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Experiences of trans and gender diverse young people

The impact of media coverage and strategies for self-care

Young people shared their ways of coping with media coverage of trans youth and trans healthcare . They talked about their experience of different types of media such as newspapers, news channels, online stories and social media. They talked about these topics in the following ways:

  • The impact of media coverage
  • Developing strategies: coping and self-care
  • How trans and gender diverse people appear in film, television and online

Impact of media coverage

People talked about the impact that media coverage* had on their well-being and mental health. Many found it upsetting. Declan said, ‘I feel there’s no really positive trans media ever… there would be an anti-trans headline every single week and I’d have to walk past that every single week and just ignore it… it really gets me down’. Jacob said, ‘A lot of it is very depressing, I mean, no-one's ever watched the news and gone, yippee, really. There's lots going on in the world. But about trans specifically’.

Some said the coverage made them feel frustrated and angry. Summer said, ‘The whole thing really makes me angry.’ She said ‘I stopped reading the news for a while because I just would just keep seeing these stories …the horribly objectifying ways that they speak about us’. Cassie said, ‘All of these fucking talking points, I get so bored of. It’s boring and tiring and upsetting.’ She added, ‘being trans in public is tiring and upsetting enough and I don’t necessarily want to go and engage with a load of media about that.’ Michelle found it ‘deeply infuriating’ to read about media coverage of trans young people and the big impact it has on the trans community.

 

Sophie talks about her experience of the media and how it affects her and how she would like things to change.

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Sophie talks about her experience of the media and how it affects her and how she would like things to change.

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I don’t really ignore negative things. I do get angry. I do get very angry when I see things and I read things on the media, especially when they’re reported and spoken by high profile people, political leaders that are negative towards trans people and LGBT people. I do get very sad. It saddens me. It makes me feel quite angry, actually that I, my gender and who I am has not been recognised. That is my whole comment. Unfortunately, I feel as though the climate at the moment in terms of certain political events, and also certain sort of attitudes within the media. I feel as though those attitudes I feel are a lot more shown, a lot more than maybe positive outcomes and that happens to me a lot because I feel as though all you’re seeing is negative things. It would be nice to see positive things, even if there’s negative things and people say, this is bad. It would be nice to see some really positive things have helped LGBT people about positive representations I feel are in many ways lacking. Especially in sort of characters in films. It would be nice to have a, it would be nice to have characters that are trans characters. I know there’s been recent franchises, there’ve been recent characters or things that are milestones of relationships. It would be nice to have, like for example, a trans superhero for example. That would be nice to have or a trans, a TV series, I know there have been some, but a TV series that wasn’t about someone transitioning, but through the main character happened to be trans.

A few people described how it affects their self-esteem and how they thought about themselves. Henry felt that the media coverage of trans healthcare has played a role in how he thinks about himself; ‘it’s really hard to switch off when there are parts of the media talking about trans people’. He said it ‘has an impact on how you see the world and… how everybody else in your life sees you… I’m always just very conscious of it.’

 

June shares an experience where the media debates impacted his working life.

June shares an experience where the media debates impacted his working life.

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I try and shield myself from it because I find it’s so triggering, like [name] and people like that and just like I the sort of the GIC consultation I think it was, was that in 2017 when that was happening I remember there were a lot of TERF’s protesting outside my place of work, or like near the sort of near [station] sort of thing, not, not because, you know, I was trans or anything, I hadn’t sort of come out, but I found that really I think it impacted me because I hadn’t come out as Trans yet and I knew, you know, deep down I knew I was Trans and I was sort of… yeah I found that incredibly like emotionally unsettling as someone that wasn’t, hadn’t come out yet and I was at work and going to work and I was passing this TERF and then like people at work were sort of talking about it like debated, debating like their position on it as, and it made me feel incredibly dehumanised and I remember sort of like feeling like incredibly dissociative and then not really engaging like other than like I would sort of post on social media about my like kind of and yeah I’d post my take on things on social media but then when I actually went into the office after like sort of encountering this, yeah like having to actually like be face to face with someone who was like protesting against Trans people and then I didn’t know I was trans and then going into work and then like talking to people who also didn’t know I was Trans and like talking about it as if it was something that was like up for debate and these people didn’t have agency. That was really hard yeah that felt really difficult and I think it really like kind of prevented me from wanting to come out.

