Trans kids face threat of bullying
TRANSGENDER Awareness Week begins a week tomorrow, bringing an opportunity to shine a light on the issues faced by people in the transgender community.
In June, the BBC reported an 81 per cent increase in transgender hate crimes – something Stonewall attributed to transphobia but the Home Office said was due to improved reporting.
In America, there have been 21 violent deaths of transgender people this year.
However, for British trans activist Paris Lees, awareness isn’t what the community needs most. She said: “When I first burst on to the scene a few years ago, the biggest issue we were talking about was ignorance
“I think that’s changed – there is a lot of ignorance around but what we’re dealing with now is people being unpleasant to trans people not because they haven’t thought about the issues, but because they have thought about the issues.
“That’s a new and insidious threat that we’re dealing with.
“Awareness by itself is not necessarily a good thing if you have awareness plus hostility.”
Paris is the first trans columnist at Vogue and the first trans woman to present shows on Channel 4 and Radio 1. She recently became an ambassador for Pantene.
She said: “That’s really inspiring to me and it’s inspiring to young trans people, because they can see that actually their lives don’t have to be awful.”
For Paris, the most important thing to do at the moment is to support vulnerable youngsters.
She calls for every school in Britain to have a robust bullying policy, adding: “No kid should be afraid to go to school because they’re worried they’re going to be picked on and beaten up and made to feel like they don’t want to live.”