in which some services will welcome and be prepared for trans women, some services have banned trans women, and some services mean well but are not prepared at all.

For nonbinary and trans masc folks, this information is even less clear. Some services have moved to be gender neutral, but a huge amount are still aimed at women.

In the event of needing to flee a situation, emergency services are focused on cis women who have been abused by men, and struggle to understand anything else. Emergency placements are, a huge majority of the time, only available to women.

Trans men are often excluded from women’s refuges due to being masculine and therefore triggering other residents – trans women’s placements are often reduced to how well they ‘pass’.

Trans people are more likely to be victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and yet, the services available to us limited and sometimes put us in another dangerous situation. (LGBT in Britain, Page 14)

(Please note that I agree that these services are also lacking for cis men but that falls under societies patriarchal structure and toxic masculinity and not something I’ll be addressing here.)

Homelessness

25% of trans people have experienced homelessness in their lives.

Homelessness services and hostels also contain a lot of gendering, with different pathways and services being available to women or men.

In a lot of ways, being ‘stealth’ will save you in these situations – as long as nobody ever finds out – but if you are anything but a passing binary trans person, you are in trouble. Nothing exists for you and you will often have to take your chances.

Trans Broken Leg

Mostly when cis people go to the doctor with a problem they aren’t treated as if their “decision” to be the the gender they are, is the cause of all their problems.

Trans people on the other hand are often told it’s because they are on oestrogen/testosterone or have had particular surgeries. For example I could go the doctor with a bad back and the doctor will say it’s because I’m taking testosterone and ignore anything else, esesentially telling me I have to detransition if I want to be taken seriously. We call this, “trans broken leg syndrome.” It’s similar to what fat cis people experience with everything being blamed on them being fat. Goodness forbid you’re fat and trans…..

Doctor and patient closeup, holding hands and consultation support, healthcare services and sad news, test results or help. Clinic, medical professional or black people consulting, helping and advice.

Toilets and Changing Rooms

Under the Equality Act 2010, trans people can use the facilities that match their gender. You don’t need a GRC or to have undergone any medical transition.

The current government is looking at removing this protection for trans people, essentially meaning we will only be able to leave the house for as long as our bladders can hold out, or use the wrong toilets and risk physical assault. (You of course also risk physical assault if you don’t “pass” as the gender of toilets you are in.)

Nonbinary people have to make difficult decisions and are only truly safe with gender neutral toilets.

Cis people can mostly use whatever facilities they like without fear and without the government legislating them out of public life. The exception to this is gender nonconforming cis people who continue to be the victims of gender stereotypes. For example butch women being chased out of the female toilets because they look too masculine. (Transphobia hurts everyone it seems.)

Dress Codes & Safety Wear

Work uniforms can be needlessly gendered, which hurts everyone, but especially hurts trans people who aren’t catered to. For example my work requires me to wear safety gloves. All the people who do my job are cis men so therefore they tend to have bigger hands. All my safety gloves are too big for me, putting me at risk.

No one should have to wear things they don’t want to wear, but trans people shouldn’t have to wear clothes which dehumanise them and often this is the case if you want to continue your employment. For example all male employees get to wear a shirt and all female employees are given a blouse. Now imagine telling your boss you’re a man and he insists you wear the blouse or you’re sacked. It’s nonsense, but it’s dehumanising none the less.

If the current government decide to strip trans people from the Equality Act, the list of rights we don’t have legally will grow quite considerably and therefore our social rights will also diminish.

Having spoken to other members of my community and from a personal perspective, trans people want gender to stop becoming an issue in social situations, to stop constantly being in the news for made up culture wars sticking points, to stop being the victims of violence, have our mental health taken seriously and have the right to exist peacefully.

Trans rights are human rights!

Queer Vegan

Where Have All The Lesbians Gone?

January 23, 2021January 23, 2021 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

I came out as a lesbian sometime around 1999. My mother was horrified and her exact response was, “you’re not are you?” Which was delightful and made me feel amazing . 😒

(That’s me in the black System of a Down hoodie with my arms around my girlfriend in 2001.)

I grew up in a vibrant queer community. When my mother finally kicked me out at 17 (2003) I moved in with my then girlfriend and met her extended network of lesbians too. It felt really good to be around people like me, even if I was by and far the baby dyke. I hadn’t even been to a gay bar at this point because I was underage.

I renounced my lesbianism after 27 years, when I broke up with my girlfriend in 2012. It was particularly messy and traumatic, but it allowed me to discover who I was: not a woman and not attracted solely to women.

My lesbian history seems a distant memory now, but having spent such a big chunk of my life in that community, I was shocked to see The Spectator and other British media asking where all the lesbians had gone. (I’m not linking to those articles. Those papers don’t need traffic from our community.)

I put a shout out on my Facebook page and a few lesbians came forward to answer where they had been.

Kirsty Rowles

Why do you think the press don’t know where lesbians are?