 

Reuben said ‘it does make you question yourself and your own identity… it makes you feel invalid’.

Reuben said ‘it does make you question yourself and your own identity… it makes you feel invalid’.

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It really makes, it shouldn’t but it does make you question yourself and your own identity because you feel that way anyway without people coming on the television and telling you that. But when you are bombarded with the media saying all these people are just going through a phase they’re gonna wanna detransition and they’re gonna be stuck like it forever and all this, all this stuff it really, it makes you feel invalid you start to, people start to perceive you in a negative light as well and I think the media have done a really poor job of Trans representation and they’ve really tainted the Trans identity by making it almost as a joke and it’s ridiculed a lot.

Finn said, ‘There’s too much negativity in the world and when I was younger I used to let it get to me a lot. I used to absolutely cry.’ Now though, ‘you learn to acknowledge the media… take it with a grain of salt, because the media doesn’t necessarily give you the full view or the full story. I don’t let it get to me. I just acknowledge that it exists and okay, that’s the headline and I’m moving on’. Jessica says, ‘It’s not really impacted me that much… I was like, yeah, that seems like nonsense.’ Charke feels it is important to challenge others. They said, ‘I like to confront them head on, I’m quite confrontational in that regard. I love discussing these things.’

 

Kat explains how they don’t get affected much by the media portrayal of trans people.

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Kat explains how they don’t get affected much by the media portrayal of trans people.

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I don’t really get affected by it much myself I suppose. I kind of, I probably would be more affected if one of my friends saw it and was like I wouldn’t want them to kind of assume that I’m that sort of, the sort of caricature, caricature that the media’s putting out. But myself, I’ve heard it before I guess, so I just didn’t really take it in. It just doesn’t really matter for me.

 

Is there any ways that you support yourself at all?

 

I don’t really find I need it, like, I know it’s all, I know it’s all bullshit, it’s not going to happen. The, all the, just kind of all the fearmongering, it’s all about stuff that’s not going to, that’s never happened, it’s not going to happen and it’s the exact same thing people talking about regarding gay people twenty years ago.

Developing strategies: coping and self-care

People described the various ways they coped with negative media coverage, and how they tried to care for and protect themselves when using social media (see also Trans and gender diverse young people’s experiences of getting support for their mental health). Many young people spoke about how they avoided the media or reading negative coverage. A said, ‘In general I’ve stopped following most news. I still stay just barely connected enough to keep track of what’s happening but… I’ve unfollowed news on all except one social media thing just because it’s just really depressing’.

M said, ‘Media coverage of trans healthcare is something that I try and stay away from as a much as I can because often it’s rooted in transphobia, it’s rooted in suspicion’. Summer said, ‘I stopped reading the news for while… I reached this point where I just couldn’t take it anymore.’

 

M says they ‘try and stay away from these debates’.

M says they ‘try and stay away from these debates’.

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I try and stay away from these debates but I know what my view on young people accessing healthcare is and I know that’s not the view of, of everyone but I feel like all we can do is just like try and create spaces where, or like create discourse where young people feel like, young Trans people feel supported and try and keep them, because unfortunately people are always going to be against our community and that’s something I experienced with a lot of communities that I’m in like regardless of why, people always gonna be racist or going be transphobic people always going to be homophobic like everything and right now is popular it’s very popular to be transphobic and it’s very popular to be questioning our community and that kind of stuff. And so I feel like rather than like challenging every discourse we see that’s like transphobic like directly I feel it’s more important to create infrastructure outside of that because if we keep on going in on that like it just means that we’ll stay at the level of like the harm and not really progress to, I hate the word progress but like not really get to a space where we can like create different like infrastructure and so I feel like creating spaces and doing work outside of like harmful media discourse around Trans young people is like the best work that can be done right now.

 

Patrick says ‘the media coverage around young trans people has been vile...I found a lot of value in not checking the news’.

