Hypervisibilty

Being hyper visible in society can be really difficult. There is a huge assumption because it is “obvious” that you are disabled or “visibly queer” you get life a lot easier because you are seen in society. Trust me, whist we are talked about, no it doesn’t get any easier. It is often used more as an excuse to patronise you or treat you like a lesser human being. I do also want to add before I continue that I suffered years having my illnesses being “hidden” and yes it was shit, and people didn’t often believe how much in pain I was or how tired I was, but it was nothing in comparison to what I experience now when I am out in my chair.

Being visible doesn’t mean you are free from discrimination. Trans people who are “visibly trans” are still getting murdered, gay men and lesbians are still being forced into heterosexuality and wheelchair users are seen as second class citizens and have to deal with unemployment based on employers unwilling to make “reasonable adjustments” to the work place.

Gay people do not suffer less oppression because they are more visible by being in same/similar gender relationships. Gay people do not get it easier because they are known more for being gay. There is a huge wave of how gays and lesbians are taking up “too much” space in the LGBT community and that we should bring forward B and T … For starters trans people can be gay or lesbian and secondly talking about same and similar gender attraction does not invalidate bisexuality because that is a part of it and “straight passing” relationships are never the ones that are under attack and subject to violence and oppression. I also hate the phrase straight passing in this situation but trying to word it as cishet by society standards seems wordy as shit.

The same can be said for disabled people who’s disabilities are visible. This doesn’t mean that people with invisible illnesses and disabilities are being talked over, but that there is different needs for different communities and that creating accessible spaces, work laws and equality polices for the ones that are most visible will in turn also make all this safe for those who are not visible in society because everything will already be in place. For example, we need lifts – wheel chair user shouts at person for lift access.. Lift access is now for all people with access needs.

Reasonably short post but in summery hypervisibility does not equate to safety.

Community And Care

Being trans (and being disabled for that matter) gives you almost a push to look for a sense of community so you can find people who you can relate to and find some form of friendship amongst some of the issues that we often face. This however is quite difficult as, and I’m speaking from personal experience here, we are often the most shy and isolated people you will ever come across. But we do manage to carve out our small little areas to get support.

However these are not always the greatest places for us to be in.

Often the community we love is really fucking toxic and can cause so many issues for us. We are all trying to find our own paths and we all have different needs of care and support that we require and that is fine but there is often bitchiness, back stabbing and a failure to recognise that there is a vast amount of intersectionality in trans spaces. There is often racism, ablism and even trans and homophobia in trans spaces. Our community is still just as volatile and corrupt as every other space out there. The difference being is that we often do not check in on our behaviors and they are often justified by other community members because we are a marginalised community.

Racism , homophobia, transphobia and ablism is not justified fullstop.

We need to unpick all of the bullshit that we do and that does mean calling out a lot of the behaviours that are around us. There are a lot of trans people in our community that are problematic and I’ve mentioned that in posts previously on here, I would tag a few, but honestly I’ve mentioned LGBT community bullshit so much you will probably stumble on something pretty quickly.

As someone who is trans and disabled I can tell you that intersectionality is forgotten about constantly. So can my black and trans friends, my disabled and bi friends, ect, ect, people will often think that we will fit in small boxes and that box will fit all the care and support everyone who experiences that one marginal part of their existence but it won’t. As an example I will need support on access to venues and electricity ports, but because I am white and I “pass as male” I will not experience the trans misogyny that women will experience and especially trans women of colour who will need a higher level of support when it comes to violence in society. Everyone is entirely different but we are forced into a one size fits all package.

We need to destroy this concept and start working on more individual care and support basis. We also should be carving spaces so more of our marginalized members get the spaces they deserve to have and the members of the community that already have good platforms need to step aside and allow others to have a louder voice. We are often wrapped in the same few (white and able bodied) trans people taking spaces and their experience, whilst giving platform to the voice of transness, also is silencing the voices of trans people who NEED to be heard.