It’s a little known fact that lesbians have for a long time been developing technology which means that we cannot be seen by dickheads trying to use us to excuse their transphobia. Following a successful pilot, this has now been rolled out to all non-transphobic lesbians, hence the apparently diminishing numbers.
So, where have you actually been?

I’ve been in my house, wearing a onesie and writing about fictional girls kissing, as is my lesbian birthright and based on responses on the All Lesbian WhatsApp group, this is a common experience.
How do lesbians and the trans community move forward together?

Support each other and recognise that we have more in common than different.
Do you have anything to promote?

I talk about being a gay fangirl in my zines. Check them out here: http://www.etsy.co.uk/shop/foreverincomplete

Kirsty Sarah Miller (Apparently lots of lesbians are called Kirsty! 🤣😂)

1. Why do you think the press don’t know where lesbians are?

Probably because the press are typically homophobic and don’t make it their mission to learn about the depths of lesbian culture.

2. So where have you actually been?

I have been staying at home like everyone else has since March last year. In general, I’m a performing cellist and cello teacher and I love engaging in the arty side of lesbian culture – music, literature, film etc. Incidentally in the future, I’m interested in putting on a concert of classical music written by LGBT+ composers.

3. How do lesbians and the trans community move forward together?

For me, there is no issue or clash between lesbian rights and trans rights or indeed women’s rights in general. It is heartening to personally know lots of lesbians who are fully supportive of their trans siblings, but I feel sad that some lesbians have a hostile view of trans people.

Trans people and their lesbian, gay, bi and queer siblings have always come together in the same spaces and we are better for it. I’m sure this will continue into the future.

4. Do you have anything to promote?

I’m a cellist, cello teacher and Alexander Technique teacher. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram under @kirstenmillercello. Also throughout February I’m going to be posting about classical music written by women composers.

I offer cello lesson (currently online) if anyone is interested. I can also record cello for albums, films and virtual concerts.

Sadly I have no live concerts to promote currently due to lockdown.

Molly Brereton

1. Why do you think the press don’t know where lesbians have gone?

They don’t know where lesbians are because we have been hiding from them. Most self-respecting lesbians don’t buy newspapers that have historically voted against our best interests, which is why I’m still outraged that Joan Armatrading, a black working class lesbian from Birmingham is supposedly a Conservative.

2. So, where have you actually been?

I’ve been in Pontypridd playing Dungeons and Dragons with my cats.

3) How do lesbians and the trans community move forward together?

The only way forward that I can see is mutual support, understanding that our co-existence and happiness is not a zero sum game and a genuine curiosity in what has divided us.

Worldwide we’re seeing a great shift towards far right politics and authoritarian ways of leading. Propaganda is doing a number on civility so that those of us at the bottom, i.e. normal working people, are being routinely pitted against one another, believing that one person’s gain must mean their loss. I don’t believe in such reductionist and curmudgeonly personal politic.

4) Do you have anything to promote?

My band, Trigger Warnings and the Safe Spaces. We practice rarely and have no merch. Please support us.
https://triggerwarningandthesafespaces.bandcamp.com/album/everything-is-problematic

As you can see, lesbians haven’t gone anywhere. They are here and their community is thriving. It is a wonder that institutions that have always hated the LGBT+ community are even bothering to pretend to care about lesbians, but it is their bigotry of choice at the moment to pit marginalised groups against one another.

Famous lesbian musician Grace Petrie put it perfectly:
https://twitter.com/gracepetrie/status/1343572473833533440?s=20

Worried about lesbians? Why does the Times not start a lesbian culture column? Why does JK Rowling not use her gargantuan platform to write a world best seller series about a lesbian kid? Why does your concern for lesbian visibility never involve making any lesbians visible?

In closing: long live lesbians and lesbian culture.

12 Most Common Transphobic Dog Whistles

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020 / Frankie Mouche / 14 Comments

Since the Brexit vote of 2016 and the GRA consultation of 2018, things have been getting increasingly hostile for trans people in the UK.

Stonewall reported an 81% increase in transgender hate crimes by June 2019 as a result.

When engaging with people about trans issues, especially online, transphobic dog whistling is common place. Whether you are trans or nonbinary yourself or an ally, it is important to recognise these words and phrases.

Here are the 12 most common:

“I’m an actual woman.”
“I’m a real lesbian.”
What they are conveying to you is that they believe that trans women are not real women, which of course they are!
“You can identify as anything you like.”

This sounds like tolerance but at the core of this statement is the belief that trans people are living a fantasy that should not be indulged.
Talks about a natal or biological man or woman.

They are referring to the gender they were assigned at birth and that they still identify with. They are cisgender. They will often refuse to use the term cis because they believe they are normal and trans people are abnormal.
Reference to the number 41.

41% is the number of trans people who attempt to end their own lives. Obviously transphobic people like the idea of trans people dying. Some give 41% discount in their stores for example.
“Sex is real.”