Patrick says ‘the media coverage around young trans people has been vile...I found a lot of value in not checking the news’.

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I’ve been fairly lucky to find a lot of support through like online communities but I think at least more so in the last year than at any point before, the sort of media coverage and media stories particularly around young trans people has been vile, like it’s so awful and sort of being confronted by all of these negative stories has been really overwhelming a lot of the time and I found a lot of value actually in not checking the news, not looking at the news stories or if I do look at the stories particularly not reading the comments underneath them, so if they’re shared on Facebook I might read the actual but I will not read the comments because they are just so awful and abusive a lot of the time and I don’t think it’s productive or healthy.

Young people spoke about other ways of trying to stay updated with the news that worked for them, such as selecting channels and social media accounts that they trusted. Some were careful what content they watched. Eel said, ‘I barely watch the news. I mostly consume contents. Like if I know anything that's going on in the world it's either because of Instagram, Reddit or like my friend told me over my DM’s so I see a lot on my explore page [home page on Reddit].’

Others found ways to filter what they saw online. Jay said, ‘I have to block it out sometimes to be honest. I will sometimes mute certain words on Twitter so they don’t show up. You have to take a break sometimes because otherwise it can really get you down… it’s hard not to take it personally.’ They added ‘you have to separate yourself and realise, hang on, these people would never say this to my face.’ Michelle was ‘getting really anxious by reading media articles… and when I started investigating it myself and seeing what the situation actually is, I felt better afterwards’.

 

Michelle shares her message for trans people who are struggling with coping with online media negativity.

Michelle shares her message for trans people who are struggling with coping with online media negativity.

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I think if some people that are in trouble, they need to completely turn off. Like they don’t, like avoid Twitter, Twitter seems to be a very, very big place where a lot of bad people are, and a lot of bad ideas are. I mean for everything, you know but, avoidance is fine, you’re not letting the community down by cutting yourself off from the media, and from social media cos there can be a thing where people are just like, “Well I’ve got to keep up to this, up on this stuff, cos I’ve got to be aware. You know the community needs, I need to know this stuff because you know, of the community.” No, don’t. If it’s fucking with you, cut yourself off.

For those that did engage with the news, talking about it and sharing opinions with friends helped. Jacob said, ‘I watch the news, I read the news… I go and share it with a friend and talk about it and calm myself down.’ He said, ‘I don't want to be uninformed. I'd rather know and be cross than be blissfully ignorant, because ignorance leads to arguments where I'm the uninformed one or whatever so I like to keep on top of what's happening in the world.’ Max said he tries not to read about it ‘or usually like screenshot [and] send to my friends and just show how dumb they are, that kind of helps sometimes.’ He added ‘I’m not gonna be upset about it. I’m just gonna carry on living my truth.’

 

Beth says ‘it’s really important to curate your social media…it’s about having a positive experience.

Beth says ‘it’s really important to curate your social media…it’s about having a positive experience.

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I think it’s really important to, and I talk about this all the time, but I think it’s really important to curate your social media, and I think that, I, people don’t necessarily think of that when they’re on social media, that like I don’t follow people who make me feel bad, or if I follow someone and then every time I see their posts I think I don’t like that, I don’t relate to that, this is making me feel bad, I just unfollow them. Because it’s about having a positive experience and it’s, I think a lot of people say, “Well you’re just, you know in your own echo chamber,” but the reason that that is because if you’re not in your own echo chamber you are causing a lot of harm to yourself, that you don’t necessarily need to experience, and so curating your, your Twitter timeline, or your, or your Instagram feed, or your Facebook just by you know unfollowing groups, or you know unfriending people who just don’t want to learn, don’t want to adapt, makes your experience much better.

Young people also talked about focusing on hobbies and things that made them feel good. Cas said, ‘I go on YouTube to try and watch positive LGBT things or I make the comics that I make generally that people seem to like. Me doing a comic and drawing helps me so there’s that side of it. It’s that kind of helping people out which is also quite nice.’

