4 minute read
Scene Magazine - June 2021 | WWW.GSCENE.COM
"WE NEED TO REMEMBER OUR ROOTS"
By Tom Rudd
I’m a working class, (mostly invisibly) disabled, ethically non-monogamous, agendernon-binary panromantic-recipro-asexual (basically: I’m queer). I served as LGBTQ+ officer at university, representing LGBTQ+ students and educating people on queer identities and issues. I ran a special edition of my mental health poetry event Sad Poets Doorstep Club (SPDC) during LGBTQ+ History Month, showcasing up-and-coming and established queer voices in the UK spoken word scene, on top of regularly platforming queer talent in every SPDC event. I even started an LGBTQ+ group during a brief stint in the Civil Service. In short, I’ve been active, in some capacity, in campaigning for and helping LGBTQ+ people since I was 16.
It’s currently a difficult time for LGBTQ+ people:
• Half of LGBTQ+ people had experienced depression and three in five had experienced anxiety.
• Around 40% of young LGB people had seriously considered ending their life, but that figure rises to more than half in trans and nonbinary young people.
• Around one in eight LGBTQ+ people have experienced unequal treatment from healthcare staff because they are LGBTQ+. One in seven have avoided treatment for fear of discrimination.
Apparently it’s absolutely fine to debate the existence of trans people and whether we deserve rights and dignity, as if our existence is somehow immaterial to the conversation, while completely missing the point and putting more people in danger through ignorance and vindictiveness. This leads to trans people being forced to defend ourselves at every conceivable opportunity, somehow the pressure and responsibility of describing why we should be allowed to live falls on our shoulders. We are all forced to be advocates for our own existence, paragons of nice, clean, palatable trans people – we need to be sanitised and proper every single second for fear of being denounced as violent, mentally ill or child-seducing.
Our only two national holidays are asking society to acknowledge we exist and remembering our dead. I’ve written two poems about Trans Day of Remembrance, a day we spend remembering the trans people murdered in the last year, to show just how harrowing this process is.
We are, as far as I’m currently aware, the only community who have this ritual of reading through the death statistics year on year, to remind ourselves what we’re fighting for, and to mourn those we’ve lost.
Transphobia isn’t a thing that exists solely outside of our community. A lot of people expect the LGBTQ+ community to support each other, because we all face similar discrimination, but unfortunately that just isn’t the case. Bigots exist everywhere – there’s a movement in some lesbian circles to exclude trans women, ‘no trans’ profiles on Grindr, and a lot of misplaced hatred from people who should really know better. Exclusionists believe that only the truly oppressed groups should be part of the community, and that trans people pollute it – amusingly (depressingly) the exact same argument straight people used about gay men a few decades ago.
Another rampant problem that stems from inside the community is bisexual, pansexual and asexual erasure. People complain about the ‘alphabet brigade’ sticking more letters onto the acronym, completely ignoring the fact that those same people were scratching and clawing for a seat at the table not too long ago. It can only be a good thing that people have a wider array of labels to try on, to identify with. Humans are complex creatures, the more widely available language to describe our experiences, the better we can express ourselves and find what we need, whether that be sex, romance, or something else entirely. You should be free to pursue whatever it is that you want out of life, to live in whatever way suits you, as long as it isn’t harmful. To this end, why not introduce as many labels as we need?
It seems obvious that queer people should support each other against hatred, regardless of gender or orientation. This community has faced harassment and discrimination for so long, turning on each other only helps the bigots in their quest to force us back into the closet. We need to stand by EVERY letter, or we are no better than the people who would tear us down. Instead of older queers shunning the ‘newer’ orientations, they should be protecting them, teaching them how to survive in a prejudiced world, and supporting the people that need it. People so quickly forget that it was trans people and homeless queer youth that started the Stonewall riots, not cis gay men. We need to remember our roots, remember why we fought so long and hard for acceptance in the first place, and the people that got that acceptance need to help those that don’t have it yet.
About Tom Rudd
Tom (Anxious Anarchist Poetry) is based in York. Their work focuses on the ideas of mental health, identity, grief and the importance of cuddles. Rudd’s mercenary style of poetry has led to them winning the Stanza Slam and being a runner up at the Your Place Slam.
i am a thing of rough edges is published by Whisky & Beards.