Yes it is, but like gender it is highly socially constructed and definitely not binary. People say this because they think trans people want to erase the realities of biological sex, when it is trans men and AFAB nonbinary people who are fighting for gyno care for example.Sex is really irrelevant when talking about trans rights. The only person who needs to know my sex is my doctor.
“We have to protect women’s spaces.”
“We are protecting women and girls.”

What this means is that they believe trans women don’t belong in women’s spaces. It’s a convincing one for a lot of people. I too believe in protecting women, girls and safe spaces, but unlike the majority AKA the cis, I know this is a transphobic dog whistle. Trans women are women and not predatory men.
“Are you intact?”
“It’s an intact male.”

What they mean is have you had bottom surgery and if you haven’t, then you can’t possibly be trans and you must be faking it to gain access to vulnerable people. Even if you’ve had bottom surgery, they still won’t accept you as a man or a woman.An important side note here: having surgery or not doesn’t make you any less trans or nonbinary.
TIM & TIF

These translate to:Trans Identified Male (trans woman) & Trans Identified Female (trans man.)

Don’t worry, they don’t have an horrendous acronym for people under the nonbinary umbrella……..yet.

You can see the glaring transphobia in the names that the acronym spells but also continually denying that we are who we say we are.
Gender Critical

This doesn’t mean that the person is critical of oppressive genders like cis men, far from it. Nor does it mean they are critical of the suffocating patriarchal gender binary. No. It means they are a trans exclusionary reactionary transphobe.On social media this is often accompanied by a black and white racing flag in the username or bio. This indicates that they believe there are only 2 sexes/genders.
Follows all the big transphobes on twitter.

Some names you may be familiar with:JK Rowling
Graham Lineham
Women’s Place UK (WPUK)
“Children are being forced to transition.”

What this means is they don’t know anything about medical transition pathways and are using misinformation to demonise the trans community. Medical transition is not available to children.Another word they may use in this context is, “transing.” You can’t make someone trans, just as you can’t make someone gay.
“Trans cabal.”
“Trans agenda.”

They believe we have an agenda funded by big pharma to trans the world. The Cabal thing is also rooted in antisemitism.Thanks to all my very unimpressed trans and cis friends for their selfies and the local trans community for helping me research these dog whistles.

Stay safe out there folks and never stop fighting for what is right.

Black Lives Matter
Black Trans Lives Matter
Black Disabled Lives Matter

Frankie X

Labels

August 18, 2018 / Frankie Mouche / 3 Comments

Everyone’s first experience of a label is the one they are given at birth. The one about 99% of us carry with us for our entire lives: our sex and gender. Everything you do and anything you will ever be is determined by that label in a patriarchal society. Those of us who reject the label given to us at birth are shunned by society and subject to systemic discrimination, yet society at large doesn’t seem keen on labels as a whole.

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Fast forward to 1999. I’m 14 years old and I’ve just started a new school. (I had to leave/was expelled from my two previous schools due to being bullied.) I’m into heavy metal and punk, so obviously I gravitated towards that group of people. The other kids called them, “Greebos” or “Greebs” but the most popular of them decided that labels weren’t cool so we never used the term. It was the same with the widespread bisexuality. If we didn’t talk about it or label ourselves we weren’t really different. We were just the same as everyone else, but we wore black and slept with people of multiple genders. (Yes I was having sex at 14.)

This situation didn’t last long for me and I ended up hanging out with the kids in the year below. They embraced labels and were subsequently called losers by the people I used to hang out with in my year group. We were Greebos. We were lesbians, gays and bisexuals and we were proud, even if just within our friendship group. We went through the same struggles together and our bond and our labels kept us together and kept us strong. I fell in love for the first time in 2001 with one of these people. We called ourselves lesbians and that stuck with me for the next nine years, even if the Greebo label faded into metal-head as time went by.

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So what are my labels now at 32 and what do they mean to me?

Autistic

I’ve been using this label since Feb 2017, when I truly accepted that this was who I was. A year later I had an official diagnosis.

I don’t say I am someone with autism. Autism is me. I am autistic.

Realising I was autistic was super validating for me. It explained a lot of my past behaviour and allowed me to find friends who were similar to me.

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Transmasculine Nonbinary

I am transgender. I lean towards masculinity. My transition involves testosterone and masculinising surgeries.

I am however not a man. I’m also not a woman. My gender identity and subsequent presentation fluctuates and sits well out of the norms for binary genders.

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Metal-head

I love all music actually but my focus is definitely focused on metal, punk and hardcore. I often dress in what can be considered as metal-head attire.

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Queer

Truly I am pansexual, but I like queer as an identity.

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Why are labels important?

My labels have brought some of the best people into my life. We have bonded over similar struggles and we have stood strong in the face of transphobia, homophobia and ableism. They give me a blanket of safety I can run and hide under when the allistic, transphobic world gets too much and they understand exactly why I need to do that.

