AK Souffle: Just shut up

I’ve made 50 episodes of my other LGBT+ TV show Queer Say and it is not only amazing but alarming to see the frequency that some issues appear in the global media – Chechnya, the Australian same sex marriage referendum and a certain American President, they seem to be in the news week on week. But the ones that strike me most are the stories surrounding the issues attached to the transgender community.

It distresses me to see how many people have so many issues with this, and yet I fail to understand how this can be. You see I don’t think that anyone who is not trans or considering transitioning can form a valid or informed opinion. I mean how can they really know what it is like to make this life-changing decision, especially in a world where clearly that choice is being branded as abnormal. It’s surely incredibly difficult to take the route of transition in full knowledge that for a great many misguided people that route is simply wrong.

They are fighting to be respected

It’s much like people who, on seeing a friend or colleague who is distressed or upset, offer the following advice – “Oh you shouldn’t let it upset you”, when clearly it already has upset them. That kind of weak platitude obviously comes too late and is certainly not based on the distressed person’s real feelings.

Well, wanting to live your life as a man or a woman is a very personal thing no matter what your birth gender was, and no one has the right to tell anyone else that they are wrong. If you were born male but feel that you are really female then that should be the end to it – and vice versa.

Unfortunately the whole issue is being exacerbated by people suggesting that there are men who are transitioning or living as women simply so they can gain access to much fought over women-only spaces, refuges, prisons and the like. Maybe there are a few opportunistic monsters out there who do this, but surely this is not something that can be waved at the entire trans community. From my experience most trans people simply wish to lead a normal and ordinary life. And for those of you who will say that there are some very militant attitudes in the trans community, I would say that if there are then they are fighting to be respected and allowed to lead that normal and ordinary life.

If you don’t know what this issue is all about, and you have no respect for a fellow human being’s personal existence then I say shut up, and on that note I am going to shut up too.