Highland members of the LGBTQ+ community discuss the importance of positive representation on Trans Day of Visibility 2024
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Every year on March 31, people come together to celebrate Trans Day of Visibility.
Created in 2009 in response to the only recognised awareness day centred around transgender people being Trans Day of Remembrance, which mourns the murders of members of the community – like Brianna Ghey, whose death made national headlines over the last year or so.
The Day of Visibility, however, is a celebration of the living, and their contributions to society.
Over the last 15 years, it has grown into an international movement from its American roots – including to the Scottish Highlands.
That message of celebration is one that many would love to take to heart given the negativity of recent media coverage, and trans people in Inverness are no different.
“On the anniversary of Brianna Ghey’s death, a trans woman was stabbed in an attempted murder,” Hartlee said.
“That is the picture that the media constantly shows us as trans people. It’s either ‘this trans person has been murdered’, or ‘trans people are violent perverts’. That’s all we get.
“Online, if we’re not constantly miserable and hating our bodies, we’re not trans enough. That’s why it’s important to destigmatise the entire experience of being trans.
“I just want the media to see us, for one day, as more than monsters or dead people. I want them to see us as people who have hobbies and loved ones, and personalities.
“I am allowed to love myself as I am and find little joys. I’m finding labels, and clothes, and people, that are accepting and feel like a home I’ve never had, and I’m allowed to be happy.
“No matter how much other people – and to an extent the media – tell me I’m not allowed to feel that as a trans person, I’m going to find a way to be happy with myself because I and every other trans person are deserving of that happiness.”
Hartlee’s partner Meadow continued: “For me, it’s more that I have enough to be miserable about in my own life that comes from me being trans.
“I don’t enjoy how I get treated by medical establishments, I don’t enjoy that there are no options for me to be referred to as Mx. I’m miserable all the time, so let me talk about the things I enjoy.
“I have been out casually since I was 14, and it was only when I met my current friends that people started calling me by my preferred name. I get called by my name now as opposed to a name that hasn’t fit me for years, by people that I love. Is that not something worth celebrating?”
One thing that both Hartlee and Meadow are keen to emphasise is that, while their trans identities can be hugely affirming, they are more than simply trans people.
Just like everyone else, they have hobbies and pets, and enjoy life much like any of their peers do.
“It’s important for trans kids to see other trans people being happy,” Meadow reasoned.
“It would have been really important for my younger self to be able to share joy that isn’t about being trans. I love my crochet, I love my partner, my weirdly overly-attached best friend, I love the younger trans people who I have pseudo-adopted, I love my pets. I love making bread and gardening, and making a little home for my family.
“It’s all great, I am genuinely at a point where I can say I love my life.
“We are allowed to be more than just trans people. I would say that most trans people don’t want to be as visible as we are, but we have to be. If being trans was more normal, like having red hair, we would not be sitting here talking about it.”
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Hartlee added: “I’m making a home where I am surrounded by all these other people who care about me, and just being able to enjoy living life with them. I get to create new things with baking and writing, and I get to sit and play video games and write parody songs.
“I get to just be. Some of the joy in my life does come from my experience of being trans too – I’m not saying it’s easy, but there is a sense of community that comes with being around other trans people and getting to explore my identity. Getting to explore in the way that I do is a privilege and I enjoy that.
“I’m not saying it has been easy, because it hasn’t. There have been a lot of really difficult moments that I didn’t think I was going to make it out of – whether by someone else’s hand or my own – but I am here and I wouldn’t take back any of those experience for a second because it has led me to this point.
“I am also just another person who has hobbies and friends and family, just like everyone else. I have more than one facet of my identity, which is unfortunately something that a lot of the people don’t see about trans people – we are more than that. We are just people.”
Much of the language around LGBTQ+ identities are not particularly positive. The idea of “tolerating” or “accepting” people’s identities could be far more encouraging, which is part of the reason it is important for young people to have visible role models who are thriving as part of the community.
That can be difficult to find in a climate where connections to any part of the LGBTQ+ community are met with backlash.
With both Hartlee and Meadow saying that they love their lives, in spite of the backlash and hate they sometimes face, it is important on an occasion like Trans Day of Visibility to acknowledge the positives in their experience.
Meadow commented: “In a lot of coming of age stories about gay people, there is a moment where they finally kiss the gender they are attracted to, and it’s joyous. Trans people experience that when we sit at home and realise.
“I figured out I was non-binary one night during lockdown. I was lying on my bed, recalling an incident where I actually referred to myself as they/them, liked it, and immediately repressed it, and realised.
“I sat up and texted the group chat to say I was non-binary. It was terrifying, but also really quite good when everyone’s reaction was that they were proud of me.
“It felt really good the first time people called me my name in real life. I started jumping up and down in a queue while social distancing during Covid.”
Hartlee added: “If people are going to see only one thing about trans people, I would rather they saw something about the good parts of being trans – the community I’ve found, the ways I get to experiment with clothing and express myself, the friends I’ve made – rather than all the statistics we already know.
“If we can be humanised to just one person, that will be worth it. If nothing else, we can give another trans person a little bit of hope that they will find joy in their transition.
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“I remember being eight years old and walking through Inverness high street and seeing a pretty girl, and stopping myself because that was a feeling I was only meant to have about boys. I told myself I was broken, and convinced myself of that for the next several years of my life.
“I can pinpoint the exact moment the penny started to drop about being trans. I was in high school and in a group of boys for a project – we aced it and got top marks, and they said I was one of the guys today.
“I froze, because I thought I already was one of the guys. It took me a little bit more thinking to realise where I lie, and at first I was terrified to tell anyone.
“I couldn’t come out at school because I wasn’t out to my family, but I blurted it out to my friends one day and they were super supportive. As much as those friendships haven’t lasted, I will always be thankful to them. I was filled with fear, and the moment I told them all that fear just dissipated.
“Looking back on that moment, there was something so freeing about it because that was the moment I stopped being constrained to this box that didn’t fit right. I’m so, so lucky that I had friends who were encouraging and let me try out a new name.
“I’m just so grateful that I had these people around me to help me navigate this and help me become who I am, and it was such a nice moment because while there was so much fear at the time I can look back on that moment as the moment I became me.”