It means when I’m out at the pub with my friends I’m not gonna get misgendered or called aggressive because of my autistic style of communicating. It means I was encouraged to be my authentic self at Trans Pride by being topless . It was the safety of having these people around me which allowed me to work up the courage to medically transition.

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We can also help other marginalised groups. They define who they are and the systemic discrimination they face. We listen to them and lend our privilege to help where it is needed. Without labels, I don’t think we would be able to do this so effectively and this leads on to my next point;

Why doesn’t society like labels as a whole?

In my experience oppressors don’t like labels because for them it means they are not the norm and when we use them, we use them to empower ourselves against their oppression.

For example cis women who reject the use of cis, even though it is literally what they are. They don’t like it because they have always just seen themselves as normal women and that trans women and femme aligned people are deviant in some way. This is often combined with TERf rhetoric. (The F is small deliberately cuz ain’t nothing feminist about their tripe.)

Another example is allistic people. This just basically means you aren’t autistic. Allistic people hate it because they see autistic people as abnormal and they are just normal people. Wrong.

So let’s embrace our labels and the labels of others, banding together to empower one another and bring down systems of oppression.

pridepuff-jpg

trans-poc

My Autism Journey

March 3, 2018March 3, 2018 / Frankie Mouche / 1 Comment

October 2016

I met my best friend, who also happens to be autistic. She observed autistic traits in me that no one else had in the 31 years previously.

I was sceptical. I was almost 32 and no one had ever even considered I was anything other than neurotypical (outside of depression and anxiety) but what she was saying made sense.

She pointed me in the direction of online Autism Quotient tests. I scored between 39-42 on pretty much every test I took. She scored 39 and had an official diagnosis.

February 2017

On the 22nd February 2017, I accepted that I was autistic. I sat crying into my phone messaging my best friend saying that nothing had ever made so much sense to me in my life.

With research I’d been doing over the last few months I came across some great trans and autistic communities and realised that some 35% of autistic people are also trans or gender nonconforming. (I wish someone would study that link.)

March 2017

I went to my GP and told them that I think I’m autistic and gave them a list of reasons why. They asked me all sorts of intrusive questions that I didn’t like. I left that appointment crying and proceeded to have a meltdown in my car. (I’d also spoken to them about trans issues in this appointment and the questions about that were so uneducated and misinformed. This was also to be my downfall going forward for both issues.)

May 2017

I attend my first appointment at Trealaw Mental Health Unit in South Wales.

Expectations: GIC referral and referral to a consultant psychologist to be assessed for ASD. (Autism Spectrum Disorder.)

Reality: Nonbinary erasure, intrusive questions, disbelief that at 32 I was only just realising I was both trans and autistic.

I went over again all the things I had told my GP using my list I created, breaking down different behaviours in blocks of 5 years up until the present day. The nurse I saw took a photocopy of the list and said that they were unable to refer me me further because they were not a consultant and they didn’t know when a consultant would be available to see me.

June-October 2017

The above situation happened a total of 7 times, including an appointment which had a blood test in it to see if I was able to go on testosterone. (Talk about getting my hopes up!)

It was so draining, intrusive and destroyed my mental health. My drinking increased ten fold in this time. It was the only way I could cope with the constant invalidation and disappointment. I had a meltdown in my car after every appointment.

I also had an autism advocate write two letters of complaint. Each time I got a call from the head of mental health in my county apologising. I kept telling him that I thought someone along the line was gate keeping the pathways and that I wasn’t going to give up. I made it very clear that we could continue wasting NHS time and resources for as long as he wanted.

November 2017

I get two letters in the post.

The first one comes with clear instructions as to what the appointment is for. I’m going to see a consultant to be assessed for ASD. The appointment is in January and they need me to fill out a written autism quotient test and bring it with me.

The second letter has no details on it, just an appointment at the standard mental health place in February. (It was cancelled due to snow so I still don’t know what this was for, but as of Feb 2018 I still don’t have an NHS GIC referral.)

January 2018

The day of my appointment with the consultant is here. I’ve deliberately got myself in a bit of a state by messing with my routine and having lots of appointments on the same day to emphasise my autistic traits. I mask quite well sometimes and that was definitely not needed here.

I rock up at Trealaw Mental Health Unit only to find that my appointment was at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital and not the place I had been attending for the past few months. They took my AQ test and rescheduled the appointment. I went and had a meltdown in my car, which seems pretty standard practise for all my visits there now.

February 2018

The day itself before my appointment was incredibly stressful for reasons I’m not going to disclose. My best friend met me in Pontypridd and I was in full shut down mode. They had never seen me like this before. They dropped me at the Royal Glam and wished me luck.

The consultant was late. I’m not sure if this was deliberate, but I was basically twitching and trying not to have a meltdown by the time he eventually showed up.

