It is the middle of June; Pride month!
And in the last few days, instead of celebrating our diversity, we have (as usual) been kicked in the face.
We’ve had the JKR essay which inevitably broke the hearts of many hundreds if not thousands of her UK trans fans and allies. JKR stories have enlightened millions of minds for the best part of a generation now. But if you, the reader, are gender questioning or even just starting on your trans journey, it must be challenging to get your head around how someone who once gave you so much hope, has smashed that hope into the ground.
It may well be that you are a million miles off from thinking about getting a Gender Recognition Certificate. And let’s be clear here, you can achieve pretty much anything you like on your potential trans journey without ever applying for one. Yes, a new certificate is important to me…I need it to formally recognise the trans journey I have taken over a near lifetime. But it may well not be necessary for you, especially if you are young or just starting on your journey ‘to the real you’.
So if you are feeling confused or even depressed can I just suggest you think of all the positive things in life?
I have always said to my kids we are given the gift of life to make things better, and the fact that we don’t live in caves or make fire by rubbing two sticks together proves that we have come a long way in the last few thousand years!
And while the best years of my life may well be behind me, and chances are, you are so much younger than me, I can promise – you do have so much to live for and achieve.
I love the younger generation.
You are bright, energetic, and you are fearless.
You have information at your fingertips and can reach out and make friends – best of all you can see the diversity in life and are not scared to share that. In ‘my day’ of course computers had not been dreamed off. And as they involved from playing computer tennis (with a cursor and a white dot pinging from side to side) to wonder machines to give you instant answers to any question you care to ask it, life in most ways has improved.
While I, thirty years ago, thought of myself to be a freak to want to wear a dress, you, thanks to your computer – know you are natural.
Yes, we still have people who think in the binary and give you grief, but they will die out; trust me.
Human life is full of diversity, and as an animal, we share that with so many species. Some sharks can reproduce without a male, and there are white-throated sparrows who have two types of males and two types of females.
And the clever ones are those animals called ‘bidirectional sex changers’ that during their lifetime complete a full sex reversal with females becoming males, males becoming females and yes – both can and do reproduce. If only the NHS could do that for us!
Being trans is natural, and the fact that you can think in different directions either as male to female, female to male or perhaps you are right in the middle – makes you a very special person.
So in pride month can I suggest… be proud…be very very proud.
