An exclusive interview with a trans rights activist

Wow! I have to say, I was not prepared for my blog about the protest at the Jam Jar to take off quite as much as it did. I've been getting a lot of responses on Twitter, and have responded to as many as I can. I think a lot of the time, being male and cisgender, I haven't really been the right person to answer their questions, much as I have done my best.

So, in a first for The Rebel Without A Clause, I have an exclusive interview! My interviewee wished to remain anonymous, but she's a young woman living in the UK, who very kindly agreed to sit down with me and have a frank discussion about the Gender Recognition Act, the importance of transgender women being able to access safe spaces and whether or not free speech can have any limits on it. Some of the questions are my own, but I did my best to pass on anything I've been asked by people on forums and on Twitter as well. I really hope everyone likes the interview. (My lines are in normal font, hers are in italics.)


Hi, thank you so much for giving this interview to The Rebel Without A Clause!

It's no trouble, really! Happy to talk.

I'm going to start with a question that I think is fairly general, but it seems to be very divisive for a lot of women (and men, but women's opinions are more relevant): what does it mean to be female?

This is an interesting question, with no concrete answer as of yet. I personally do not use the term, because it tends to confuse gender expression with what genitals someone has, and neither of those really fall anywhere on a binary. Because it conflates womanhood with, say, having a vagina, I do not use it, and I know a lot of other transgender people avoid it, too. It's also a very reductive way to talk about cisgender women - because it implies that her genitals are a defining part of her as a person.

Interesting - so is there a term you use instead?

To refer to a woman? I use "woman".

Was there a specific point you came to realise you're a woman?

I think the realisation came, for me, when I started taking HRT medication (acquired via the internet). I found that it made me feel much more at peace with my body and mind. It's a very difficult feeling to describe. I found that, with both HRT medication, and presenting myself to the world as a woman, I was much more confident about myself. I started to like myself. This happened around 5 years ago, now.

Just to be clear to anyone who doesn't know, what is HRT medication?

Hormone Replacement Therapy. This type of medication is given to people, both trans and cis, who have some sort of problem with their body's own hormone production. For trans women, it involves blocking testosterone production, and introducing oestrogen.

I think that realisation is something that a lot of people go through actually. I mean I've had it, and I'm cisgender. I can tell you the precise date I realised that I'm a man. I guess for a cisgender person, it's more of an age thing than a gender thing, but it's probably something similar.

Possibly! I can't really say for cisgender people, because the only time I really felt like I knew who I was, was when I took HRT. For me, puberty was not pleasant.

Can you tell me a bit more about that?

The introduction of male hormones made me feel anxious and stressed, and as my body changed, I started to hate it more and more. I think it's important to stress that I didn't really know why. Some trans people know early on. Some don't. I think that's one of the reasons why we need education on this.

Is education improving at all?

Not specifically, from what I can tell. I think there is a bit more awareness in society in general, which kids might pick up on, but as far as I know things are still pretty limited. And even if they did gain an understanding of who they are, what can they do about it? The press shrieks at the very idea of transgender kids.

I did come across a book in Waterstones recently called The Art of Being Normal, which deals with two transgender teenagers, one boy and one girl, one of whom is already in the process of transitioning and the other being in the early stages of realising it about themselves. It has received a lot of praise, there isn't much young adult fiction on the subject.

Yeah it is very scarce, although even then, I think there is more out there since I started transition. I hope more is coming, in spite of the opposition.

I really hope so as well. Moving on, how much abuse do you receive?

In person, I've had a few incidents. Mostly shouting from drunks, or not-very-subtle snide comments. One of them from a UK Border Agency guy who was checking my passport. I have yet to be the subject of physical violence, although the idea is always in my mind.

A lot of places on the internet are a nightmare if you're an out trans woman, where transphobia is often taken as "freedom of speech". Facebook's moderators, for example, seem to have no concept of transphobia. The mainstream gaming community are particularly toxic.

Of course, this is only the abuse that is individual, not systemic.

Do you think social media makes it easier to bully people?

Oh definitely. You can abuse people via social media and face very few, if any, consequences. Not just bullying, but also harassment. You can simply make a throwaway account and, for example, post doxxed information with it. Maybe it'll get shut down for abuse. Maybe it won't. Either way, nothing much in the way of consequence. Certainly legal recourse is almost impossible.

This 'freedom of speech' thing... I want to talk about that. Because there's a strong argument that to support freedom of speech, you can't have a limit on that, otherwise it's not freedom of speech anymore. I remember hearing Germaine Greer saying once, 'Whether it hurts people, or offends people, speech must be free.' She wasn't talking about transgenderism, she meant more generally, and at the time I heard it I 100% agreed with her. And of course, Greer is another one of those people whose comments have caused issues to the trans community. What are your thoughts on this notion, as a general principle?

