I start analysing my makeup, heels, dress, calculating all the things that the commuters may be thinking as they stare at me (Picture: Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for Free Word)

I’m on my dreaded morning commute – the assault course that is also known as Canada Water tube station.

On this morning, against all my instincts born from safety, fatigue and not wanting to draw attention to myself, I have chosen to wear a casual black work dress and heels.

The tube doors open, I sit down, and instantly I feel eyes looking at me.

I start analysing my makeup, heels, dress, calculating all the things that the commuters may be thinking as they stare at me with no shame for the disgust in their face. My thoughts are cut short by a man’s word vomit: ‘what the f**k is that?’

People look up and identify the ‘that’ the man is talking about (spoiler alert: it’s me) and then continue on with their day. No defence, no speaking up and no checking if I was OK.

This experience, for many trans and gender non conforming people, is nothing new. We know too well the relationship between our public harassment and silence.

The world carries on as the tube remains silent. People carry on listening to their music and one woman goes back to watching something on their phone…wait, is she watching an episode of Drag Race?!

I can’t help but laugh.

Suddenly the all too familiar silence feels particularly loud. This woman watches a ‘lip sync for your life’, disregarding the life in front of her that needs support, and a bit more than lip service.

I become so much less angry at the person who initiated the harassment and more infuriated by the silence of this woman.

It so aptly summed up, in one moment, the conflict many have between the ways and places gender non conforming bodies are appreciated, and how this rarely translates into substantial care and safety.

When met with in the day, outside the club, off of the television, away from the prospects of entertainment we are still not safe (Picture: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Shorty Awards)

This was an act of consumption without wondering about those bodies beyond the screen. I will invest in you when a screen is in the way, but stand right in front of me in the daylight and I do not know how to help.

Gender non conformity is allowed to exist in public space but only as entertainment, and never in mutual respect.

I left the tube and wondered if I was over reacting. Should I really use this one example to make grand conclusions?

Yet as I walked past HSBC with their Pride-affiliated logo, wondering how they treat their trans employees – or thought about the straight hen-dos that overpopulate drag bars on a crowded Saturday night, or maybe scrolling online to see the way gender non conforming people are used for yet another viral meme – I realise our relationship with the general public is off balance.

In the middle of Pride month it seems we have public examples of gender non conformity: drag queens are being positioned to sell products, invited as guests on talk shows as Drag race becomes more ‘accepted’ into mainstream, and queer clubs with gender non conforming artists are packed with more than just an LGBT+ crowd.

However, when met with in the day, outside the club, off of the television, away from the prospects of entertainment we are still not safe, and those finger snapping us in the club, or ‘yas queen’ing’ the TV are nowhere to be seen.

With transphobic and homophobic hate crimes rising and gender non conformity consistently being seen as a threat and danger to society, trans people (particularly those outside of “conforming gender presentations”) are continuously demonised in both private and public spheres.

No more. We can no longer accept a solidarity that stops at a screen, or a stage or a meme.

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I no longer want to celebrate people learning how to watch gender non conforming entertainment. Instead I want to push for a solidarity that does not require a performance in order to win your protection.

I long for a world where gender non conforming people do not have to be on stage, or a television, or glamorous or at night to matter – and can exist during a Wednesday morning, during the dreaded morning commute – in peace.

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