What if this week, our actions of awareness were less on show? (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

I received a well-meaning text from one of my cisgender friends this morning.

‘Happy Trans Awareness Week babe!!!!!’

I smiled, sarcastically. I don’t know whether she was texting this genuinely, or sending it knowing my cynicism surrounding the week. I guess she will tell me after she reads this.

Please do not misconstrue this as the beginning of some centre-right boomer op-ed complaining about ‘all these new days and people blah blah blah.’


My scepticism about this week stems from whether these awareness days and weeks are currently being used to their full potential, or just serve to make us more visible without support structures in place to help us.



I support these days. I celebrate them and I am glad they are becoming more visible. But visibility is exhausting if it is not met with critical reflection and action.

As my friend rightly pointed out in their text, this week is Trans Awareness Week – the week that leads to the important day of Trans Day of Remembrance, which memorialises victims of transphobic violence.

While there is some valuable work done by charities and individuals during these weeks to educate and dispel misinformation, other times – and increasingly a lot of the time – solidarity with our community appears very surface level.

I’m going to say something now, and I’m going to try and put it frankly: The problem is not awareness.

In the UK, at least, I’d say if the last three years have taught us anything, it’s that the general public are definitely aware of us.

If the relentless negative and disproportionate news coverage, the spike in hate crimes and the increase in public debate around all aspects of our lives are anything to go by, I’d say the public are pretty aware of us.

I’d say, maybe they are too aware of us.

I’d say, actually, that currently trans people face a problem of hyper-awareness.

I struggle to believe that hate crime going up in the last year, at the same time that visibility has increased, is a coincidence.

Due to fear mongering and a mixture of pre-existing transphobia, political unrest, insidious media and the organisation of groups set up to harm us, people are so hyper-aware of trans people – we become so talked about – that misinformation spreads quickly. We are then blamed for a whole host of problems that have absolutely nothing to do with us.

Whether that’s trans folk being used in arguments to suggest we’re responsible for draining NHS resources, rather than the Tory Government not looking after healthcare. Or painting trans people as a danger in public spaces, rather than acknowledging that cisgender men and values instilled by the patriarchy are a bigger threat to public safety than trans people will ever be.

It makes me wonder, to put in the words of ally and Christmas saint Mariah Carey, ‘why you so obsessed with me?’



So what do we do with this hyper-awareness? I am not saying that it means we should do away with visibility, or that discussion of our issues and our community should be silenced – far from it.

But I believe we should be more critical about what discussions are happening and how they are happening; that the visibility they are giving trans people is not necessarily welcomed.

Just yesterday a newspaper reported that a gingerbread man had been done away with in one one shop and replaced by a gender neutral one. And last week The National Theatre made an announcement that ‘ladies and gentlemen’ had been changed to a more inclusive, ‘Welcome to the National Theatre.’

All this raises awareness, but I also think it is unnecessary noise around actions that do not need to be news stories.

It creates a dangerous cycle of (usually cisgender) people promoting stories that make people more aware of trans people, and then trans people facing backlash for that awareness.

I struggle to believe that hate crime going up in the last year, at the same time that visibility has increased, is a coincidence.

I believe visibility harms people if not done with care and a structured approach. Implementing this approach could help safeguard a community that is now hyper-visible.

What if this week, our actions of awareness were less on show?

What if awareness this week looked like starting a few conversations with people you know about trans people, about our rights and the current climate we’re up against; about the rise of anti-trans organisations and what we can do about it?


What if awareness this week did not look like people changing their social media profile pictures in solidarity with the trans community, but using their platforms to talk about about trans healthcare? Just talking to doctors, nurses and GP receptionists you know about trans issues and how they can better their services would be a huge help.

What if awareness this week looked like going into work and trying to talk to people about the trans community?

Or texting your trans friends to ask how they are doing?

Or walking a trans person home at night because you are aware of the danger in the streets?

I do not have all the answers. This list could go on forever. But it’s meant to be a start.

This is not meant to be a telling off. Rather, as I sit in hyper-visibility and invisibility simultaneously – a sentence that feels as complicated as it sounds – I realise that our action and activism needs to be more nuanced too.

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