Beth said they channel their anger about the media ‘into creating art, generally activism kind of art, protest art.’ They said, ‘for International Women’s Day in March… I made some posts about how you can celebrate women for things that… don’t boil them down to body parts… not everyone who has a vulva is a woman, and not every woman has a vulva.’

 

Charke talks about their experiences of engaging with the ‘most toxic communities’ and entering into debates.

Charke talks about their experiences of engaging with the ‘most toxic communities’ and entering into debates.

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I think I’ve had quite a lot of experience online I’m always online and been quite involved in that I’ve always enjoyed sort of debates and discussions around it even going into like the most toxic communities through it and stuff like that I’ve always been one of those people whose thought that the best way to get acceptance is to have those hard discussions and not alienate those people even who seem outwardly transphobic and I’ve come to accept through those discussions that there are people who’s minds you aren’t going to change because their beliefs aren’t based on fact, they don’t care what the facts are, they don’t care about, they certainly don’t care about appeals through emotion you know, and a lot of them they have sort of dehumanised trans people in their mind.

I love engaging with it, it you know, sometimes you need to kind of not take it in, you know, on these sort of worst platforms but I try to engage with it because I think yeah, you know, it’s not validating or legitimising these people and their bigoted sort of hatred but I, I, I like to think and I like to hope, I like to see the best in people and I can be way too optimistic in giving people the benefit of the doubt in a lot of cases but I like to hope that maybe one of those people I’ll talk to isn’t so far down the line that they’ve just stopped listening to, they don’t care about the facts, they don’t care about reason that you’re not really a person, I like to think that at least some of them I’ve talked to were just, that they just misunderstood, they were confused because I understand it can be confusing, you know, it is not something that’s easy to just know about. So that’s why I think coming at it from the angle of compassion and empathy and saying look this person may be transphobic they may hate me without reason but I still see the best in them and believe that something good can be pulled from this through conversation, I love to engage like that.

People felt encouraged by positive work being done by the trans community and trans charities such as Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence. Cas said, ‘it gets me down but I always know that there are charities like Mermaids, which are doing such good work to not only educate and inform, but provide services to young trans people’. They ‘go and look on whatever Mermaids [is] doing at the moment to try and remind myself that things are improving, even if it’s taking forever’. Patrick valued how ‘Gendered Intelligence send out positive [trans] news stories each week which is really nice to be able to see like remind yourself that there is positive stuff happening as well’.

N said, ‘I think feeling connected, even if it’s online and not in real life, feeling connected to other trans people is part of what really helps.’ They said, ‘I think honestly like activism [and] feeling like I’m doing something and that we have some agency and power in what’s happening to us and power to change it I think is part of it.’

 

Loges tries to ‘stay in a bubble of trans positivity’ and talks about the importance of a supportive community.

Loges tries to ‘stay in a bubble of trans positivity’ and talks about the importance of a supportive community.

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I think it’s quite positive if you stay in like the social bubble of like trans positivity but then like when you branch out and there’s like people spreading transphobic things and like people making videos about their opinions but I think it’s quite good really because like if someone meets one of those a lot of the community will like try and move that away and like not bring attention to it.

 

So when you say like the bubble of tran’s positivity what do you mean?

 

Like everyone’s kind of like just being positive and like anyone who is being disrespectful or anything they’ll just remove and it’s just like their own safe place like there’s a lot of Facebook groups I’m in like [support group] and it’s like you can put anything in there and people will help and it’s like if there’s anyone who’d not supposed to be in there they’ll just get them moved.

How trans and gender diverse people appear in film, television and online

When discussing the media, participants talked more widely about the way trans people are represented in film, TV and online. Max felt it was ‘almost always negative, especially in movies.’ Young people said that trans characters were often joked about in television and film. Noelle said, ‘most of my encounters with [transgender people in the media] during my childhood were not very flattering. A lot of jokes, basically. Just being trans was like the butt of the joke.’

Jack said, ‘There still isn’t very much transgender representation and what little there is either seen as a joke and it’s mainly trans female, trans feminine representation… I can think of like Ace Ventura and that horribleness and like the scene in Austin Powers.’

