R I L E Y SI N CLAI R
struggling when I was younger. They always say that, “Oh, it will get better”, but when you’re younger you never really believe that. It’s true to some extent but at the same time it’s not. I can’t go back to my younger self and say, “Mental illness is going to go away, you’re going to go to university and anxiety is just going to disappear. You won’t be depressed or have issues”. I think it gets better because the people around you get better. I’m worse off mentally than I was when I was younger but I’m around people now who make it easier to function, and to be happy with who I am. That’s why the Pride community is so important and it makes me so upset when I see that there are so many arguments that go on within the community about different matters. It makes me sad because I feel that the real meaning of Pride isn’t just being proud of yourself. It’s being proud of everyone. It was Transgender Day of Remembrance on Monday and the overwhelming feeling was that everyone should mourn for the people we’ve lost, but also just keep fighting by being yourself. I feel like that. My friend Scarlet, who is a lesbian, said to me that her biggest fear about coming to university was that she’d have to come out to everyone again. I felt that and I was so scared about it. But then I walked into my first class and just went, “Hi, I’m Riley, and I’m a trans guy.” I just did it, and even though not everyone called me the right pronouns, and not everybody knew what that meant, it was a lot to myself to just not be scared about it. I spent so long having to come out to people individually and explain what it meant, so it felt nice to come in
and just say it. And if people accepted me, or if they didn’t, then that wasn’t my problem. I don’t like being misgendered but I understand why people can get confused. When people think of a trans guy, they think of it being quite masculine. I’d say I get misgendered a lot more than my friends but that’s kind of a given, because I am very feminine and I dress very feminine. But I also think that another thing that has helped me, and it’s another debate in the trans community, is drag. It’s a massive part of my life, specifically Sasha Velour. I love her with all my heart because she just doesn’t care. Just watching her makes me so happy because her whole thing is blurring the lines between gender, and that gender doesn’t really matter, so just be what you want to be. If people have a problem with it, then that’s not your issue. All my life, I’ve had people on the streets yell at me with every name under the sun—female and male slurs, everything. That’s always happened no matter what I’ve done, or no matter what I’ve worn, or who I’ve been with. So, I’ve realised that people are always going to have a problem with me and who I am, so I might as well make them even more mad by being just as big and over the top as I want. I’ve lost quite a few friends to suicide. One of them told me, when I first met her, that you should always remember to wear your slurs, because then people can’t hurt you with them. I think that’s something that’s going to stick with me forever. And I wish she’d known it, because it’s people like her, and everyone in the world who was like her and isn’t with us anymore, that will inspire you for the rest of your life. Just the way that she