We sat and chatted for about 2 hours. He changed his fountain pen twice with the amount he was writing. He liked my now rather scruffy piece of paper with the age categories and developmental milestones. (He took that otherwise I’d show you a copy now. ) He asked about relationships, social difficulties and all sorts of stuff about my childhood. I told him I live in the world below eye contact and I miss a lot of social cues because of this. I looked at his face twice but not his eyes. I wouldn’t know him in the street.

I’m going to attach an edited version of his report so that you can see the criteria he was looking for. However please be aware that he misgenders me throughout and I have asked him to edit this in the copy he sends to my GP. (It was difficult for me to read because of this.)

I’ve shared this process with you in the hope that it will help you if you are an adult seeking diagnosis in the NHS or elsewhere. Please feel free to ask any questions.

The search for the illusive GIC referral continues……….

My Emerging Male Privilege

March 2, 2018March 14, 2018 / Frankie Mouche / 1 Comment

I finally admitted to myself around a year ago that I needed to medically transition. What this means for me is that I’ll be masculinising myself with the addition of testosterone and eventually having top surgery.

I’m doing this because the dysphoria of being called she/her/woman/girl everyday is destroying me. I’m not a man either and I never will be. I’m non-binary and I’m transmasculine. However in the masculinising process I expect that I’ll get misgendered from the other side with he/him/boy/man. That doesn’t hurt me nearly as much and it comes with it’s own set of privileges that people who are seen as women do not get.

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So what is male privilege?

I took this straight from Wikipedia:

“Special privileges and status are granted to men in patriarchal societies. These are societies defined by male supremacy, in which males hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. With systemic subordination of other genders, men gain economic, political, social, educational, and practical advantages that are more or less unavailable to other genders. The long-standing and unquestioned nature of such patriarchal systems, reinforced over generations, tends to make privilege invisible to holders; it can lead men who benefit from such privilege to ascribe their special status to their owned individual merits and achievements, rather than to unearned advantages.”

(Obviously I edited it slightly to erase their binary nonsense, but you get the standard textbook definition.)

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What this means is that anyone who “passes” as a man in our society gets certain privileges. This includes cis men, trans men and transmasculine nonbinary folks. This manifests in the way people treat you at work, how people value your opinions, opportunities open to you, how people greet you etc etc.

(Please note that passing is cis normative term that many trans people reject and that trans folks have their own set of challenges regardless of any male privilege bestowed on them by society.)

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At this present moment before I start testosterone, I have what I call “fleeting male privilege.” It’s given to me and taken away at a rate of knots when people realise I have boobs or that my voice is too high to be considered masculine.

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Until recently I’ve never had a sustained period of male privilege bestowed on me. My best friend is a nonbinary trans man and happens to do that weird thing the cis defined as “passing.” We were walking with another friend (who’s also trans) through Cardiff city centre and I guess all three of us looked like young white cis men because people got out of our way. People avoided eye contact. No one bothered us at all. This struck me because neither of them noticed and I noticed with every inch of my being. It made me really uncomfortable.

I think everyone deserves a high level of respect, dignity and opportunity but I guess that’s why I’m a feminist. I’ll be documenting my emerging male privilege as I transition.

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A Letter To My Friends & Family

November 26, 2017 / Frankie Mouche / 5 Comments

In June 2012, I came out to my friends and family as genderqueer. I asked everyone to use gender neutral pronouns and never refer to me as female/she/her again. I explained that this means I am not male or female and never have been.

In October 2012 I dressed up as a zombie police officer for Halloween. I gave the character a beard. In fact the beard was so affirming that I wore it the whole of the next day and really didn’t want to wash it off. I remember telling my best friend at the time that I thought I might need to transition. She was supportive, but I was too scared and buried it deep inside me like I had done my whole life.

Over time I watched my trans friends transition and I was secretly jealous of their ability to be who they were. I kept telling myself that I didn’t need to transition. That who I was, was perfectly valid. The dysphoria was eating me alive nonetheless.

Around 2014 I redefined my gender identity as nonbinary. It means basically the same thing as genderqueer and sits as an umbrella term for people for don’t conform to binary gender norms. I liked it better. Enby is also an epic colloquial term. I also decided that this identity was a transgender identity. I now told people I was trans as part of my nonbinary identity.

Frankie came to be in April 2016. I needed to move away from my overly feminine name given to me when I was born. This was tough at work and initially with my friends. My family, never really having got the hang of my gender neutral pronouns, have still not got the hang of my new name as of November 2017.

From April 2016 to April 2017 I was happy just to be Frankie. My gender identity was still nonbinary, but instead of presenting in a fluid way where I would drift between feminine and masculine, I presented as entirely masculine.

At the end of April 2017 I was drunk in Cardiff. I was sat on my own outside of Brewdog enjoying the spring sunshine and everything I had been suppressing about my gender identity came to the surface. I needed to transition. I needed to masculinise physically. I text my mum and then told Facebook.

