I really like Zack, and I believe he is a trans ally, but the ‘identifies as’ line made me nervous. I know some might think I can’t take a joke but we’ve been taking those exact jokes for years and more often not from allies. 95% of me knows it wasn’t malicious but 5% fears it was some Freudian slip

Good point. Though I wonder (genuinely) how much ‘protecting’ them from trans attendees would help vs validates a fear that could become generalised (ie., if the perp happened to be trans)… but I guess as long as the person hosting isn’t transphobic the long term aim would be to overcome the fear 🤞

I was actually fine with the idea of them setting up a TERFs only group for people who feel they need that, but what the utter fuck is that statement. The least they could have done was be clear in their cis-only/trans ban instead of repeating this biologically undefined ‘biological woman’ bs

I wonder what intersex migrants from countries that don’t enforce binaries onto babies are supposed to click 🤔

I still struggle with internalised transphobia. I don’t talk about it with anyone. Friends/family mostly respect my gender but the whole trans topic still feels taboo.

It’s shame from all directions. Ashamed of who I am, ashamed of making myself small.

I crave the trans joy I saw that day.

4/4

On the other hand, the experience raised 2 emotionally difficult questions for me:

Who are you making yourself small for right now? Do they deserve it?

The answer of course is bigots and people who’ve lacked education/exposure to trans topics. And no, they don’t deserve it.

3/4

On one hand, I think my fears are well founded.

With increased use of facial recognition, rise of the far right, and algorithms showing high reliability in predicting things like sexuality and political orientation, any published photos could, in theory, put us at serious risk in the future. 2/4

If you take heroin your GP will help you with blood tests. But if you follow international healthcare protocols and take eg puberty blockers NHS England has told your GP not to help you monitor hormone levels with blood tests. Gender affirming care is, apparently, worse than heroin.

So write to your MP! Template here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

If your MP is useless / you don't want to write to them, there's this open letter you can sign instead (you can sign the open letter if you HAVE written to your MP, too).
forms.gle/NYBxTEogn6Q9...

Feel free to share both.
3/🧵

As in, does anyone have methods they find help provide even just small boosts to their energy and ability to focus and block out all the shit that’s happening?

Lmao at their letter

So I’m ending with a list of all the things they want which i refuse to do.

The question is, do I end with ‘fuck the EHRC’ or ‘sincerely’? Maybe both?

‘Fuck the EHRC, sincerely’

I quite like that one.