You Don’t Hear It A Lot: But England Is A Terrifying Place To Live. And I Know Reading That Single

You don’t hear it a lot: but England is a terrifying place to live. And I know reading that single line will have some people snickering as if what I said isn’t true. Maybe we aren’t as bad as some places: that much is true. We don’t have gun crime, racism isn’t as much as heard of (though it definitely exists in a stupid amount). But that’s also because you lot don’t hear about it: you don’t hear it unless you’re in the country or from the country and keeping up with everything.

As a non-binary trans masc person, it’s terrifying to even step out of the house and I’m not even publicly out yet. The amount of trans and homophobia around England is insane and terrifying: it’s to the point where everyday I’m reading the news and another LGBTQ-related attack is somewhere on the front page. Another transgender person has been murdered in cold blood or another lesbian couple has been beaten up on the tube in London. As someone who has been constantly penalised and put down for trying to be who I am, as well as outted against my will, it’s scary to read these things everyday. It was heart breaking to watch GMB every morning and see Piers Morgan invalidating my gender through an argument with someone who was trying his best to defend me. It was cringe-worthy hearing the comments coming from my own “friend”‘s mouth when I tried to come out.

JKR was a perfect example of just the power of the hate in this country: her voice - and her supporters voices - were so loud that they got the government to backtrack on their plans to allow me to change my legal gender easier. Because it invalidated sexual assault survivors and their hardships. I was sexually assaulted when I was 8: and again when I was 11. Believe me when I tell you, letting a transgender woman use the fucking woman’s bathroom is NOT invalidating your assault. That sounds like a you problem, not theirs.

The government is actively enabling the persistent LGBTQ hate in this country. In the last four months there have been several online petitions which they have HAD to look at due to 100k+ signatures. Each time their only was response was “No, we support you, but no. Too much work.” If you refuse to recognise me as existing- to recognise that I am a law abiding person who deserves to be able to legally be me- then you are not supporting me.

The NHS has a wait time of anywhere from two years to ten years for gender clinic appointments: just to get put on hormone medication, you could be waiting up to 7 years for one appointment. Unless you go private that is. Not only is private extremely expensive, but the NHS practitioners have every right to DENY your referral / diagnosis because it wasn’t done by an NHS professional. So even if you do go private, there’s no guarantee. A lot of transgender people are resorting to illegally obtaining hormone drugs from dealers. We’re that desperate.

It’s gotten so bad that OTHER COUNTRIES are acknowledging that it’s unsafe to live here. Two years ago a British transgender women sought asylum in New Zealand based purely off of her gender identity and WAS SUCCESSFUL. Portugal also accepts asylum seekers based off of gender identity. That is how bad it is here. Transgender people are dying everyday. This is how bad it is.

There’s so much more I can rant about but it’s 7am and I haven’t slept. I’m tired. But I just spent three hours crying over this shirt and how not only me but hundreds of thousands of other Transgender people in England have it bad; and there’s no one here to help us.