How I identify now is Transmasculine Nonbinary and I will be beginning my physical transition in April/May 2018. Here are some things you need to know:

The NHS has made this process very difficult. They have been messing around sending me to mental health units and demeaning my experience for the past seven months, when I should have been referred to the gender clinic and been on their two year waiting list by now. I am still pursuing this route because there is no way I can afford my whole transition privately. However, I was able to afford two private consultations which will allow me to begin transitioning in Spring next year.
My transition will start with regular injections of testosterone. This will push my body into what is essentially “male” puberty. My shoulders will broaden. My muscle and fat distribution will change. My voice will deepen and hopefully I’ll get a decent amount of body hair, especially on my face. (There are other changes too but you don’t really need to know about them. :P) I will appear to society as a “man”, but I will still have boobs. They will be flattened by a binder, when I find one that doesn’t cause me sensory issues.
Somewhere down the line I will have what is know as top surgery. I will have my boobs surgically removed and replaced with pecs. My boobs are a massive source of dysphoria. If I could have them taken off first, I would. People use my boobs to gender me and I hate it.
I will not be having bottom surgery. My cunt does not cause me any dysphoria at all.
This does not mean I am a man. I will never be a man. I am nonbinary. I do not fit in any binary boxes of gender nonsense. I will continue to use gender neutral pronouns.

I need you all to know that I have gone through a lot of emotional pain to get to this point. I NEED you to respect my pronouns and my name. Making mistakes was fine to start with, but it’s been a year and a half and mistakes are starting to look more and more like they are deliberate. If you continue to dead name and misgender me, I will have to remove you from my life.

This has been your final warning.

Frankie

Trans Liberation Now

October 23, 2017 / Frankie Mouche / 1 Comment

In June 1969 the movement for LGBTQIA+ equality and liberation began. A series of riots took place centering around the Stonewall Inn in New York. These riots were instigated by transgender women of colour and the next year, the first Pride Parade was held.

Let me just say that again for the people who may have missed it:

The LGBTQIA+ rights movement was started by TRANS WOMEN OF COLOUR.

Why then for almost two generations did we refer to Pride colloquially as, “Gay Pride” and the LGBTQIA+ rights movement as the “Gay Rights Movement?”

The western world revolves around cisgender white males. It has done so for thousands of years. White cis men invented the patriarchy and white supremacy to keep the rest of us in our place and subservient to them. Don’t think we as queer or trans people are exempt from that, because we aren’t.

Every movie or documentary ever made about the Stonewall riots has been filled with cis white gay men. The most recent, “Stonewall” movie had a white gay guy throw the first brick that started the riots. Martha P Johnson will be rolling in her grave.

Even the famous UK charity Stonewall spent years fighting for the rights of lesbians, gays and bisexuals without giving a single thought about the trans women who started the whole damned thing.

The Stonewall charity are now fighting for trans rights too, but like many gay centered pages such as Pink News, they are allowing rampant transphobia to go unchecked in their comments sections.

It makes you wonder why 48 years ago trans people even bothered. Our rights have come along at a snail’s pace whilst the “gay charities” gain popular opinion, legal recognition and specifically in the UK almost entirely full equality with heterosexuals.

Are we content to be shut off like this? Well we have been I suppose. Waiting for our gay comrades to turn around and help us, the way we have helped them.

Now is our time. Lets fight for our rights and for inclusivity for the most vulnerable in our community. Lets call out the LGB bigots who make jokes about gender neutrality and dismantle the online spaces rife with transmisogyny. Lets support and help raise up our trans siblings of colour.

Fuck racism. Fuck cissexism. Fuck transmisogyny. Fuck transphobia. Fuck the LGB community out for themselves without a second thought for the TQIA.

Let’s make 2018 our year!

My Transition

August 31, 2017August 31, 2017 / Frankie Mouche / 4 Comments

I have decided to pursue medical transition with the NHS.

I guess I always knew it would happen. Like I’ve always looked at myself naked and absolutely 100% not related to what I have seen.

My main source of dysphoria are my boobs. Whenever people are looking to gender me, they always look at my chest. If they can see boobs, I’m a girl. If they can’t see boobs, I’m a boy. What if I’m neither? What if I’m just a masculine enby who is trying to struggle through life the best that they can?

As things go, I’d rather top surgery before anything else. I’d even wait to go on testosterone if it means I don’t have to have tits anymore. The thing is though, I know that’s not going to happen. When I eventually get seen by the gender clinic, they’ll put me on testosterone. I’ll grow facial hair and my voice will deepen. I hate binding my chest for sensory reasons, but I’ll have to for safety. Using binary toilets will be even more of a nightmare than it is now with a beard and a big old pair of baps. It’s a good job I have a radar key. I think I’ll be using that more as time goes on.