I hope that in the next couple of years that we can start making serious headway into making community spaces and voices much more intersectional and fair, the support needs to be given to those who need it.

Binders And Broken Bodies

When I first came out as transgender the first thing I wanted more than anything was a binder. No I don’t mean the plastic folders that have rings inside them that hold paper, I mean the item of clothing that compresses your chest to flatten it. I wanted to hide the 42 G monsters I had been cursed with. I knew that I needed to get rid of the very things that were causing me the biggest stress of them all. Getting my first binder was the most magical experience ever. Whilst my chest was still too big for me to “pass” 100%, I had more of a freedom to go out and be the authentic me, and not the person I had pretended to be for 25 years of my life. I got my very first binder in 2012 and in 2017 I had surgery that meant that I would never have to wear a binder again.

The day I had top surgery

Now, I wished this was how my story ended and I wished I could tell you how I progressed to lower surgery and I live my life as a “passing cis male” but that’s not how my story ended. In fact it is where it started. It had turned out after all that time, the only thing that had been keeping my spine in place for several years was my binder.

When you wear a binder, as well as it compressing your chest, it can often compress other parts of your body, such as your rib cage and spine. For years I had been experiencing severe shortness of breath as well as a painful spine. I had chalked this down to wearing a binder, the size of my chest causing huge pressure and a horse riding accident I had when I was in my very early 20s, so I pushed forward for my top surgery and after lots of bullshit and funding drops I finally got it done. What we didn’t know until about a month after my surgery was that my spine was actually moving and the hypermobility I had in my knees, and arms had progressed to my back. During that year I also suffered a serious seizure due to one me being epileptic and two me drinking excessively because a friend had just died. I have had seizures for years but this was the first time it had really start to affect my nervous system. We don’t know if it was because of how much I drank, whether other illnesses had a factor into it, or whether my brain just gave up fighting so hard, but I became seriously unwell.

I’m now a wheelchair user. My transition had become a bittersweet pill, because now I was finally becoming the comfortable masculine person I had always wanted to be, but after years of torturing my body of drink, drugs and self hate, I had broken myself. It was the most drawn out joke but the punchline had just been so terrible no one laughed. I however do not pity myself for this though.

Whilst things have been shit, it gave me a second chance in life where this time I actually didn’t give a fuck anymore. I was able to finally start realising that I needed to look after myself and that I needed to focus myself on life and being happy. Being forced to recognise that I am actually broken and disabled was the greatest thing that could have happened and if I never recover or if I even die tomorrow I would have no regrets in my life because I had actually lived.

Not many people can say they have lived many different lives in one body and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Alienation

When you think of disability and how to make lives more easier for disabled folk the first things that are often though of is access requirements and the truth of the matter is, that it’s a highly important thing to think of, but how do we even contact disabled people to come to events to make them accessible for them in the first place? This question is just as valid when we are talking with the trans community as well, and if you have just joined me you might think that this is a very weird tangent, but I am both trans and disabled and I need access.

There is quite a cross over in the LGBT community and disabled one. We don’t know why that is, it might have something to do with the fact that if you can be open with yourself as to who you are, it is easier to admit when you have problems. I don’t know, I’m not a scientist. But what I do know is that there is a serious feeling of alienation in both communities that needs to be addressed. There is a constant talk about how you want people to reach out and get to services and events, but there is no actual conversation on how we reach those who are most hardest to reach. Not much effort is put into it either.

The first things we can do is to research places that are already formed. I’m not talking about just buildings and physical meet up spaces but also online presence. Often where we are at home often, that is the starting out point of how to reach us. We can’t know of a thing designed for us if it’s not on a platform we would be using. Secondly, when you say you are accessible, what even does that mean to you and your venue? Accessible toilets are great, but if there is 5 steps to get in and no ramp, how is that accessible. Is there translators, does anyone know sign language? Are your staff have knowledge of autistic people. We are not demanding that you do everything, but listing off what your event and service provides is also a good place to start.

