Your Identity is not Your Own

Written by sarahlizzy
November 1st, 2010 at 8:34 am

http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=3379

Helen has already written about this, but there's an angle I wanted to add – something that potentially affects us all as trans people; the ease with which our lives and identities can be stripped from us and used as a public plaything.

The World now knows that both the victim and the suspect in the death of Sonia Burgess are transgender. In one of the most hateful pieces of alleged "journalism" I have ever seen on trans issues (warning, reading this reduced me to sobs and I had to resort to Valium. You have been warned), the Daily Mail casually strip both women of their identity, their dignity and their humanity.

While I would not like being outed by anyone without permission ( and I give none) I can understand the media when a person lives professionally as male and has not had a legal name change. Sometimes protesting something when the victim herself has made no clear legal choice is not on our side. If she worked and had her name change, I can see being upset.


(A, Do not correct mt grammer, I am fine with it as is.)