A few weeks ago I was reading an article in OUTinPerth about the Reclaim the Night event from late October and I’ve let it brew in my head for a bit, because I wasn’t down with the whole idea. For those of you that don’t know, or don’t want to go back and read it: Fremantle Reclaim the Night were accusing Perth Reclaim the Night of transphobia, citing that it hadn’t made a point of being accepting of trans-women because it didn’t say so .
Now, I’m not a regular OUTinPerth reader, I have scanned the book a few times and it does what it does for the Alt Lifestyle groups. Friends tend to point out relevant articles for me to look up.
I consider myself outside of the GBLTI++ community, I’m also a post-trans woman, I use post because I’m beyond that. I’m not longer transitioning. I’m not transgender, I’m a woman, I always was. The fact that I was raised as a boy and HAD to go through a transition does not make it OK to label me. I don’t want to be labled as trans. I don’t live in that middle zone, I live in my comfortable gender binary as a lot of straight, gay, and transsexuals do.
Let those who want to be trans-gendered identify as such and stop trying to pigeonhole me. Fremantle ‘Reclaim the Night’s Rebecca Leighton seems to think that the only way for us to be accepted or treated as women is to make out that we are something other than woman by adding ‘Trans’ to our gender. This then singles us out. Stacey Ward of Perths ‘Reclaim the Night’ had already been accepting of us, as the women we are, by inviting us onto the Reclaim the Night committee, but also respectful of our privacy.
The proposition that I’m expected to ask if I’m going to be included, due to the lack of use of the word ‘trans’ is a little repulsive to me, and sings of the prejudice that Rebecca Leighton is crying foul about.
Belinda Timothy
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