Reader’s letter: Ever since I came out as trans, it’s been more dangerous to be transgender

Every year since I came out as a transgender man in 2011, it’s become more and more dangerous to be transgender – not less.

Let that sink in… And I’m not talking about for me, I’m fine – day to day nobody on the street would know I’m trans. I’m talking about anyone who doesn’t fit the rigid expectations of man or woman in public, and now that covers cisgender people too – the transphobic moral panic is at such a fever pitch that  a CIS woman can lose her job after she’s mistaken for being trans.

We need to remember that this is deeply rooted in racism and colonialism; our culture is pretty much one of few worldwide that has a strictly binary view of gender – and such a binary view that deviation isn’t just a little odd… It is a threat to the system of power because that system of power relies on patriarchal ideals. And you can’t uphold those ideals if someone who is given the title of “man” at birth goes “actually, I’m a woman” because that disproves the hierarchy that to be a man is the ultimate lottery win at birth.

The fact that someone’s true identity as anything other than *male* could be so important as to disown the title, and also face the threat of violence in pursuit of self-actualisation, totally flies in the face of that patriarchal idea that men are the most revered and perfect of human genders.

Without this cornerstone, colonialism doesn’t work either. These ideals of gender were (and still are) used to brand other cultures as savage when they didn’t conform. These ideals are used to other and dehumanise; think about emasculating stereotypes used to belittle East Asian men, or how the narrow acceptability of what is female and feminine largely excludes anyone who isn’t white. You can see this played out in the gender spectacle around athletes like Imane Khelif, Lin Yu-ting and Caster Semenya.

This isn’t just about trans people and it never has been. We have to stand in solidarity with everyone, or the evils of greed and power will squirm its way through the cracks between us.