Esi Agbenyiga
"I think for a very long time, the ways in which trans people have been represented on screen have suggested that we're not real, have suggested that we're mentally ill, that we won't exist."
This is a direct quote from the Netflix Documentary, Disclosure, from Laverne Cox herself when asked to discuss the embarrassing history of trivializing trans lives in the media boasted by Hollywood. Laverne, much like many other black trans women, has found herself at the hands of brutality, condemnation and alienation all because she knew who she was.
I have the privilege of being a cis-gendered heterosexual woman - people look at me and their initial assumptions that they have about me due to their implicit biases are correct. What I identify as corresponds with what they see. If I’m in any position at all to define what being transgender means to anybody that does not understand, I would say that being transgender is knowing who you are and living in that whether or not it corresponds with who people think you may be disregarding the constructs of sex and gender.
Let’s talk facts.
What exactly does it mean when your gender identity is not aligned with your body? For many transgender and gender nonconforming (GNC) people, this feeling of incompatibility with one’s gender assignment at birth translates into a daily struggle compromising a person’s well-being, comfort, and safety. Countless trans and non-binary individuals are left with no choice but to seek out materials and resources for their own protection.
Black trans women specifically, face epidemic levels of violence with both their race and gender identities making them dually intersectionalized. The fact remains however, that black trans women exist as the backbone of the Trans Rights Movement. The legacy left behind by the vibrant, Marsha P. Johnson’s bravery in the Stonewall uprising of 1969 will not soon be forgotten. To date, the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (that objectively fights against human rights abuses, imprisonment, police violence, racism, poverty, and societal pressures in the trans community) is run by black trans women. Yet still, black trans women and black transfeminine individuals are killed at the most alarming rates.
In 2015, a sobering statistic stating that trans individuals of colour have a life expectancy of just 35 years was released. This statistic was later falsified, but had been released in the first place because it was true to an extent - 85% of the murders of trans people that year were those of black trans individuals aged 35 years or less. The extent to which trans individuals are put at risk varies greatly on the basis of other factors such as class, income level, religion, disability and even physical appearance - factors over which most individuals have little to no control. Most of us are privileged enough to not have to consider what being transgender may mean for an individual who also happens to be homeless, disabled, an addict and without friends or family.
So where does that leave us?
Each year between November 13 – 19, people and organizations around the country participate in Transgender Awareness Week to help raise the visibility about transgender people and address issues members of the community face. While this awareness is absolutely necessary we can’t stop there.
We live in an era wherein we are more connected than we’ve ever been. Having access to the internet means having access to information that is virtually free. It means having the opportunity to start conversations with people that you would otherwise never meet. This is the most stimulating time to be alive. Existing in the era of the internet also means having the knowledge of the world’s most heinous acts as they’re happening which, while horrible to witness, does not have to be something that disarms us. It is imperative that those of us who are capable, take tangible action. Upon dissection, trans identity bleeds into several boundaries. Global acceptance of it is quite literally a matter of determining what our future looks like.
Nancy Doyle of Forbes magazine writes:
“Transgender and non-binary individuals advance the cause of gender equity, by really forcing us to examine the boxes we have put ourselves in, the limits we assign to each other by accident of birth and allow us to recalibrate “the rules” of gender. Similarly, the neurodiversity community has challenged us to reconsider what we think of as “normal” in terms of thinking, learning, communicating and expression of ability.”
If you identify as transgender and it is safe for you to do so, be shamelessly yourself and take advantage of the ease with which you can use your platform to share your story and make other trans-identifying individuals feel less alone.
If you identify as transgender and it is unsafe for you to do so, know that there are people everywhere to whom you can reach out to for asylum, people who will rally for both your protection and your right to be who you are.
If you are transgender and wish not to disclose that, rest assured that your history is in fact, nobody’s business but your own.
If you are not transgender but wish to call yourself an ally, be both willing to listen to trans people and willing to admit when you don’t know something. Being an ally is an act, not a noun that you can use symbolically to appear as though you’re not as complacent as you really are. Being an ally looks like actively petitioning for the rights of transgender and non-binary individuals all while respecting their pronouns. Being an ally feels like being compelled to donate to a trans person in need because you’re in a position to do so. Being an ally sounds like telling your friend that saying the word “tr*nny” is not okay whether they “meant it that that way” or not. As phrased by Chris Mosier on Twitter, “If you meet a transgender person, you’ve met one person”. One transgender person’s experience is not representative of a community that is so richly diverse. You have to do the work.
If you are not transgender and find yourself rallying against those who are, I challenge you to come up with a non-religious reason as to how what a trans person chooses to do with their day has any impact on yours.
The rest of us will wait for you to catch up.
So many of the rights that we know today didn’t exist only a few decades ago. African Americans were granted the right to vote in 1896. Women were not permitted to vote in 1920. In England, homosexuality and all acts that implied it were considered a crime if caught and until 1952, punishable by incarceration.
Most people, including myself, know the name Alan Turing because of the movie The Imitation Game. He has contributed greatly into trying to decipher the code by a machine which is called The Enigma, which sped up the victory of the Allied Forces in WWII. More specifically, he outlined the details of how to build a bombe (an electro-mechanical device used by the British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages). He is also known for his great contribution in terms of theory when it came to inventing computers. He thought of using mathematics to build up a machine that is capable of doing all the calculations that humans are capable of. He had received many awards for his work which had been kept a secret until 30 years after his death.
He was last employed at the University of Manchester where his earliest proposals for The Enigma came into fruition. Turing’s ideas went on to be incredibly significant and have done a lot to shape the foundation for the development of today’s more sophisticated computer. One of the interesting topics of discussion when it comes to the works of Alan Turing is the Turing test A Turing Test is a method of inquiry in artificial intelligence (AI) for determining whether or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being. Today this test is used to explore the bounds of computers and how far exactly we can advance them with the ultimate goal being to mimic human behavior. A computer has yet to pass the Turing test.
In his personal life, Alan was engaged to a woman named Joan Clark with whom he confided in about his sexual orientation. Not too long after this, there was a break-in at Alan’s home. Upon investigation, the British police found out the person who had broken in was named Arnold Murray: a man that admitted to having a sexual relationship with Turing. At the time, Turing sustained a gross indecency charge. He was given the choice of incarceration or chemical castration and he opted for the latter. The castration led to side effects such as gynecomastia (breast enlargement) and bloating of the physique. He died two years later, with the inquest returning a verdict of suicide, although recent research has cast doubt on this result. The government put him under close surveillance for “endangering the national security” by being homosexual. On June 7th, 1954, he was suggested to have committed suicide by eating an apple that has been soaked in cyanide but we do not know for sure if his death was indeed self-inflicted.
So what can we learn from Alan Turing’s story? While societal views have changed and laws have adapted accordingly, the fact still stands that individuals with non-heterosexual orientations are uniquely stigmatized whether or not they make great contributions to society. This is visibly true of the culture in STEM-related fields. Alan was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist that changed the world as we know it and was still condemned for being who he was. Stories like his are not unheard of. If we wish to create change, we must actively condemn discrimination instead of members the LGBTQ+ community that also happen to be STEM contributors. The work needs to be done in way of creating a level of safety in sciences so that people never feel the need to hide themselves in order to share their ideas.
Resources used for reference:
Resources for trans-identifying humans:
http://transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Trans_PULSE_Resource_List_-FINAL.pdf
http://www.skylarkyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/TRANS-RESOURCES.pdf
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ (If you live in America)
http://immigrationequality.org/contact-us/ (If you live outside North America and are unsafe)
Resources for my fellow trans allies:
On RuPaul and why we need to stop using the ‘T’ slur:
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