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So I met Lauren Harries the other night. BABE.
But it got me thinking. She was so sweet, she arrived with her friends and family, had a few drinks and a dance and chatted outside, like everyone else there. It was at G-A-Y, which is essentially a safe place for LGBT people, away from abuse, and she fitted into our minority like everyone else there.
Yet, on Twitter, in newspapers and basically anywhere online, she’s been subjected to transphobic abuse. From sources that are supporting celebrities for coming out, condemning Russia’s policies and generally supporting LGBT, it’s like they’ve forgotten what the T stands for. What I found more shocking, and disgusting, is the amount of abuse coming from LGB people.
Did you guys suddenly forget the amount of shit you’ve had to go through or the struggle to be accepted? Why the fuck are you now doing that to someone else? Has it literally taught you nothing, because now you’re just as bad as the ignorant people that are homophobic, if not worse because you’ve probably been on the receiving end yourself (no pun intended).
I honestly can’t get my head around this contradiction. I think any argument anyone has made for why they should not receive abuse for being gay is just as applicable to transgender. You’re just like everyone else, you just happen to like someone of the same gender. She was just like everyone else in the room, she just happens to be a woman.
To think we’re in 2013 and still struggling for acceptance, I think it’s vile that anyone has the audacity to not be accepting of another minority. Shouldn’t we be showing we’re deserving of acceptance by accepting other minorities and presenting a united front? Or should we prove we conform to the ignorance of today’s world by being close-minded to other minorities?
Lauren recently made her return to This Morning (after being banned four years ago) and took the opportunity to have her say on the matter. She said, talking to Emma Willis and Phillip Schofield, ‘The gay community has been much more accepted but transgenders haven’t been, it’s a completely taboo subject. And I want it to be out there like Elizabeth Taylor was with the AIDS campaign and I will not stop until the day I die.’
When asked if she felt that the transgender community had been more accepted in the past, she responded, ‘There will always be people out there who won’t understand. Even Russell Brand’s mother has called me “him” so these things can be rather upsetting.’
This isn’t the first time that Lauren’s place in the spotlight has made her a target for transphobic abuse. In 2005, a gang of eight youths broke into her family home in Cardiff and assaulted Lauren as well as her brother and father while shouting the word ‘tr*nny’, but despite this and any jeering she may have faced since her gender reassignment surgery, Lauren is still determined to raise the profile of the transgender community. You have to admire her bravery and conviction for this.
If people want their sexuality to not have to be a part of their personality or be something that they are judged for, then why should Lauren have to have her personality judged because of the identity she was assigned at birth. Why should that ever need to be mentioned? That’s not who she is: she’s a woman. You’re an idiot if you refer to her as anything other than her name or female.
We hate too fast and we love too slow.