 

Rahul talks about the representation of the Hijra communities and the impact on his family’s understanding of trans people.

Rahul talks about the representation of the Hijra communities and the impact on his family’s understanding of trans people.

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In my mum’s Indian soaps there were a few characters that were, well very few but still I remember being very shocked because there was a group of people in India called Hijra people. I don’t know if you are—yeah. So, they were like these hijra characters in the soaps that my mum was watching, which was very confusing to me as a child because I didn’t know exactly they were. But I could see that they were some sort of gender queer characters. She seemed quite happy to watch something that had them in it and which portrayed them in a positive light. That is when I think it, I at least acknowledged that it wasn’t 100% taboo.

 

Hijra people are people I think almost exclusively people that are born male that grow up and then realise that they are gender queer. There is a concept mostly located in India probably places in Pakistan as well. They, it’s traditionally starts out as people being queer men. And then identifying more as female and recognising themselves as being part of a hijra community. There is a lot of traditions associated with them as well. I think in some villages it’s traditional for them to show up before like childbirth or weddings to celebrate this joyous occasion. But their role in society very interesting because they are not, they are not like a plague on society at all. They co-exist with villages and like even very traditional mindsets. They are just an accepted part of queerness in those areas where they exist.

Some spoke specifically about the lack of trans male and trans masculine characters. Theo said he’d ‘never seen any representation of trans men… trans men just have nothing.’ He felt it was difficult to know that ‘trans men exist’.’ Others commented on what seemed to count as an ‘acceptable representation’. Ezio said, ‘People have to be good looking to be accepted as trans, you have to be a good-looking man, you have to be a good-looking woman’.

 

M talks about the importance of black trans representation in their lives.

M talks about the importance of black trans representation in their lives.

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I think I learnt about it as something quite separate to myself before I was able to allow it to be something that I can accept within myself. And so learning about it through like the internet and seeing a lot of representation especially of black Trans feminine people or Trans women and just like looking at their experience and just thinking like yo this is lit like how, I just was like you’re, you living in your truth like that’s a really beautiful thing. And then making friends as well that were like Trans feminine and going to like their events or like holding events for them to come and speak and that kind of stuff has been like a massive part of me like learning about gender. And then just having conversations with people that identify outside of cis binary gender has been like massive and just seeing I think when I was first able to like in real life see representations of black Trans masculine people was when I was able to kind of transfer that learning as something that was outside of me to something that was inside of me. And that was like, that representation even though I don’t always believe in representation politics as something that is gonna save the world but it’s something in that sense that really like helped me and like allowed me to live in my truth.

 

Seeing a black Trans masculine person allowed me to see myself in the Trans community because I guess the most representation, the main representation of Trans people I saw were either white in general like Trans feminine or people that were just like right at the end of their transition, well not right the end because it’s a process but that, I never really see people on the journey of transition and yeah I saw a few like pregnant white men in like newspapers and stuff but I never really understood and like it was, because whiteness is often something that I see so divorced from myself it’s like this is like as in a lot of cultures like my, like my own this is something that is white like Transness is white like being gay as white all that kind of stuff and to be able to break that dichotomy of who is allowed to exist in those spaces was what I needed in order to feel that I could also exist in that space. And so then following a lot of black Trans masculine people on like Instagram has been like massive and just watching them live their life, it allows you to feel not like an outcast, it allows you to feel like a part of something, it allows you to feel as, not as hard on yourself and as like ostracised because it’s so easy to feel ostracised within your community. And to feel like you’re the only one and to feel like only one is to, to feel like an outcast is to feel othered is to feel like, no there’s something wrong about you, about you and so to see that representation both in real life and online has been like transformative.

Young people shared what they would like to see in the future. Anderson said, ‘Actually just seeing trans people do normal things, it’s like not a thing and I don’t know why. Cos we’ve probably got a lot more insight to add, just having normal daily conversations’. Loges said, ‘I like to see myself actually being represented in shows instead of just like cis/straight people in shows.’ Max said, ‘I’d like to see more actual trans programmes or documentaries or stuff that’s made by other trans people and not by cis gender people… I think that would make a difference and as racially diverse [as] possible. Not just one side of the story.’ Sophie said, ‘It would be nice to have a trans superhero.’

