OPINION: Trans Visibility Isn’t Just Important, It’s A Gift

Like many transgender people, I knew who I was at a very young age.

In 1983 I started school, and I met the girls who I saw myself reflected in. Like me, they were kind, polite and creative. And I met the boys – and being one of them was like being raised by wolves. They were everything I was not – angry, aggressive, competitive and destructive. But in 1983 we couldn’t just come out with our truth, so I locked myself in a prison cell of my own making.

For decades I had nobody to look to who could make me proud of who I felt on the inside.

We weren’t positively represented in our society or culture. The very few times trans people were shown on the screen, they were little more than punchlines or punching bags. The tired old tropes of us being serial killers, or the old friend returning after a “sex change” trying to “trick” the main character into a romantic relationship.

The one shining light we had here in Australia was Carlotta, although much of the time she was celebrated for her drag and showgirl performances, rather than for her true everyday self – even perpetuating the myth that “drag queen” was just another name for transgender women. When we eventually got to see her as a strong forthright woman on Beauty and the Beast, standing up to Stan Zemanek, we gained strength from that. Maybe we COULD be strong and successful too?

Fast forward 40 years, and I have found that same strength, and am now a trans advocate, speaking for a community who get to experience joys they never could have imagined, but are also fearful of discrimination and violence as we see the rights we have fought decades for being threatened around the world. Not only are we back to being punchlines and punching bags, we have now added “political football” to our resume.

Many are speaking against us, or for us, but still there is little attention paid to when we speak for ourselves.

While many advocates want to change the world, sometimes it is about helping one person to change their own world. Recently I spoke at TransEvolution, jointly hosted by ACON and Equality Australia. After the function, I found a quiet hallway to gather my breath and go through my post-speech routine of critiquing every little stumble and fumble, when along came an older man. He thanked me for my speech and said it really resonated with him. I assumed maybe he had a trans child or grandchild… but no.

He went on to tell me that my talk had made him feel seen and heard for the first time in his life, and I made him feel safe enough that I was the very first person he shared his truth with – with a new spark in the eyes and new music in the voice, he told me that “he” was actually “she”, his name wasn’t William and was actually Elizabeth, and she had been in hiding for 50 years. We exchanged numbers and promised to keep in touch, and then I drove home to Newcastle crying tears of joy and gratitude – how can you put a price on a moment like that?

This is why trans visibility matters. It can gift hope to those who need it, like I did 40 years ago, and for that, we need as much positive visibility as possible.

Every transgender person is a leader in their own right. Whenever one of us stands up and lives visibly, we are like rocks thrown into a pond. We create ripples around us as the people in our family circles, social circles and work circles get to see us as ordinary people living ordinary lives, rather than seeing us as a debate to be argued, an agenda declared or a problem to be solved.

And as Elizabeth’s story shows, sometimes it isn’t just about winning hearts and minds, but helping one person win their own freedom to live their happily ever after.

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Jasmine Nightingale is a trans advocate focussed on improving relationships between the trans community and government. She participated in the Alex Greenwich MP’s Equality Bill campaign, and has spoken at Universities, community and government functions, in mainstream and social media as well as in State Parliament.