Trans with Pride

VISIBILITY: SAFETY & EDUCATION

The Trans with Pride team members for this strand were: Ben Gooch, Fionn Greig, and Harri Weeks. With invited guest: JAMISON GREEN (author, activist) In association with: GALOP AND TRANS YOUTH MANCHESTER

Jamison looking at the solutions tree

This strand looked to bring trans people together with community safety workers, education and LGBT youth service providers, and people leading trans community organisations in order to exchange experiences, ideas and good practice, and to work towards practical, achievable solutions.

Visibility, to us, has a number of meanings:

  • 1. Making our experiences visible: talking about our experiences with a view to improving services related to issues of safety and education.
  • 2. Becoming visibilised: what happens when people "read" us as 'trans'? How can we manage in situations where we may have to 'come out' in public spaces such as stop and search procedures, passport renewal, and to teachers in schools etc.
  • 3. Visibilising ourselves: how do we negotiate our gendered experience and what effect does this have on us? How do we decide when or if we want to 'come out'?

We used these ideas around visibility as a springboard for solution-focused discussion. We aim to develop our collective findings and practical suggestions with a view to publishing advice, draft policy and literature.