20 quotes
It is only through solidarity, compassion and radical reimagining that we can build a more just and joyful world for all of us.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Ending homelessness is an important political goal for society as a whole; it is especially important for trans people.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Everyone has a right to set sexual boundaries for any reason and to not feel pressured sexually on an individual basis.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
It is the adult world, though, that instils and nurtures prejudice.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
The reality of trans life today is often hidden from public view.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Everyone’s got their own battles to fight.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
To be trans is an experience bound up with economic struggle. There cannot be one without the other.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Trans people are not a burden to society or to the state. It ought to be the state’s obligation to support trans people, not the other way around.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
One of feminism’s central ideas: that gender is a reductive trap which limits freedom and curbs individuality, forcing people to deform themselves and their desires in the service of an exploitative and violent system.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Misogyny, as we’ve seen, is multifaceted and polices different people and different kinds of bodies in different ways: all must be resisted in order for feminism to truly challenge patriarchy.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Anti-trans feminists’ repeated claims that they were being silenced were in fact highly effective in getting their viewpoints aired on television, radio and in the press.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
When you feel your culture and identity endangered and ephemeral, the anchor of history and the celebration of antecedents can be empowering, and worth fighting fiercely for.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
The murders of trans women sex workers are not rare. This is a recurring phenomenon and we regularly try to alert public opinion and the authorities to this violence. Unfortunately, as always, we find ourselves alone.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Feminism must concern itself with radical possibilities for our future, a future in which gender-based violence and harm is abolished, freeing us all to lead more joyful lives. That cannot begin with barring the freedom to find other ways to look at, understand or do gender.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
In general, trans people are more likely to have lower incomes and to experience poverty than the wider population. [...] Prejudice persists. It is not just a personal affront, but an economic reality that shapes and limits trans lives.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Patriarchy is based on three key ideas: that ‘male’ and ‘female’ are a natural, immutable and exhaustive binary; that all males should be masculine, and all females should be feminine; that masculinity is incompatible with and superior to femininity.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Many homeless trans people stay off the streets by ‘sofa surfing’: either staying with friends or, in some cases, exchanging sex for a place to stay. Inevitably, some end up sleeping rough. For trans people on the streets, life can be brutal.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
Hope is part of the human condition and trans people’s hope is our proof that we are fully human. We are not an ‘issue’ to be debated and derided. We are symbols of hope for many non-trans people, too, who see in our lives the possibility of living more fully and freely. That is why some people hate us: they are frightened by the gleaming opulence of our freedom. Our existence enriches this world.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
What we choose to define (and stigmatize) as ‘mental illness’ is itself a matter of politics. For instance, our perception of homosexuality as an identity instead of a disorder is a relatively recent development, made possible by decades of campaigning to depathologize it.
The Transgender Issue (2021)
The idea of linear political struggles, which are confined to formal parliamentary politics, is a chimera. Protest, civil disobedience, local community work, care work, and bridge-building with other oppressed people are all politics: all will be necessary in our struggle.
The Transgender Issue (2021)