First of all, I want to make it clear: Freedom of speech, as a concept, only applies to the government restricting your rights. Most of what is called an "assault on free speech" these days is people getting a backlash for what they're saying, not the government stepping in and clamping down.

This is an important distinction.

Freedom of speech is, indeed, useful for political freedom and academic freedom, because it lets you say things that are unpopular. It is effectively there to protect you from powerful institutions, like the government, religion and capitalism.

But while you might have the freedom to say something, I also have the freedom to criticise - and I do not have to be polite. I can protest what you're saying.

I also do not have to give you a platform to say it. No one is entitled to an audience, you are only entitled to speak.

And even then, we as a society agree on limits to free speech. Indeed, even the often cited champions of this concept, the American founding fathers, imposed limits on free speech. The common example of "crying fire in a crowded theatre" is a good idea of where these limits come in.

Free speech in the true sense, is only for ideas that are unpopular, but not harmful to people's safety. This is why we have hate speech laws, and why leftist spaces forbid things like racism and transphobia. 

You can criticise the government and other institutions as much as you want. But if you say something that can incite violence against or repress marginalised people? No. If you think about it, that sort of thing serves no potential positive benefit for society, at all. It does not promote discussion, it only seeks to suppress people who already have less of a voice.

Yeah, I completely get you. I always say that no one has rights without responsibility. The right to be able to say what you like comes with the responsibility not to abuse that right, otherwise consequences will occur - not exactly threat of your right to free speech taken away, but more people not wanting to listen to you, people calling you out and the result potentially being harm to your reputation. Is that fair?

Yeah. People with opinions on the marginalised are often quick to demand the right to say what they're saying, and rarely want the responsibility for saying it. To demand to be able to do something without responsibility is, in my view, childish.

Now with regards to the most recent debates about the protest around the Jam Jar, is there anything that you think the TERFs may have a point about?

I think their question of the safety of women in certain spaces highlights a general lax attitude towards abusers, that I think should be corrected in a way that does not involve shutting out entire classes of women.

One thing I said in my previous blog was: 'We did contribute to the discussion. We contributed by showing everyone exactly what we think of the way that this talk was framed.' And someone on Twitter came back at me by saying, 'There isn't a way of framing it you'd be happy with except not talking about it at all!' What would you say to that person?

As I said, a couple of the fears that people have about self identification are really just fears about bad filtering and protection against abusers - of all genders.

However, the talk itself and the politics of the people involved was inseparable from the assumption that transgender women are, in fact, men. And, no, that's not only scientifically incorrect, it's flat out bigotry. You can't re-frame that sort of conversation in a way that makes it respectful to trans people, because then the conversation wouldn't really be about trans people any more - we'd be talking about how to make spaces safer in general.

I think pretty much every bigot in history has had some genuine injustice behind their bigotry. It's like the UKIP voter who complains about 'immigrants stealing our jobs'... they're right to be angry with the exploitative nature of the capitalist system, they're just blaming the wrong person. The response I gave to the person who said that was to say that I don't think anyone would object if the discussion about been framed as 'How can we do more to protect women?' without any distinction between transwomen or any other women. That sort of talk would take into account any legitimate concerns without misgendering people.

Yeah it makes more sense to focus it on women's safety. Which it ostensibly was about, but obviously was not, because they don't include transgender women's safety in the discussion.

I think that's quite a problem with quite a lot of interpretations of feminism actually, and it goes beyond transwomen into all sorts of underprivileged women. Our BFF Julie Bindel, for instance, is a staunch opponent of decriminalising sex work, and I can't understand how any feminist can hold that opinion because it harms women. It means they're less empowered to report abuse by employers and lots of other things. I'm not the biggest fan of the sort of feminism that focusses primarily on the gender pay gap and female representation in boardrooms, because (although I accept that those are important issues) the women it benefits will mostly be the ones who already have professional qualifications, therefore more privileged than your average girl on the street.

It's the sort of feminism that's acceptable and, therefore, does not challenge society. Getting more privilege for those relatively privileged to begin with (at least, compared to a lot of women) is easier than lifting up those at the bottom. In my opinion, it is a lazy form of feminism, that demands that white cisgender middle class women only need to think about the problems of white cisgender middle class women.

The issue surrounding sex work is something that is very dear to my heart, as well. Not just with what's going on in the States right now, but also my own history.

Understandable. Are there any situations in which you think it's fair for cisgender women and transgender women to be treated differently? For example, a couple of people online have asked me what I think about sex divisions in sports if they're segregated because of issues with weight - and I refuse to answer that one, because it's too specific an issue for me to have an informed opinion on.

So, currently the issue with sports, is that organising bodies can discriminate, but must provide a reason for doing so, and they must demonstrate that exclusion was the only way to make the even fair. Personally, I think sports should desegregate and look at other ways of pairing athletes up. Separating based on gender is completely arbitrary, but we do still need ways of getting fair competition.

