Trans Joy is Not Enough: Why it is Time to be Angry About Injustice
By Theo Stolz
CW: Transphobia
Trans genocide is happening. I thought by having unashamedly trans joy would show these perpetrators that they cannot tear us down, but this is not the language they speak. They do not speak of joy, or love, or respect. They speak of hate.
For the think tank Policy Exchange, Suella Braverman spoke of the minority vs. the majority in the needs for democracy:
‘There is a now serious risk that the fight for rights undermines democracy and harms the very people for whom the fight was intended to benefit. In the context of a mature democracy – with a responsive and pragmatic common law tradition – is it always right that minority groups impose their claims upon the rest of society?’
Is it democracy to police people who want to protest a government who infringes upon their rights? Is it democracy to continue to allow people to die because of the economy that the same government has destroyed? Is it democracy to change the very act that defines equality to empower your bigoted beliefs? It surely isn’t one I thought I’d be a part of.
If one person claims that trans people, who do no harm by existing, have a right to exist, and the other is making a claim that we do not because they do not understand us, then who is actually in the right? They speak of harm to cis-people, but every point argued has been debunked. They also speak of listening to the facts, of allowing logic to preside over human needs. I smell hypocrisy in the air.
I cannot read the news anymore. I cannot engage in social media much. I cannot leave the house at times. I am afraid. Our very existence is an act of rebellion, but it doesn’t feel enough anymore. It remains difficult to admit my fear, as I have overcome a lot in my life through pushing past it.
The other night, I thought that if I just pretended to be a woman, maybe I could be safe. I look ‘woman’ enough. My voice is high, body shapely; my general demeanour is feminine. I asked friends if I come across as ‘woman’, to which they scoffed. I would appear feminine to a passerby, but to even insinuate that I am a woman is rightfully destructive to my life. I have been out as non-binary for two years now. These have been difficult years but the happiest years of my life nonetheless.
My partner describes me as stubborn. So why can’t I be stubborn about who I am? The answer is rather simple: being told that who you are is wrong destroys the soul. Sometimes a lack of stubbornness is self-defence.
The UK government wanting to disable the Human rights Act, for a new act excluding trans people, is what is really wrong. Not me, not the community I am a part of. So yes, I am afraid of this life.
I have lived my life run by fear in the past, but I cannot anymore. Trans joy is not enough to prove to them that we mean no harm by existing. I have thought for long enough about the destruction of my existence, but I never believed it would be an external message rather than an internal one.
The governments are trying to take away the one thing we have: our identity. I have been afraid to live, to breathe, to exist. I won’t allow it anymore. Anger is an appropriate response to injustice in my mind. Now, I’m angry.
Theo Stolz is a nonbinary, bisexual, disabled writer. Personal growth often comes from acute moments that enable learning. These act as inspiration for their writing. With a career in life sciences, they use critical thinking towards themself and society to form calls to action to a sage mind and equal world.