Vlog : Bullying, Bandits and Bad Times

Triggers: Suicide, Self Harm, Bullying. This is a really difficult on this week, I talk about some really heavy stuff and hopefully do it justice. Let me know in the comments your thoughts etc etc etc

Here we are again

Some of you may be aware of the recent news surrounding the murder of Trans Woman Yazmin Payne. She was found stabbed to death when Firefighters responded to an apartment fire in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles. The murder of anyone Trans or otherwise is a tragedy, what makes this worse is it's another number in an increasingly growing statistic. A statistic which has seen three Trans Women of colour killed in the last month alone.

This isn't the first time in recent weeks that I've had to write about a similar tragedy and it feels like we can't go a week without finding a news article about some form of Transphobia. This really isn't the place for me to comment on how or why this happens nor do I know the answers, I'm going to try however. 

When any minority begins to gain any sort of awareness negativity is sure to follow, and as a group we have had to suffer a significant amount. This isn't oppression Olympics obviously but the fact that people are being targeted SPECIFICALLY because of their Gender is seriously messed up. 2014 on the whole was a time of great celebration for us as a community. It was still book-ended by tragic events however for the first time it felt like we were winning. 2015 I'm not so sure.

I shouldn't even have to write this. How is being Trans a negative? Why does being Trans warrant abuse and violence? We hurt no one yet there's still a belief we can be tormented. 

Trans Men & Women have to face abuse and ridicule on a daily basis. We are just Men in Dresses. Freaks who find some sort of thrill from dressing up as a girl. Less than human and open to beatings, bullying and murder. 

This attitude is not only abhorrent but factually untrue. Regardless of the reasons for being who we are it does not give anyone an excuse to act out their violent fantasies upon us.

The world is a dangerous place. It's especially dangerous when you can't help but be the person who you are. We are hurt for who we are. For being Women, for being Men. For being Human.

HRC (Human Rights Campaign) are working alongside the Trans People of Colour Collective with the hope of spreading awareness and support for the community. They released a report outlining some of the areas where we are being failed and are calling for action to be taken. Link here. This will hopefully prove worthwhile and it will ensure that the memories of these Men & Women won't be forgotten.

What can we do as then to raise awareness? Well just be an ally. Raise awareness of the issues facing the Trans community. March alongside us hand in hand. Be brave. Be a friend.

I'm not sure what I really wanted to say by this piece. Unlike most of my other essay type blogs I've not had a few weeks to plan and it could come off as a little rushed. But with any luck someone who isn't aware of recent events will read this and look into what's been going on. Every little helps, even if that help is coming from a slightly irate part time girl.

If you want to look into any of the issues raised in more detail then I suggest starting with the Human Rights Campaign page. Link Here. Let's turn 2015 into a positive one !

Me Myself and Charlie : Part Two

I've decided to split this into three sections and this is sort of the dark middle chapter. ‘The Transgender Emperor Strikes Back’ so to speak. This one is going to consist of me opening a lot of old wounds, events I've for reasons you will see below have tried to forget. Up until this point it’s been quite easy to simply think of what’s happened to me between the age of 16 and 20 as kids just being kids. By doing so however I've almost let them get away with doing disgusting acts in the name of an easy life. It’s about time I let this stuff go public in the hopes of stopping others from falling into the same trap.

It all started with a girl.

I’d begun to find some grounding with my Trans self. Could even say I was becoming comfortable with being Charlotte in social circles. Despite knowing that the effects of letting the world know would have massive repercussions on everyone I knew I was not prepared to let that deter me. I wanted people to know that this is who I was and I was proud of it. At first it was telling a few people in confidentiality. Now looking back ten years on I would have told 15 year old Charlotte to stop being so naïve and seriously consider who she was prepared to tell but that’s not something you really think about at that age. And boy did I pick the worst person to tell.

I don’t even know how I ended up telling this person. It wasn't as if I was exactly great friends with her. Perhaps that’s what it was, being so distant may have meant that any perceptions of who I was before hand were limited to some polite nods and hello’s. But I told her anyway. At first it was fine. She asked some questions, I responded and that was about it. Everything appeared normal until my social group changed somewhat and I ended up falling out with this person. And I bet you can guess what’s coming…

Not going to lie, mobile phones are an incredible tool until you are on the receiving end of threats and abuse from someone who you considered to be a friend. Threats of telling not only my friends but the entire school, threats of social media outage and generally just making my existence a bit of a nightmare. And who could I talk to? The other people who knew followed her, too scared to speak out and in some cases even helped perpetuate the cycle of abuse I received for almost 6 months. And even if I could speak out what could I say? I had to find a circle of trust to fight my corner and that’s when I opened up to an old childhood friend. Fortunately this individual has been incredibly supportive and we have remained in close contact to this day.

As I said above this continued for almost half a year, texts and comments were an almost daily occurrence. My attempts however were in vain and despite forging some sort of reconciliation between us she decided to tell some people anyway. To this day I still receive comments from members of my school year asking if I’ve admitted to being a ‘tranny’ (yeah classy guys my school year). I decided the only way to stop this was to essentially wall myself off and live my school life day to day until university. This however only intensified the comments which culminated in my near self destruction some years later.

University had come round and it was time to re invent myself, someone who could be open in a welcoming environment that treated these issues as normal occurrences and not a novelty for underdeveloped Neanderthal minds. I’d begun to use social media outlets as Charlotte and had developed a following for myself among the CD/TV/TG circles. That was until someone caught on to it.

For the record I am trying to keep my language to a minimum however I find it difficult to describe this individual as anything other than a total and utter cock. This individual had for the longest wanted to inflict some sort of damage to me, something that I found out much later on. He used probably one of the most cowardly, despicable and downright pathetic attempts to get at me which ultimately backfired. He convinced several of my friends that I had while on a school trip to the United States wanted to in his words ‘fight them’. Looking back this sounds incredibly pitiable on his part but they took the bait. I still don’t know to this day where this idea came from as this was never the case and I never led him to believe so. The three amigos then plotted their revenge. And it would come in the form of a public social media attack against me. Fake Facebook and IM accounts were made as me. Public comments about my love for ‘pink underwear’ and the like were posting across the web. Finding out what was happening almost destroyed me. Especially since this had been going on for a significant amount of time before I discovered it. I was at my lowest by this point. Having my personal life thrown out where I did not want it was incredibly disturbing to me. Some would argue that it was my own fault for having a social media page for Charlotte however that’s essentially blaming the victim and not the bullies.

Fortunately by this point my circle of trust had extended to some really incredible people who rallied around me with force. The fuckers in question who made the page were promptly forced to take down the page and had to issue an apology however this did not shake the feeling that I had been abused by these people. They took my personal information and used that to get at me and there was nothing I could do. These people were miles away from me and I had to essentially watch it unfold before my eyes. I sat there far away from any close friends & family watching what I felt was my life unravel before me. I wouldn't say there were any suicidal feelings, the thought has never crossed my mind but it really did push me back into the shell and it almost made me despise who I was. I resented Charlotte. Why did I have to endure something that I couldn't control? It felt like an incredible weight on my shoulders and I couldn't take it anymore. I had already lost my first long term girlfriend partly because of this and now it felt like it was doing more harm than good. That’s when I decided to throw away what little of Charlotte I had. I buried her deep down inside of me and I was determined to never let her out again….

Well I hope you all got something from the dark part of this story. On reflection this time of my life may have informed the feisty & fierce take no prisoners Woman Charlotte is but that’s a story for another time. I promise the next episode will be a little lighter though. Every story should have some sort of happy ending. 

Charlie xx