Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Purim and Celebrating Trans Womanhood


Purim is our joyful, positive Jewish Holiday that falls between 28th February and March 1st this year.  It is a festival celebrating freedom from oppression and the bravery of Queen Esther. Esther married the Persian King Ahasuerus after winning what would now be considered a beauty contest! But she was not what she seemed to be. Like myself, she had changed her name. A Jewish girl born, Hadassah, she refused to reveal her heritage and identity, living in secret; a closet Jewish girl in a potentially hostile community. When political events led to the planned genocide of her fellow Jews she was brave enough to come out to the King as Jewish. The event saved her own people but also herself from certain death.

When you're a child, Purim seems just a heroic story.  One of those rare tales in which the hero is a girl and everything ends happily ever after. As I grew up through a conflicted and confused childhood, tales like this took on a new and more personal meaning. Esther had a very real reason to hide and remain in the closet.  Her predecessor Queen Vashti had met her end for failing to (obediently) comply with her husband's wish to show her off naked in public, wearing only her crown. The Prime Minister, Haman, was plotting to have all Jews killed for being disloyal to the King. Queen Esther might well have been safe, living incognito in the Palace but it was a secret life of being untrue to herself and who she really was. Would she keep quiet while she saw others just like her being put to death?

Growing up, so many of us live in hiding, accepted as long as we agree to keep up appearances. . For me it was agreeing to behave and look like a boy in spite of repeated protestations that I was a girl and always would be. When I was born I was given the name Robyn. I could only be myself in secret, sneaking out in my mid teens to go shopping in town dressed as I pleased, my long hair up in bunches. Aged 13, I risked so much to do that, carrying my girl clothes in a backpack and getting changed at the loos in the city park.  Yet that too felt strange; I passed well and was treated like a girl but nobody knew my given name or who I really was. Aged 18 I came close to death, attempting suicide after years of self-harming. I felt real fear contemplating a future of living someone else's life and never being true to my identity. 

I was lucky, I'm still here. Like Esther, somehow I had the resilience and courage to come out instead and make a stand to save my own life.  When I completed my transition, I seriously contemplated going stealth. Recovering in hospital after surgery, it seemed like a plan. The pain of being stigmatised and harassed had been so tough at times. I had lost my job and I found it hard to get a new one that suited my qualifications. In a new, low paid job, someone had scrawled "Robyn Must Die" on my locker.  Why should I put up with death threats because I was openly out? I knew that I passed well. I had been out long enough to know that men found me deeply attractive. Surely, if I went somewhere new and returned to the closet, I could just get on with my life, have a husband, a family, a life and everything that other women take for granted? A bit like Esther I was tempted to just accept the beauty contest and live in secret. However, beauty is just a genetic lottery. When I looked around at others on the hospital ward I knew I couldn't live in stealth. Not everyone is so lucky, why should I let them face suicidal feelings and death threats because of hatred and stigmatisation. I made a decision to be publicly out and carry on activism and blogging.

Last summer my husband and I were peacefully walking down from our home in Manchester to Sparkle, the National Transgender Celebration. As we headed through a quiet car park a man in a white van drove at speed, straight at us, hurling abuse about 'Tranny Faggots' from his window as we ran to get out of his way. I'm not sure if he meant to kill or injure me but I felt real fear for my life.

So at Purim, I remember Queen Esther's example and celebrate.  In Judaism we have a tradition of dressing up in costume, however we want on this day.  So please, dress how you wish this Purim. In a world where some still want to see Trans people and Jews cleansed for society, it's important to be you and to claim your right to be who you are.

Freilichen Purim, 
HUGGS, Jane xx

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