Other than that, the only one that comes to mind is in terms of healthcare. It makes little sense for a cisgender woman to, say, visit the gender clinic at Charing Cross, right? And services specifically for trans health and advocacy. It just doesn't make sense for cis people to need those things, why would they? For other health related issues, pregnancy already crosses gender lines, with trans men giving birth, and with the prospect of wombs grown from stem cells, transwomen will be able to as well. A lot of health stuff already makes sense for both cis and trans people, or soon will.

Apart from that, I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. Things that are currently gendered can either be left as is, or altered in ways which, I think, makes it better for everyone.

There was something I meant to ask you earlier, but we moved on, and I want to go back to it because I think it's one of the most important things. You said that the event at the Jam Jar wasn't really about women's safety because the safety of transwomen wasn't considered. How much does it harm transwomen's safety to not be allowed into women's spaces?

It harms us a lot. It means we have very limited, or not access, to spaces for women who are abused. If a transgender woman is in an abusive relationship, where do they go? This sort of thing can be lethal.

Another one is trans women not being able to use, say, women's changing rooms in shops (there was a whole "protest" about this from TERFs). Does this mean we have to use the men's facilities? Do you think any trans woman is going to feel safe getting undressed, knowing how prevalent transphobic abuse is in our society?

And something as simple as a toilet. How many women would be happy being in a men's toilet? Again, both misogynistic and transphobic violence is always a very real problem in this case.

I think it's fair to say it harms cisgender women as well, isn't it? I have noticed the TERF crowd go very silent when anyone asks how they intend to distinguish the two.

Oh yes, definitely. It's already affecting cisgender women, in fact. There have been a few cases of more "butch" presenting women being misgendered and thrown out of toilets and other spaces. That is obviously very frightening and humiliating to them, as it is to us. If more restrictions are put in place, this will only get worse.

How important is it to have cisgender allies on campaigns like these?

It's vital. Transgender people are a very small minority. In Britain we make up 0.5-1% of the population. We simply do not have the numbers to make much change on our own. Additionally, transgender people are often economically marginalised, which means we are often poor, and not positions of power. In spite of the bizarre claims of the existence of a "trans cabal" by transphobes, we ourselves wield very little power. To maintain our rights in society, we need the help of cisgender people who actually care about us.

Is there any difference between having male cisgender allies and female ones?

Honestly, I don't think so, but I think a nice mixture of both is good. Transphobia comes from both men and women, and often people who hold low opinions of us are more likely to listen to someone they can relate to.

I mean, I've been thinking that if I were a woman I might be able to do a better job backing this campaign. I've had so many responses to my last blog - to put it in perspective, the spike in views has gone from about 50 on a good day to thousands. I'm also receiving a lot of comments, and I try to reply to as many of them as I can. But a lot of them are on the lines of, 'Bloody man, what the hell does he know?' And I can't really blame them for that... some of our female allies might be able to frame it in a way that a man can't.

That's true. We could probably use more cisgender women as vocal allies, especially when it comes to countering online abuse. Also the tactic of using your gender to ignore your criticism is a typical shutting down technique. It's also hypocritical seeing as the TERFs are talking about trans women as if we were men. If the subject, to them, involves men, and they want a "rational" discussion, shouldn't they listen to you too…?

That's a good point! Thanks for that. Given all the points about abusers, and the fact that you can't tell who is going to be an abuser until they've hurt someone, how rational is the worry about abusers potentially invading safe spaces? And if it is rational, what's the solution?

In general terms? If we're talking about women's refuges or spaces that otherwise help women with abuse, we already know the abusers.

In terms of other spaces, I don't see that the fear is really all that rational, seeing as we already, in effect, have self ID for trans people. At no point on entering a toilet are you required to produce identification. The purpose of the recent push for changes to the law was to make self identification explicit and to ease our access to healthcare.

Ireland, in fact, already has a full legal implementation of self ID. I didn't hear any TERFs at this event complaining that they can't go to Ireland any more.

If there are any TERFs reading this, what would you say to them?

Neither history nor science are on your side. Listen to how similar your talk is to that of homophobes of 30 or 40 years ago, or how lesbians were treated by the feminist movement of the 1960s. You can learn from it, or you can repeat it. Either way, we will come out on top, with or without you, as so many others have done in the face of bigotry.

Finally, trans women are women.

Just one more question. I know you want to remain anonymous so feel free to take care not to reveal anything that says who you are, but just to get an impression of the woman behind the activist... if you were to wake up tomorrow and suddenly all the problems were solved, no one misgenders you anymore, you're considered a legitimate woman by everyone and you've achieved your goal… what would you do with the rest of your life?

If we're including breaking off the constraints of capitalism in this? I'd like to learn to be a pilot. I've always wanted to fly!

Fantastic! Thank you so much for doing the interview, it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Genuinely, all the best for the future.

No problem! I hope this is useful and people learn something!