21. Conclusions - a better and more inclusive society

 

If the period from 2004 to 2016 was legally driven by inclusion of trans people in social spaces appropriate to their transitioned sex, the sad thing about the exclusionary campaigns - ideologically driven - which demean and diminish trans lives today… is the way they narrow down the wider definitions and variations of what it means to be a woman, reducing and policing it to be all about genitalia. It is reductive, and ignores both the different categories of people who are female, and the aspect of a woman's identity that is seated in the biological brain and a person's gestalt identity - who they really are - which may be irrevocably female (in a whole spectrum of different versions and expressions).

In short, it overlooks the lived reality that being a woman is not about bits alone, is not performance of dressing 'like a woman', is not only about sex if at all, but is at heart something you are, how you know yourself, how you recognise yourself in others: and in that heart of your being and consciousness - everything you have to give and offer to others from yourself - a person can grow in loveliness and potential to love, to serve, to flourish… in countless ways beyond genitalia alone. There is far more about being a woman than that.

Trans women are not trying to appropriate some single stereotype of social expression, or even everything that some other women have: they are trying to live their lives like anyone else. They are not an ideology. It's just who they are. And their lives are as mundane as anyone else's. They are not some kind of fetish. They get up, go to work, do shopping, washing, ironing, meet up with friends, read or listen to music, make supper. It's the same 'lifestyle' as yours I feel sure: it's called being a human being.

The author of this site, I know I am a human being who happens to be understood and recognised as a woman by people who know me; and know that so deep in my being that it's impossible to reverse because it's who I am. I am a threat to no-one, and a gift to those who love me; and like other trans people I deserve inclusion not exclusion. That's what enlightened people so often long for, and the politicians worked for it in the Equality Act period. Rather than marginalising people, we should care for one another, and dare to open up, more and more, to the whole of who we are, and the best of who we can be as a society. Love and courage expand us as people.

Transition has transformed my life and helped me to flourish, even in the sad face of those who demean who I am. They don't know me, but those who love me do. And I have been so grateful for the hundreds of women I have worked with and cared for, who like the legislators of the Equality Act just saw and understood me for the woman I am, and were happy to include me.