Fight Isolation

When we think about the hostility faced by marginalised folks, I think about isolation a lot.

Isolation, according to the Collins dictionary, is the state of feeling alone and without friends or help. Like loneliness, it doesn’t mean simply being alone. We may be surrounded by people, but still feel unsupported, unloved, and helpless. In the rise of far-right movements, isolation has become a huge weapon against trans+ and Intersex people, especially.

Isolation has become the way that politics has divided the world - those who support trans+ & intersex people, and those who don’t. I would argue that trans+ and Intersex people are not included in these groups, as we are now seen as an outside force. Both here and in America, failing political groups have seen anti-trans+ policy and conversation as a way to prop up their political clout.

This has been seen in so many ways.

Restriction or removal of healthcare

Removal of access to documentation

Suggesting we’re terrorists

We pose a threat of mutilating children

That trans+ ideology is a prominent and present threat to society

Maybe a more tangible example of the isolation of trans+ people was the introduction of a photo ID needed to vote in elections in the UK. Trans+ people already face a barrier in gaining an authentic (in feeling) ID that represents them. Non-binary people are *still* unable to to have their gender identity represented on documents. In the paper ‘Trans+ people’s perceptions of political participation in the wake of voter identification requirements: evidence from the UK’, Ash Kayte Stokoe and Kit Colliver found that “one in four trans+ voters in our sample said they were less likely to vote following the introduction of voter ID.” The lack of agency we can feel when we are forced out of democracy is a huge form of isolation.

NPR reported that in the run up to America's last election “researchers have found the more distant a person feels from the political norm in their state, the worse their reported health.” It is clear that isolation in its many forms can cause real damage to individuals as well as communities.

In the UK, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security issued a red flag warning that the UK was being a genocide perpetuated against Trans+ & intersex people. Saying that the action in the UK places us in the “9th Pattern of Genocide: ‘Denial and/or Prevention of Identity.’ As we have repeatedly stated over the years, genocide does not only manifest in the killing of an entire group. In the case of trans and intersex people, genocide is often perpetrated by making it impossible for individuals to exist as their true selves.“

Isolation is working.

Isolation is winning.

Of course, this has been a persistent and dedicated movement that has risen to such a high-stakes position in the last decade. This is impossible to dismantle alone. It is even harder to dismantle when the trans+ and intersex community feels the harsh isolation that has pushed us to the very fringes of society.

Isolation wins because it makes us believe we are powerless. It is Trans+ Awareness Week, I’m sure, like me, you’re painfully aware of the situation we face, but perhaps unsure what can be done.

The opposite of isolation is inclusion.

The opposite of isolation is education.

The opposite of isolation is dialogue.

The opposite of isolation is community.

The stakes have possibly never been higher. Now is not the time to sit on the fence over this, because those who seek to harm us are fully committed to this. We have to be just as committed; it will take external active allyship to provide the trans+ and intersex communities the strength and resilience to fight this choking atmosphere.

So will you fight against this isolation?