And in honour of this day, I’d like to make some depressing states a little bit more visible.
An study based out of Ontario (Canada) found that 20% of trans people had experienced physical or sexual assault due to their gender identity. It also found that 34% were subjected to verbal threats or harassment.
That same study also found that half of trans people were living on less than $15,000 a year. To put this into context, I made $15,000 a year working part time at $12 and hour. To rent a cheap apartment, it would cost between $6000-$9600 a year. Where I live, you’d be lucky to pay the $9600. A years worth of groceries costs about $2400. That’s $12,000 just for food and shelter. Cheap utilities cost another $2400 a year where I live, which brings that total up to $14,400. The rest of that would likely go into transportation costs. This is just barely enough to live on.
That study went on to state that 77% of trans respondents in Ontario had seriously considered suicide, and 45% had actually attempted suicide.
A different study that I looked at focused on how LGBTQ students feel in Canadian schools. It found that 74% of trans students had been verbally harassed about their gender expression.
It also fund that 37% of trans students had been verbally harassed daily or weekly about their sexual orientation.
It found that 68% of trans students had been verbally harassed about their perceived gender or sexual orientation. It also stated that “Trans youth may report experiencing particularly high levels of harassment on the basis of perceived sexual orientation because often trans individuals are perceived as lesbian, gay, or bisexual when they are not.”
Finally, it found that 49% of trans students had experienced sexual harassment in school in one year (either 2007 or 2009).
None of this is okay. Everybody should feel safe and welcome in their country and their school. And everybody should have the same opportunities when it comes to economic security. That’s why today is so important.
http://ontario.cmha.ca/mental-health/lesbian-gay-bisexual-trans-people-and-mental-health/
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/peter-goffin/transgender-hate-crimes_b_3818530.html?
http://mygsa.ca/setting-gsa/homophobia-transphobia-statistics
http://www.straight.com/news/600-reasons-why-canada-needs-pass-transgender-rights-laws
hessianwithteeth 
April 9th, 2015 at 1:19 am
Hessian, I wrote this article on The Christian Watershed in 2013 that you might like. I don’t normally like to promote my own writing on another blog but I thought you and your readers might appreciate it:
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April 2nd, 2015 at 11:59 am
I have several male to female transgender patients. They all went through a lot of suffering to be able to live as women. In my opinion, they are women. But not all women agree with me.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2
I disagree with this. What do you think?
Lucie
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April 2nd, 2015 at 2:50 pm
Here are a e related posts about feminism. Though we haven’t yet written a post dedicated to Trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs)
TERFs, and I call them that since there still exist radical feminists who are not trans exclusionary, as I have encountered them can hardly be said to be feminists at this point. While many of them have the more nuanced veiws depicted in the article, other have allowed slippage of second wave feminist principles into a acceptance o gender essentalism, while still lacking the intersectional thinking of thirdwave feminism and womanism.
The srt of irrational fear mongering I see TERFs present as though it where effective feminist though are laughable. At least it would be if they did sully the name of feminism, and more importantly hurt trans women in the process.
From the articles perspective of TERFs I can see a general lack of appreciation to the way privilege behaves and well a misrepresentation of Trans experiences from the TERF perspective. Where Turfs often see Trans women as men demanding to be seen as women while retain the privileges of men, where in general it tend to be more a long the lines of giving up the privileges of men while getting only part of the privileges of women, while keeping most of the negative consequences of both men and women.
Now I think it’s wrong to threaten TERFs with violence, but I also think they are backwards, ignorant and/or despicable bigots for the most part so I have no problem with other groups lashing out in the form of petitions and counter protests. So long and those are honestly critizing and not just strawmanning TERFS.
I have more to say,but I think I’d rather write a post. It’s a well written article and nicely dives into the history.
Though are Transwomen women? Yes. Why? Because gender is a fluid social structure even though it is often portrayed as rigid biological fact. Becuase of that along with the fact there is no good social defined notion of woman hood, so long as you think of yourself as a woman then you are a woman. And even if you have a different set of privileges that doesn’t suddenly invalidate the way you feel or the way you present, or change the fact that gender is a social construct and not biologically determined.
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April 2nd, 2015 at 2:55 pm
Oh yes
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April 1st, 2015 at 1:47 am
Reblogged this on Live Like We're Still Alive and commented:
We often overlook the pain transgender people have to go through in every moment of their lives. Even in the most liberal places on earth, they are not safe. It is important that the society recognizes and embraces everyone’s sexual identity/orientation. I thank hessianwithteeth for this great post.
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April 1st, 2015 at 1:53 am
Thanks, though I will mention that not every day let alone every moment of a trans-persons life is filled with pain and suffering. There is harm done in spreading that myth. Though I only mention this since your comment seem to be coming from the right place and I wish for you to be aware of how pushing certain narratives can be harmful to those we wish to support.
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April 1st, 2015 at 2:06 am
I apologize for my insensitivity. Thanks for pointing it out; in fact I thought the same after publishing it. Of course no one’s life should be filled with misery. Thanks again for your clarification on my behalf!
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April 1st, 2015 at 2:17 am
No problem it’s an easy mistake to make, and thousands of people make it. Thank you for being receptive. 🙂
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March 31st, 2015 at 9:03 pm
Thanks for posting this! It’s so important.
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March 31st, 2015 at 9:04 pm
Any time 🙂
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