In my time living in Europe, I have experienced a few (and thankfully, only a few) incidents of racism. So I am relatively used to encountering everything from unkindness to hostility and violence from strangers. But this story is about how I received two different forms of hate delivered via two very different five-letter words, both starting with the letter “b”. Can you guess them?
A dash of transphobia
Following the UK supreme court’s ruling that, for the purposes of the Equalities Act 2010, transgender women are not considered women, I have now also experienced my first instance of open transphobia. It happened towards the end of the football season in the UK, and you’ll soon see why that’s relevant.
It was a Saturday. Although I didn’t have a cricket match myself, I decided to walk to my cricket club and enjoy a pint in the sun, watching my friends play. I wore a nice summer dress, grabbed some food from a local bakery and made my way over. I watched a bit of cricket, but it was a little too windy to stay out for long, and after a couple of hours or so, I decided to head home.
Walking back, I felt a little uneasy, because the last football match of the season had just taken place at the local ground, between Bristol City and Who Gives A Shit. I could see some Shit fans milling about and so quickened my pace to get past them without delay. Unfortunately, due to roadworks taking place on the street that I had to take, one side of the road had no usable footpath, and the other footpath was full of Shit fans, getting drunk outside a local pub.
My heart pounding, I kept my head down, my eyes in front of me, and kept walking. From the corner of my eye, I noticed one Shit fan staring at me as I came up to the group. He continued to stare at me until I was next to him. Then, leaning slightly forward, he put his face next to mine and said one word to me:
“Bloke.”
Without slowing down, I held my tears back and walked past the group. I bought myself a small tub of ice-cream from a nearby shop and let my tears out when I got home, devouring the entire tub in bed in a single sitting.
A sprinkling of misogyny
A few weeks later, my choir had a gig. Also on a Saturday. This time, I did have a cricket match. Or so I thought, until, after reaching the club, I received a message informing me that the opposition couldn’t assemble a team. I could sing at the gig after all!
A friend gave me a lift home from the club, and I got ready in a hurry to make the gig in time. A gorgeous black dress, make-up and jewellery, high-heeled black boots. There was enough time for me to walk to the venue, so I made my way downhill to the city centre via the quickest route: relatively secluded steps to the river with houses on both sides for most of the way.
I was walking gingerly in my high heels down some very slippery steps, made extra-slippery by some fruits that had fallen from the overhanging trees, when I spotted him. An intoxicated man walking up the steps with a bottle of alcohol in one hand and a leering expression on his face.
I avoided eye contact and moved closer to the wall to my right, since he was steadying himself on the railing on the opposite side. When he was a couple of metres in front of me, I noticed him eyeing me up and down. Before I knew it, he missed a step, slipped and fell on his front, probably face-first.
In my previous life cosplaying as a man, I would have checked if he was OK. But this time, alarm bells went off in my head, and fearing for my own safety, I didn’t stop. This seemed to displease the intoxicated fellow, and I heard him shout one word at me behind my back:
“Bitch!”
I didn’t look back. I kept walking down the steps and got to the main road. I arrived at the venue shaking, and needed to actively bring my heart-rate down.
As I recounted the incident to my friends, one of them, who has probably been on the receiving end of a fair share of such behaviour from men, put their arm around me and assured me that I did the right thing by not offering help. In an effort to cheer me up, they added, “Hey, at least he gendered you correctly…”
Here’s to gender-affirming, trans-inclusive misogyny!
A word on transgender segregation in the UK
As I said, I have only had a few incidents of hate directed at me, both before and since that ruling. I have not been stopped from using toilets anywhere so far, and both friends and strangers have been very kind to me generally.
However, this isn’t the case for many transgender women. Hell, the ruling has also seen cisgender women facing hostility and threats in public spaces, especially those who don’t conform to the straight, white notions of femininity.
No matter where you are, I implore you to read this report on transgender segregation in the UK, from TransActual [PDF]. If you are from the UK, though, please also take a moment to write to your MPs on the matter, send them a link to the report, and quote the executive summary to them at the very least. People’s lives are at stake.