Have I done anger yet? Maybe a bit, for example: We have had enough, but it feels like time to talk anger, to feel anger, see anger and to speak it. Not in fury or resentment, but from the heart.
This week, weekend to weekend, has been Pride in Brighton. Being the centre of the world, of course it’s a non-local event, and has become a carnival, a big party, a celebration. Look, world, we can be gay, we can be lesbian, and our sexuality has nothing to do with you and everything to do with how we were born. Stuff you, we’re proud! And by now Pride everywhere attracts our friends and relations in joyful support.
We’ve arrived! YeeHaaa!
Haven’t we? I could walk out of Pride Park and be abused on my way to the station. Not for being gay or lesbian, but for being trans*. But in fact the worst street abuse I have had, and in Brighton, in daylight, was for being a woman. Vile stuff that went on and on, from men in a small truck.
Pride has become carnival for the huge strides in acceptance of sexual diversity in this country. It began in anger, in protest for equal human rights, against hate and bigotry embodied in the law, expressed in the media, ingrained in culture and perpetuated by blind beliefs. In no small part, religious dogma and doctrines have been responsible for the roots of this culture.
I want anger again. I want real anger for media hounding and othering. I want anger for women being expected to protect themselves rather than men being expected to drop their societal privilege. I want anger because of events like 50 rape threats an hour online when Caroline Criado-Perez succeeded in her campaign for a woman to feature on a UK banknote. Sexual threat against any woman who has an opinion, success without acting masculine or adopting male dominating attitudes is a deep sickness that has been accepted in our society. It’s just men being men. Carry a rape alarm and avoid dark places. It’s up to you to be safe.
I want anger that Pride has had to exist at all. I want anger that countries where Pride is a feature still allow trans* people to be demeaned and diminished, working below their skill levels or unemployed, and subject to violence and hatred. I want anger, that at one end of the year the carnival streets are alive with Pride, while at the other there are quiet, dignified events marking the Transgender Day of Remembrance. That one is in the media with colour pictures, whilst the other hardly features for its sobriety.
I want anger that a large proportion of people attending pride still have no idea what trans* really means. That ‘T’ is an honorary add-on member smiled upon and thought of as being something sexual.
Trans Pride – a first
This year in Brighton saw the first Trans Pride event in Europe. It was a gathering in celebration of trans* people finding each other, being free and happy together, enjoying a degree of quiet acceptance, good entertainment, and rain. But among the 1,500 who went, probably every single one will have suffered some abuse, and every one will at least know another who has attempted suicide, if not having done so themselves. Many, if not most, will have experienced some rejection by one or more family members.
I wish I could have gone, but I had previous commitments. And to be fair, I do have some reservations about anything that requires me to ‘belong to a community’, when I just feel normal and ordinary. And yet standing out is an important statement too. Or at least standing up. Because there is much still to be said, and a lot to be angry about.
The need to speak righteous anger
Injustice should shout to everyone who believes in humanity. Instead we have become a society of individuals afraid of being noticed, and afraid of reaching out to protect others lest we too be attacked. Pride is easy, because it’s a carnival. It wasn’t when it began. And there is nothing carnival about being trans* on a daily basis. If we survive, we are strong. As I often say, we are not brave, but we need a hell of a lot of courage.
Tomorrow I shall stand up in the largely LGB tent at Pride to read. I’ve wrestled with what to write, read or say. A nice bit of stirring, fun performance poetry? Would something gentle and thoughtful be more settling instead? (cue polite applause) But in reality I want to challenge, I want to be angry for my two minutes, for all the injustice and unfairness that happens on a daily basis to trans* people everywhere, including Brighton. And for where it comes from.
Our society as it is didn’t come from nowhere. We are not male dominated by default, not by some divine proclamation, and not because humans evolved fighting bears for survival. Comparative physical strength rather than inner strength is not by default the determinant of rights. And yet our heritage is stamped with ‘male is default’ (unless stated otherwise with ten good reasons listed beneath). Men are listened to more, expected to be the leaders (sorry, darling, didn’t notice you). Women are still expected to be the respondents and givers of pleasure through food, home-making or sex, still expected to accept what to do, still expected to listen before they speak, to concur before they disagree. All old feminist stuff? All still so terribly true.
And so I want to be angry that Pride has ever needed to exist, and that the carnival hides what is still a bigoted, wilful, male-dominated, unequal and unjust world right outside Pride Park. So if you are L or G or B, or just content to support and welcome others who are, spare more than a thought for what trans* people still encounter every day, with fewer protections and less support. Share a bit of anger for the overt and covert discrimination, for the hatred, for the media sensationalising, for the parents denied access, for the loneliness of being ‘different’ whilst being exactly the same as you on the inside. Because it all stems from not challenging societal norms, in origin flavoured powerfully by masculine religious culture and past doctrinal teachings.
I don’t mean deliberately to run up against people with faith – I will respect you if you respect me. But we do need an honesty about where societal norms originate about right and wrong, good and evil, and about how those norms have been given authority and by whom. Is your god male? Does your god have a history mostly of working through men, where women are the exceptions? Does your god have a history of male law-makers and priests, disciples, bishops, cardinals, and popes? Does your religion reflect ancient cultures where men ruled and women were usefully subservient? All of these things have helped give us a binary, clear-cut world where even gender and sexuality can be right or wrong. Why do so many feel suspicion about trans* people? Why is there that thought, that ‘something isn’t right here’, or indeed is ‘wrong’? Why is something that can be clinically diagnosed regarded as a moral issue, or distasteful? I reserve a bit of my anger for this, because in no small part I lived 40 years in fear and self-anger because of this cultural belief.
And now? I’m proud alright. And I’m angry. OK?!
