Transphobia On The Scene

CN – this post has the T slur in it. 

So I didn’t want to post this. I wanted to resolve this as painlessly as possible, but unfortunately there has been little to no choice in this matter. 

I think by now we all know that the word tranny is an offensive slur. I think we all know by now that the usage of it against trans women is a hate crime. However this memo never truly went to some people. 

This event is not run by trans people. It’s run by cisgender drag queens. Yes, the title says trans but that was because they wanted it to be “for everyone who’s LGBT”. Notice how the post says trannys. Yeah, not very inclusive is it? 

Now I had already tried to deal with this with the manager of the bulldog. They said they would speak to the people who run the night there. The person who runs the night posted this . So no actual apology for the usage of the T slur and in fact a mocking post. 

I need to say this, a lot of people commented saying how wrong this was and they started deleting comments rather than apologising to trans folk for the disgusting language that was used. They have not owned up to responsibility for their actions and the night is still going ahead whilst trans people are still getting discriminated for who they are.

The worst part of this, this bar has actually been pretty transphobic in the past (both staff and punters) and whilst they claim they do not tolerate that sort of behaviour, they have shut down people talking about how this affects us by deleting comments. 

When the trans scrutiny done by Brighton council and partners was completed there was a huge issue that had popped up time and time again. It was that trans people did not feel safe in bars because of language and violence used. There is also shocking reports constantly about the amount of transphobia that goes on the St James strip alone. Most of these issues we thought were addressed when poison ivy had been closed and we were promised it was safe again. 

Clearly it’s not. It turns out that gay men have forgotten who originally got our rights and chance to love who ever we want and be who ever we are. For those who don’t know, it was trans women of colour. These women need to be respected, and shit like this mocks us all, and as a gay man I feel sick to my stomach that this shit is still acceptable in 2017. 

I genuinely hope that the bulldog stop this night or at least get trans folk to actually run it. If not, at least fucking apologise for using a slur that is vile and violent in nature. 

At Pride this year in Brighton, remember who started the pride riots and maybe not choose venues that promote hate speech. 
Update – The Bulldog and the event manager have issued an apology and have said that they will try and employ more trans staff as well as becoming more trans inclusive. They have apologised for the use of the slur, and they understand that it was wrong to do that. 

Sadly some of their users of the bar however were very rude about the situation and that will be addressed separate to this.