Alienation is not just an inability to access venues though. It’s a social issue as well as a mental health one. It is a feeling of hopelessness and lack of self worth. Something that has been programmed into both disabled and trans people as our entire world is designed for cisgender able bodied folk. We are reminded every day that people think we are second class citizens and it does drag us down to the point where we do not feel safe outside. The best thing to do with us is really simple. STOP DOING THAT. Each little back handed compliment and in your face insult just isn’t needed and behind those toxic thoughts and words are real people who are experiencing hell.

The final bringer of alienation is often how we behave ourselves as humans and as our own community. We all fuck up. All of our shit stinks but the queer community has a tendency to pick and choose the type of people they will “kick out” of the community and often some of the offences are nothing in comparison to the people they leave in. Life still feels like a popularity contest and trust me I’ve seen people who have been metaphorically dragged out for saying the wrong thing but the same people doing this go to venues that support racism. There are people who get shit for making a mistake due to being ill or neurodivergent but there are famous trans people who rip off hard peoples work and cause physical distress but they are left alone. Our own community is pretty fucking toxic and we need to be held accountable for the actions we do to our own peers, especially our own disabled peers. We need to pack our shit in.

Alienation is a terrible thing and we need to do everything in our power to try and stop this from happening to the most vulnerable members of society. Look after your friends and remind yourself that there are people out there that might actually need your help.

The Theme Reveal Of 2018

April is coming and it’s another chance to attempt the A-Z challenge. Last year was a total disaster where I had to drop out half way through but the year previously was a success.

This years theme is about “Gender and Disability – looking critically and how to be more intersectional” This sounds like a total mouthful and yes I have made me work my fucking ass off this year but it was something I could actually do for a month that would still keep the ethos of what my blog was for originally.

If you have joined me because of the A-Z master post, hello!!! Some of the stuff might be confusing, some might be uncomfortable also. Whilst I am catering this month to the idea that there will be a lot of people reading this who have not only never encountered a trans person, let alone a disabled one – I will not be toning down language either and I will be pulling apart the cisgender heterosexual able bodied approach to life and how we need to adjust society.

Some posts have already been written in advance – on the 12th I am having major surgery. If I am slow to reply to comments and stuff. That is why.

Any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’m more than happy to talk about certain things on here. Good luck to every writer taking part this month and I look forward to looking at what everyone has done

TC Austen

Performative Bullshit

Do you know what really grinds my gears? Performative Allies. I’ve got to a point now in my life where I’m just sick and tired of having to hand hold cis people and able bodied people to just do the most basic of things and I’m tired of them needing the goddamn cookies all the time.

OK, I just want to tell you all this. EVERY TRANS PERSON IS TIRED OF HAND HOLDING CIS PEOPLE!! We may act nice and polite but that’s because we know for a fucking fact that you will throw it in our face if we show frustration. Trust me, you can Google that gender question you might have, and no we probably don’t know your friend that’s transitioning but you are misgendering them through each painful comment you are stating about them. No we don’t need you to comment about how we should be passing and no, your comments about pronouns are just not needed when they have been explained to you 50 million times. We are tired of your little micro aggressions, like telling us we will get treated better when we are nice and polite. We shouldn’t have to confirm to the ideals of passing to be treated like a human being, and stop comparing trans people to drag culture.

Like actually fucking stop that shit

I’m being fucking serious

Being at the Phillip Starr community tent and seeing the portraits of trans people working, right next to drag queens was a fine fucking example of alliship gone fucking wrong. TRANS PEOPLE ARE NOT DRAG PERFORMERS. STOP PUTTING US IN THE SAME CATEGORY. You can be cis and do drag, you can be trans and do drag but they are not the same fucking thing, and to put cis drag queens next to trans women, you are (all be if unintentional) implying that their presentation is just a performance and not their actual life. It might not have been on purpose and I hope that next year more consideration towards trans people will happen.

