Read on Twitter
it has been *quite* the week for trans and non-binary people in the UK: the government finally published the results of the 2018 public consultation on the Gender Recognition Act and said that, despite clear public support, it won't be reforming the law. a thread:
i want to point out that very little of this important trans-related news has been brought to you - in online media, newspaper, tv or radio - by trans people ourselves. most of the coverage has been from cisgender journalists and editors, in cisgender-led and dominated newsrooms
this is so stark when you consider that cis journalists have no lived experience of being trans. it's bleak, too, when you consider how much of the GRA discussion and debate has been about us, our lives and rights, but without us being in the rooms where that debate happens
when the minister for women and equalities, @trussliz, was grilled on the government's response to the Gender Recognition Act consultation, there was not a single openly trans or non-binary MP in the house of commons. trans people have *never* had a representative in parliament
even in the GRA consultation itself - which saw over 100,000 people respond to 22 questions - trans people were spoken over by cis people. only 1% of the respondents were trans people who had changed or were applying to change their legal gender https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/09/22/gender-recognition-act-reform-announcement-fair-play-for-women-liz-truss-trans/
i am, as may be evidenced by this thread, shattered after this week. i'm tired of being one of the only openly trans journalists paid to report on this stuff in the uk. i'm tired of having to explain why that matters. i'm tired of watching cis-dominated media frame trans issues..
... which means that the public learns about and understands trans people through the cis gaze. i'm tired of outlets commissioning trans and non-binary people to write op-eds about the news, rather than the news, features and analysis itself
the GRA results were 186 pages long. there are still stories in there - will anyone tell them? i don't know. in the meantime, if you've read this far (!), here are some pieces from *actual trans and non-binary people* about the Gender Recognition Act announcement this week:
1. @carasadhbh of @Genderintell makes the case for a positive reading of the GRA announcement https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gender-recognition-act_uk_5f6c673fc5b674713cc803ae?6h
2. @notCursedE writes for @IndyVoices about how this result isn't worth the three years of pain the trans community went through to get here - but says self-ID will one day be brought in https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/transgender-gra-reform-liz-truss-consultation-lgbt-equalities-b552362.html
3. @jamie_windust , contributing editor at @gaytimesmag, was on @SkyNews talking about the emotional labour trans people have spent over the last couple of years fighting for GRA reform https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1309412319185821701?s=20
4. @zinovievletter wrote for @guardian - in what marks the paper's first piece about trans-related politics written by a trans person in a very, very long time - about why trans rights must be fought for by liberals https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/24/liberals-stand-up-trans-rights-transgender
5. @caitlinbenny, the presenter of My NB Life on @BBCSounds, wrote for @PinkNews about why we should abolish gender categories altogether after the GRA failed to bring in legal recognition for non-binary trans people https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/09/23/non-binary-gender-recognition-act-abolish-c-benedict/
these are all the pieces i'm aware of in the media (i'm not including medium blogs, twitter threads or fb posts. i mean media where the trans person was paid to write an article). i'd love to be way out here, but i think there are just five in total. and all white writers
that's the representation the media gives to a community of around half a million people, which it has paid cis columnists to write about in increasingly hateful terms for the three years that the GRA was debated
media representation isn't the be all and end all, obviously. neither was the gra. these are just my reflections after 2+ years reporting on it. now it's over, i wanna be reporting on efforts to tackle the trans healthcare crisis, housing, employment, transmisogyny and racism
this thread probably could have been an op-ed but i'm too tired to write one. solidarity with every trans and non-binary person in the uk this week and especially my combabes working in the media - what a fucking WEEK 
(
)
()
