Claire, Laura and Cass from Happy Valley Pride share what TDOV means to them, and why it's so important.
Cass's message
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what trans visibility means in our current climate. Trans people need to see other trans people succeeding and thriving, to believe that they can too – but we are increasingly incentivised to not be visible, to not be vocal, to hide ourselves from the world. We are pushed to the margins, prevented from full participation in society, because of assumptions about our bodies, and mindsets, and motivations.
And that’s very deliberate. We are in the grip of a moral panic: there are many people out there who believe that trans visibility is itself a threat. That merely seeing trans people can turn other people trans (which is uncritically seen as necessarily a bad thing – but I’m not going to get into that here beyond noting the bias inherent to seeing “more trans people” as inherently bad).
And of course that’s not true – there is no credible evidence for the “social contagion” hypothesis, just as there never has been when the same things were and are said about gay people – but it is true that seeing trans people, knowing about us and our lives, means that more people who are already trans will realise it; will realise that transition is an option; will realise that transness, trans people, and trans lives can be beautiful, and happy, and successful.
And the cruel irony is that, for a lot of trans people, invisibility is success. “Passing” allows some respite – brief, tenuous, and incomplete though it may be – from the constant drumbeat of transphobia that grows ever louder and more insistent. It’s not something that everyone can achieve – it takes time, effort, good fortune, and (with NHS care for trans people largely hypothetical) often a great deal of money – but passing is often the only way that we get to exist as ourselves, without the weight of others’ preconceptions about us and without being constantly othered, stigmatised, and dehumanised.
And so trans visibility comes with a dilemma: hide, try to be invisible, and protect your own safety and sanity; or stick your head above the parapet, potentially endangering yourself in the hopes of maybe helping a stranger. I think when people say things like this they are often making a case for the latter, but I’m not going to do that: if you’re trans, and reading this, your safety and sanity should come first. If it is safe for you to be visible that visibility can help others – but if it isn’t, remember that your existence is resistance.
And if you’re cis, and reading this, please reach out to your trans friends, family, colleagues. They are living through a frightening, uncertain time. They don’t know what their rights are: no-one has for a year now. They are living from court case to court case to find out, and doing it against a constant, escalating background of transphobic rhetoric. Your support may mean more than you can know.
Cassandra (Cass) Floyd-Mercer, she/her
Laura and Claire's message