Also I’m petrified of surgery. It gets better right? I’ve never broken anything or been under general anaesthetic in my life. I have a high pain tolerance, but that doesn’t negate being in pain whilst I recover, nipple infections and all the other horror stories I’ve read about. Mostly those who undergo top surgery seem to have had a great experience though. Lessening of dysphoria, “passing” as male if that is something they desire and a general better sense of who they are. I guess a lot of trans folks assigned female at birth have dysphoria with their boobs and this makes it a whole lot better. I’m looking forward to people not staring at my chest for some magical gender marker and I’m looking forward to being able to wear shirts and vests without my cleavage.

What has this got to do with being queer and being vegan I hear you cry!?

Well my gender will always be queer as will my sexuality. I’m not transitioning to become a man, more to enhance my masculinity and lessen my gender dysphoria. This is why I identify as nonbinary and furthermore now as transmasculine nonbinary.

My veganism is about to hit year 12 tomorrow. It took me 20 years to figure that out and it’s taken me 31 to figure out, or more to the point build up the courage to transition. Both things I know are essential to my mental health and emotional well being because I’m being true to myself. The more true I am to myself the more I grow and that is what this life is all about right?

Frankie

The Face of Trans*

June 14, 2015June 14, 2015 / Frankie Mouche / Leave a comment

In the media lately there has been plenty of coverage of the lives of Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox. Even Aydian Dowling has been on the Ellen Show. The point is that these people are seriously privileged.

What’s it like to be transgendered in everyday life without celebrity privilege? I asked some members of the trans* community to give an account of what life is like for them. I think it’s important that we educate the general public so we can end the travesty that is transphobia. I also want those who are trans* to know that they are not alone.

This is James. He has preferred to remain anonymous. I’ve known him for a few years now. We met as part of an online vegan community.

“I don’t know when I realised I was trans. Or maybe I did and just didn’t have the words to convey a sense of unease; a disconnect between my mind and my body. I only noticed how alien my chest feels once I began binding. Since discovering my transness, the feelings of discomfort with my body have located to very specific areas and I’m trying my best to modify the physical map of my body to match my mental map, though last summer I decided that I feel the best route for me would to go through the NHS and see if I can get some treatment. To this day I’m still waiting for my first appointment.

I never really knew any (out) trans men. I began identifying as non-binary around the age of twenty seven, when for the first time in my life I became exposed to spaces where it was ok to be queer and where binary gender concepts were scrutinised. I moved to a new city around two years ago and I began masculinising my appearance, though I initially found the word “trans man” difficult because “man” to me had so many negative connotations which where embedded in my mind from encounters growing up.

I didn’t want to be associated with “that guy” and I associated masculinity with misogyny and entitlement at the time, though subsequent conversations with a variety of people have helped me make a distinction between the concepts which helped me a lot. It took me a few years of knowing, but not admitting to myself that I’d need to take this step, to really come to terms with who I am, despite the fact I still often get my brain in to knots dissecting the crossroads between gender and the body and probably always will. In short, I don’t know how to explain how I got here because it’s complex, but I’m here and I’m way happier.

Life and day to day stuff? I’m a support worker for disabled adults. My job is very gendered and I’m out to my employers and they’ve been great. I’m really lucky that I haven’t experienced a great deal of transphobia so far, though I admit I’m also protected by the fact that I have a sibling and mother who’re very supportive and other amazing people in my life. I’m not saying I don’t struggle because I do still have periods of not being able to get out in public and I do get in to very negative thought patterns. I’m also worried about the content of gender clinic appointments, about medical gatekeeping and about how I’ll deal with transition, not only in changes to my body, but changes socially.

I’m hoping that this time next year I’ll have a bit of stubble coming through and a deeper voice. The process feels slow and I imagine there will be more challenges ahead than what I’ve faced so far. I have a roof over my head, people who love me and a lot of security in my life that I know many trans people don’t have. It’s for these reasons that we need to be working together, whether we’re trans ourselves, friends or partners of trans people, or individuals who just give a damn. It’s society and the oppressive systems under which we live that are the problem and we need to keep working together to fight them.”

This is Syluss. We met about 4 years ago through a mutual friend. Syluss has done two of my tattoos with a third booked in soon.

“I always knew that I didn’t feel the same as anyone else or how I was expected to be from a really early age. I remember when I was a child, probably around the age of 9 or 10, praying to whoever every night that I would wake up being a boy as I didn’t feel right in my body. Fast forward to the age of 21, it all surfaced again after years of just being a gay girl. I discussed it with a couple of people and a friends mum and she mentioned that I was too pretty to be a boy. During that time the internet wasn’t as readily available to get all the information you needed to discover what was out there and who can help. So time went by, I got involved in music and travel and after living in Australia and seeing a great Trans and Gay community in Melbourne and how it’s much more accepted there than in England, I finally made my mind up to go ahead with it when I came back. So at the age of 36 I started the process. That was March two years ago and on September the 9th will be my 2 years on hormones. I get asked a lot why I waited so long to do it. In a way I wish I had just gone for it sooner. But mentally, I don’t think I was ready for it. I had to go through the path in life that I did in order to gain the experience and back bone to face life’s challenges that would come with transitioning.

