At three-something-ish on Saturday afternoon, I was in Trafalgar Square, chatting to the speakers from the ECP, looking round to say hi to Laurie Penny, and generally having a good time.  As I chatted,  I realised, to my dismay, that Roz Kaveney, who had been due to provide a message of support and solidarity from the trans community, was unwell and couldn’t make it. 

That felt wrong: we, too, are abused; we, too, suffer.  And many of us (I could never claim to speak for ALL) are strong supporters of the principles of slutwalk

Five minutes later, I’d checked in with “trans central” (other trans activists who had gone on the march) who felt much the same way and not much more than five minutes after that I was up on the podium, trembling like a leaf - more with the emotion of it, to be honest, than nervous - and giving a very short message of support.

There were two things I said that I’d like to say in slightly more detail here.

First, is that we – trans women – are sisters too 

(And no: I am not discounting the violence and abuse that others in the trans community endure: gay-bashing, homophobia, transphobia all seem, at times, to merge into one amorphous mush, increasingly taking in those who would identify as “other” and gender queer.  At the end of the day, such fine distinctions make little odds to a violent assailant: and you certainly don’t much care whether you’re being hit because they think you’re gay or trans or whatever.  But when it comes to public speaking, I prefer to speak as I identify).

We suffer violence and abuse and the results of that violence can be seen in the horrendous statistics reported by the trans community.  One third of us regularly suffer harassment in public: one in ten are threatened; one in sixteen have been assaulted – sheer random violence - for no reason other than that we were out walking.

You learn many things as you transition.  In colloquial terms, many of us learn to “feminise” (whatever that means).  You also learn, very fast, about survival: about how the streets are no longer a safe place to be.  My own personal experience (and I’m a pretty boring middle-aged woman!) is of a life with zero harassment and abuse replaced by one in which I have been threatened with serious violence approximately once every two months.

You learn to be careful, in much the way that those brought up as women learn very early, too.

Its not a competition.  I was both appalled and enthralled to hear the experiences of different groups of women on Saturday.  How a single social disease – violence and disrespect for women – makes itself manifest in a range of different ways according to class, colour, sexuality, occupation – and clothes.  Some of what we endure is similar to that which other women suffer.

One quite vile practice, though, seems mostly targeted at trans women: it is the bizarre obsession that the rest of the world has with our genitals.  And whilst I am more than happy to have the rudest, most explicit conversations in the world with friends, the idea that a near-stranger thinks it appropriate to just ask – out of the blue – whether someone is pre- or post-op is revolting.  On a par, I’d guess, with asking someone on first meeting whether she has had a hysterectomy.

That said, I’ve had the verbal obsession: I’ve yet to suffer the indignity of the guys who.. . well, who decide to take matters into their own hands and CHECK genital status by just diving between a trans woman’s legs and having a feel. Ugh!

There was a second thing I said on Saturday, and this was also part apology, on behalf of blokes.  Because although I never felt especially male, I socialised, for a while, as one.  And I am well aware of how blokes often see the issue of rape and violence on the street.

Its about statistics.  Incidents.  Events that one can count and measure and compare and contrast.  Which it is.  But none of that even begins to get beneath the surface of lived experience.  Or to register that for most blokes, assault is just something that happens: a one-off that, unless they are especially belligerent or regularly seek out confrontation, will not happen all that often.

So what they don’t get – what I didn’t get before – is how different it feels when every walk down a street is accompanied, ever so slightly, by the need to measure risk: when late night walks call for double the caution; and when some places, some times are just no longer safe at all.

That, I fear, is the difference that most blokes don’t get: that violence is both state of mind and, if we are not careful, a prison.  Its not just about crime stats.

- by Jane Fae, Speaker at Slutwalk London