I’m not even going to get into the disaster that was even the terrible rubber matting that was used as a “ramp” that caused injury during community day and I’m certainly not going to go into the fact that a member of the public had to assist me with the matting on the grass because IT WASN’T EVEN ACCESSIBLE. LIKE COME ON, ELECTRIC WHEELCHAIRS AND MUD DON’T MIX BUT YOU KNOW, WHATEVER. I am going to add though that apart from that , community day was amazing, if was lovely to see so many people and I really hope lunch positive got a lot of money for the work they did on that day and the prep day a few days previously.

Everyone acts like they do everything in their fucking power to help disabled people, but Brighton fucking sucks if you are disabled and honestly no one actually does make things easier for us to just get about in our day to day lives. We don’t want fucking parties run in our honour and we don’t want fucking perks. We want venues to be accessible, we want to be treated with respect and we don’t want companies saying they will help us and when the cookies dry up, you then forget that we fucking exist.

Maybe actually help your disabled friends when they need it. For examples STOP GOING TO VENUES WE CAN’T GET INTO. Do you know how shit it is for us to see you all go to venues with zero access for disabled people, or for that matter, friends going to venues where the staff are problematic and cause pain?? Yeah, we know that there are loads of you that STILL go to venues that have ablist, transphobic, racist and anti Semitic staff members. You don’t think we don’t notice this shit. You then come to us saying “oh we want to help” but don’t do anything. Here is something you can do.. STOP SPENDING MONEY IN SHIT VENUES. And I’m saying this especially to my LGBT friends, cause you do this shit more than the cis hets. Your performative bullshit is just as fucking annoying, if not more so because we fucking expect better from you. STOP GOING TO PLACES THAT ARE FULL OF SHIT HEADS!!

I know I sound like a huge party pooper but Jesus fucking Christ this has become fucking frustrating. You are literally giving money to things that cause us pain, and that means there is nothing going to the places and things that actually support us as trans and disabled people. Actually support trans and disabled business. And not just do it for the fucking cookies but for us to actually improve our lives.

Give us a fucking platform worth having and pay us for our labour or fuck off .. We are done with your bullshit, no more free cookies till you help us!!!

Top Surgery – A Year On

So I finally hit my surgery anniversary and there is no balloons nor candles , nor do I feel even in the mood to celebrate getting rid of the one thing in my life that was causing me the most distress. Honestly it has just felt like every other period of my life throughout the past 12 months. 

I mean yes, I’m fucking happy that they are banished from my life, but it has been the hardest pill to swallow. If you are new here (hi) it’s also the marking point where I was last physically well. This point is the pivotal moment when my body gave up on me and I spend a lot of my time going out in an electric chair. I am trying to look at the positives but I can tell you now it doesn’t end up all sunshine and rainbows for me at the end of the tunnel. 

Believe me, I’m fucking happy with my results of surgery and I’m looking forward to my hysto next month but I am just so fucking tired all the time. I at least wanted a couple of good years with my body before it packed up on me. I just wanted to be a real boy ™ for at least a moment before I needed mobility aids. 

I know you were kind of expecting something a little more positive, but I am just so tired of being trans and barely human anymore 

My Internalised Phobia

I think I said a lot when I posted about my feelings on this post about my struggle with being in my chair, and recently that whilst I am really comfortable about talking about being in a chair, I don’t actually like being seen in it. Which is bizarre because ITS NOT LIKE IT’S NOT FUCKING INVISIBLE. 

I’ve had to keep myself pretty grounded recently because being seen in a chair, being seen as visibly fucking disabled actually terrifies me more than anything else. It makes people treat you differently and how I often treat myself at times.

I will internalize most of the bullshit that goes on, and peoples ablist remarks because at times I feel like I deserve it. I constantly think “am I actually disabled though” in my head, even though I know in myself that I bloody well am. These intrusive thoughts do not go away. 

