I'm non-binary and I was approached by an anti-trans campaigner on the street. This is what I learnt

To be trans in public is terrifying – but what kind of existence do we lead when we can only feel safe, comfortable, loved and ourselves, in private?

On Friday evening I had a chance encounter with someone who claimed to be from the organisation Fair Play For Women. I had just walked in on a man smoking pot in a women’s toilet cubicle in Brixton. Afterwards, standing at a crossing, I mentioned this to the friend I was out with. This is when the woman (who neither of us knew) stopped walking, approached us and said, “Sorry, did I just overhear you say you saw a man in a women’s toilet cubicle? Because the government is doing this thing where they’re trying to update something called the Gender Recognition Act (GRA)…”

She then launched into a list of all the evils of the GRA and how it would allow men to enter women’s changing rooms and just chill there, and men to enter women’s refuges and how it would permit men to smoke pot in women’s toilet cubicles, apparently.

The first thing I said to this woman was “You’re talking to a trans person here.”

And she said: “Sorry, if I knew you were trans I never would have approached you.”

Some context before we continue. The Gender Recognition Act has been causing quite a lot of fuss recently. For those who don’t know, it’s a piece of legislation that is taking an age to get through parliament that, if passed, would more easily allow transgender people to change their legal gender.

It has absolutely nothing to do with trans people’s rights to enter gendered spaces – that is already covered, and has been for some years, by the Equality Act of 2010. But despite this, a small group of very vocal cisgender women have been fighting against the passing of the GRA. One of these groups is Fair Play for Women, who refuse to accept that someone can identify with a gender different to the one they were assigned at birth, call transgender women “trans-identified males” and are very vocal about a contentious study that they have put out claiming that a high proportion of trans inmates are sex offenders. So some pretty horrible stuff.

With such strong views, I think it was incredibly interesting that she almost immediately backed down as soon as she knew I was transgender – surely, if you believe something so passionately, you shouldn’t be reluctant to share it, particularly with the a person you see as a source of “the problem”. But I also think it’s interesting because there is a culture of no dialogue present here that is very much present on Twitter, that has even made it onto the streets into a chance conversation: this idea that we just don’t talk to each other. And it’s a culture that is very much real: we don’t.

But this night we spoke for a good few minutes. I mentioned to her that, in my role as a journalist, I had personally called the Ministry for Justice about FPFW’s trans prisoner study, and they had said there was no evidence to back it whatsoever. This was whilst working with the non-binary activist Owl Fisher on a piece they wrote disapproving of the study – the woman hadn’t heard of Owl, and she hadn’t read Owl’s piece. FPFW continue to stand by their report.

My friend, who is a neuroscientist, told her that all the science points to trans people being real. I told her that as someone who has volunteered in a women’s refuge for the past few years, trans people have been welcome in that space since pretty much its inception – and that as a non-binary person, I was too.

At the end of the conversation, this woman actually thanked us for talking to her. I don’t think she changed a single one of her views – but something changed: and that was assumptions she had held before about all trans people based off of likely not having met any. And I think we had given her some things to think about, at least I hope.

The next day I was, thankfully, in a majority trans (and very openly trans-positive) space. I was lucky enough to attend the #StillHere conference – an event put together by some really amazing trans activists – to discuss issues affecting us as a community. The GRA reared its head – how couldn’t it – but we also had a safer space to discuss things like getting older while trans, sex while trans, policing, mental health, education… as just a few examples.

The keynote speech was by Labour MP Dawn Butler, shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, who made the point we all need to talk to each other a little more about these things. “We have to talk,” she said. “We have to change the tone of the debate because the others aren’t going to… we have to convince people that it’s okay. It’s okay for other people to have their equal rights and their human rights.”

I completely agree – nothing ever changes without dialogue. No mind, and therefore no system, ever progresses if we split into separate camps and never cross paths again – that is division, not inclusion. That is segregation, not integration.

But what does talking to each other actually look like? When trans people have our own spaces, curated and controlled by us, we can feel safe and comfortable, we can talk openly about things that we often wouldn’t be able to, like trans sex, we can let loose and smile and feel supported, and we can also discuss the most difficult parts of existing with people who get it and will show us nothing but kindness.

As soon as we’re taken out of these spaces (i.e. every moment of every other day), we could just be out with friends one evening, and have someone approach us to contest our existence, tell us we shouldn’t have the same rights as other people, and make very personal comments about our appearance that can undo years of contending with dysphoria (the aforementioned woman told me, as a transmasculine person, that I “really, really, really look like a girl”, apparently). And this is the tip of the iceberg – trans people mostly experience worse, and the threat of violence is very real.

This is the paradox of opening up conversations: On the one hand, it makes life better for trans people in the long term – I hope the few minutes we spoke encouraged that woman to question, to reconsider, to maybe even change her mind on some things. And changing mindsets is ultimately what leads to wider societal change, and therefore a better future for trans people.

But on the other hand, it makes life more difficult for trans people in the short term – that night I felt attacked, I felt hurt, I felt vulnerable. I shouldn’t have to deal with that just walking down the street on a Friday evening, and I doubt that the woman left the conversation feeling anywhere as near as shaken as I did – having had my identity attacked and my existence challenged when all I wanted was to chill with my mate and hear her read poetry in Brixton market.

Ultimately, as a trans person, I shouldn’t have had to experience that. And although I hope it made progress in some ways, if anything it made me want to engage less, not more, with cis people – even potential allies. On Saturday I just wanted to retreat into the safer space of the trans conference and not leave. As Travis Alabanza so eloquently put it when I spoke to them the other week about being trans in public, “To exist as a gender non conforming person particularly, but all trans people, is to face harassment from all sides – I’m shouted at by children, I’m gawked at by mothers, I’m followed home by men. What happens when you’re trans and harassed is that often no one outside is having your back. You’re kind of seen as deserving for the violence you experience because you’re gender non conforming. People go ‘look at that freak over there’.”

To be trans in public is terrifying – but what kind of existence do we lead when we can only feel safe, comfortable, loved and ourselves, in private?

This is what we need to change – and I would encourage dialogue to change this. But at the same time, if that woman had approached me on Friday and I hadn’t wanted to talk, if I’d shut down, if I’d cried, if it shouted, if I’d called her a TERF and told her to get lost – these responses would have all been just as justified. Conversation is great, but only when we feel we can, and if we feel it’s even worth it. Sometimes, the best thing is actually to just shut off, be with people who get it, and give ourselves space to breathe – for our own preservation.

So let’s start conversations, but only when we feel strong enough. Let’s engage, but only when we feel safe. Let’s fight for change, but not feel weighed down by the responsibility for making change – because if we take that responsibility onto ourselves, we risk breaking ourselves, and we already have enough external forces trying to do that. And a broken community is exactly what they want – the best way we can resist is to be strong, healthy and preserve ourselves, then we can think about talking.

As Audre Lorde so wisely said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Update. The Independent has published a letter from Nicola Williams of Fair Play for Women. 18/10/18