I am a full time tattoo artist and completely out about my trans-ness and am blessed with a couple of thing’s really regarding that.
Number one is working with a group of people that don’t see me any other way than who I am and treat me as a regular cis guy. Also this makes for a great environment for other trans men and women to come and feel comfortable to get tattooed in a non judgmental space. Even though the studio is on the High Street in Exeter, we are on the first floor making the area private and relaxing and not your usual fishbowl parlor. So people are safe in the knowledge that they can just be who they are and not worry about anyone infiltrating their personal space. We have a few regular trans-guys that come and get work by us for this exact reason.

I really am grateful for my job and I work really hard and am pretty booked up. Because of that, a lot of my time when not tattooing, is drawing up designs, painting and designing custom work for other people etc. Summer is my busiest period so I usually book off time throughout the Winter/Spring and Autumn to go for long weekends or epic road trips in other countries. I love to travel and its my biggest passion other than art. I’m in a fortunate position that I have no dependents so I make the most of my own time. So I save, travel, repeat.

I can honestly say that I have been very lucky with regards to my transition so far. In the beginning I lost a couple of people because I think they didn’t know how to handle it but I think it was more due to people worrying about what their own friends and family would think of them knowing a “trans” person. To be honest, there is no love lost as It weed’s out the weaker people who I wouldn’t be able to rely on as a supportive friend. And I have plenty of those that do care greatly about me. So what more can a guy need.
Devon is very conservative and a bit more insular than nearer to London for example, so I am a minority here. There is only one gay venue in the city. And the whole Trans thing is more taboo down here. Touch wood, I haven’t had any abuse from anyone and to be honest, if I did, I am not afraid to name and shame people on their ignorance, so maybe that’s why I haven’t had anything done to me personally.
People will always talk and criticise something they don’t understand. If customer’s want me to openly talk about it and they ask me questions, I am happy to answer because it’s important to educate people on the subject. A lot of ignorance come’s from a lack of understanding. But when people get to know me then they realise that I am just like every one else.. Maybe just a bit cooler hahaha.”

This is Gracie. They identify as gender variant. (The * is used at the end of trans because it can be an umbrella term. People with variant genders or no gender at all, like myself, also come under that banner and I think are probably very unrepresented, even in trans media.) She has also decided to remain anonymous.

“I first knew when I tried on women’s clothes and realised how comfortable I was in them and how they suited me. Then I realised I’ve always had feminine behaviours and I’ve liked girly stuff since I was young so it kinda all made sense.

Work wise I continue to be a guy, but I much prefer to be a girl because I am able to express myself without being restricted by ‘expectations’ of a masculine man so I would say I’m female 75% of the time now

I love women’s fashion and adore being beautiful, getting my nails painted, trying on clothes and I’m a shopaholic who can’t stop buying! I’m still interested in railways though.

I’ll be honest, bigotry exists and it generally comes from ‘alpha males’ and proper narrow minded men who think that being a woman is somehow below being a man and so they find it funny. I just shake off these irrelevant comments because my friends have all been amazing.”

This Ben. We’ve known each other on Facebook for about a year. We met through an abolitionist vegan network.

“My name is Ben, and I’m a 45 year old Australian male. I identify as transsexual, transman, male, man or bloke with a cunt, depending on who I’m with. I wrote a memoir of my life’s journey (so far), so in that way I’m fairly open and candid about being trans. But in everyday interactions, I don’t particularly share my gender story. I felt strongly like I was a boy, or meant to be a boy, when I was about eight years old, in the late 1970’s. But I didn’t really understand how that was, or what to do about it. Puberty when I was eleven really threw my life out of kilter, and my teenage years were hellish. There were other issues around family dysfunction, abuse, and my sexuality that meant I never revisited my gender issues until I was thirty-two. I identified as a lesbian from thirty, but was probably really bisexual, if I’m being honest. My transition to Ben was fairly easy – certainly in comparison to what I expected. I had much greater support from work-colleagues and friends than I imagined, but my already strained relationship with immediate family meant their acceptance of my true self was never going to happen.

My sexual self awakened after two years of testosterone and a bilateral mastectomy, and I spent some time “catching up” on sewing my wild oats with male partners. Not long after this I met my cisgendered male partner, and we’ve been together for eight years. We describe ourselves as a gay couple with a twist.

I’m very comfortable in my own skin – apart from the getting older bit – and despite some sacrifices from my old life, transitioning has been the best decision I’ve ever made. Being Ben has truly been lifesaving.”

Unfortunately none of my transwomen friends were able to write me anything in time because they were too busy. I hope this gives you an incite into what the trans* community is really like and that it has helped to educate you and dispel any myths. Please feel free to ask as many questions as you like.

Your gender queer vegan. X