What even is “being disabled enough” and what the fuck does it even look like? 

Why do I constantly self doubt myself, even though it’s obvious that I shouldn’t be feeling like this. 

What the fuck even is life? 

Mental Health & Disability

Why in the ever growing fuck do I decide to write obscure title ideas into my journal and expect to pull something out of my ass. Why do you do this Tyler, WHY? 

I suppose when I first put this down as an idea it was to talk about the cross over of having both mental health issues and being physically broken. I do say this knowing I’ve actually spent time at home and knowing that whilst I can move a limited distance in my one bedroom flat, going outside is an entirely different thing. I am pretty privileged in the fact that whilst walking anything other than 20 steps is either complete agony or there is a 80% chance something would dislocate I could evacuate on my own legs in case of an emergency. This also doesn’t factor in the chronic fatigue that I suffer though and that’s an entire different ball game altogether or the spinal injury that I have, or even this epilepsy… Fuck me I actually am broken. But there are people in far worse situations than I am in, and I need to be thankful for the small  mercy’s I have been blessed with. 

However life entirely intersectional and my “good” days do not factor in the days where I am experiencing severe mental health issues. I’ve spoken before about living with psychosis and depression but factor in living with it and being trapped in my own body ALL OVER AGAIN and it just manifests into a pit of shit that I can barely get out of. 

Recently I have suffered body dysphoria really really badly, which has been physically kicking my ass. It’s not even about my chest (nearly a year post op now) or even so much my genitals as much but just being in this fucking broken shell at times just feels fucking disheartening. I feel constantly that people will just not find me attractive enough because I’m trans but being wheelchair bound AND trans really limits your options in not only the dating pool but your friendship circles as well. It’s weird, it doesn’t feel a part of me and I don’t know if that is because I’m having dysphoria because I’m trans or just fucking depressed because in order to see people and to function, I NEED to be in my chair. 

It is a constant emotional roller coaster because people are much worse off than I am in many places. They are trapped at home unable to get about or unable to transition and I have the privilege to do both but sometimes it really does just get too much at times. It is physically draining to be human. It’s a full time job that I have had to juggle and I don’t have the physical capacity to deal with everything all at once like I used to. 

The worst part is that people pity me. They pity me for being trans. They pity me for being in my chair, and it is just bullshit. I don’t need pity. What I need, what I really need are three simple things

• Partners that fucking understand me
• Friends that act normal towards me
• Being able to access spaces and not panic because they are not wheelchair accessible 

You would think that these are simple fucking requests but in fact as the time has progressed, I have realised that no, actually they are not. These are just tiny things and honestly it gets to me that every day is a fucking joke. This is the type of shit that makes me depressed and unwell. And it is the same for everyone else in this situation. 

I’m not even going to start mentioning the patronisation or the fact that we are seen less equally than others because that is another goddamn blog post and will last longer than the state of my patience with society. 

If you do have friends, family, loved ones who are in this situation. Please check up on them from time to time. Being disabled actually is a really lonely experience. It is like watching the whole world go by but you are frozen and unable to do a thing. Please respect disabled folk and as my final thing, DO NOT TUT AT THEM BECAUSE ONE DAY YOU MAY END UP LIKE THIS TOO. 

Queer Dating – Special Edition – Part 3

CN – Men being a complete idiot. I don’t even know where to begin with this one. An assumption of genitals, awkwardness and the daddy kink rolled into one

So I have given up on the whole experiment. Honestly it is making me really fucking depressed attempting to find decent human beings online. Grindr was just awful and I get very little interaction on scruff. 

Turns out the wheel chair really is a huge issue with some people. I might try this again next year, and when I’m on the PreP trial, but right now, I’m quitting this game. 

I shall leave you with highlights from an interaction. Turns out it has loaded this backwards (sigh) so you are going to have to see the reverse of the interaction. I’m the blue one