 

Tyra talks about the burden for trans people when having to represent themselves in the media.

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Tyra talks about the burden for trans people when having to represent themselves in the media.

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I don’t feel like there is enough media coverage of trans healthcare, like there’s literally people like I had to bring up, if I wasn’t a trans person, there wouldn’t have been trans representation in the media of sexual health services, or healthcare in general. And also, I don’t watch much media nowadays.

 

But from what I’m aware like, yeah it takes a trans person talking about their own experiences to have representation in the, but that’s the problem, it’s a burden that trans people have to carry themselves, to educate because I see a lot of derogatory things about trans healthcare and access to things, but yeah they’re always wanting some token trans person to come and have an argument with some bigot, or some ignorant person, who is like, “Oh this is not right.” Like , Yeah I can think of a lot of things that I’ve seen snippets on YouTube of like, “Oh this person wants to transition, why this isn’t good” on ITV, and all this stuff, and I’m just, I just try not to endorse it or give it my energy, but yeah that’s probably not helping, or helpful for people.

 

But the media needs to focus a little more, cos there’s so many people’s experiences like, as individuals we reach out to separate organisations and people, and, and I feel like it’s word, word of mouth is where the majority of things come from, definitely not the media. Like Netflix putting up a documentary, or a film, that film with like again, I feel like they was sat, I don’t know if you’ve, you use Netflix or you have seen this film that is up there but , I was, as media like I had TransAmerica and Trans Parent, these was not trans people but these was the only things in the media that I was actually aware of when it come to even thinking about trans issues, and really they don’t enough, it’s just, and that was mainly focussed on passing and on, yeah it’s a certain aspect of things, they’re not focussed on the side effects of healthcare, or the lack of access or the long time for waiting lists, like it’s on petitions and on Facebook or the groups on the Instagram that you see things like this, so it’s individuals doing their things and posting it.

People shared the positive representations they had seen from film and television (see Journeys to identifying as trans and gender diverse). Alistair said, ‘sometimes the media strikes gold and does something really good like… the documentary ‘Seahorse’ … about the trans man that had his own baby and that was really good’. However, he added, ‘a lot of the time it [is] just slandering people’s choices… and making it like public property to talk about either someone’s surgery or like someone’s I don’t know, [their] identity when it shouldn’t be.’

 

Eel talks about the trans character ‘Jules’ in the TV show ‘Euphoria’ and other trans representation in the media.

Eel talks about the trans character ‘Jules’ in the TV show ‘Euphoria’ and other trans representation in the media.

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There is a show that I watched recently called, Euphoria.

 

Oh yeah, yeah.

 

It's so good. There is a main character in it called, Jules who is a trans girl and I think this is the first time that I have seen like a really kind of, like a really positive and really sort of you know, just like I really vibe with her character and I'm like, I love this trans representation and even as a trans guy I can relate to her and kind of there's small bits in it where the, the most of the shows she's just a girl that happens to be trans. And then there are a few bits where we are reminded that she's trans and therefore there's a load of shit that comes with it. And it's like, it's an intense show to be honest.

 

I guess I’m just really excited for all these new TV shows coming out with very positive kind of trans portrayals. Although I am not seeing that many trans guys. There was a show called, Shameless which was kind of a weird show, but there was one trans guy [video glitches] that was actually a trans gay man who was the love interest of one of the characters, but his whole character is like he's trans and that he's educating his partner on what being a trans guy is. But that is some trans representation I guess.

 

Cassie talks about the HBomber Donkey Kong live stream event as reaction to media negativity.

Cassie talks about the HBomber Donkey Kong live stream event as reaction to media negativity.

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And right, like you know, if you wanna talk about media more generally like a YouTuber that I loved you know, raising that amount of money and getting that amount of people and me being able to and seeing like a pop culture event that was about explicitly about me.

H Bomb.

Yeah. H Bomb donkey kong stream, right. That was really, that, people were overjoyed because like and I think one of the nicest things about it was it was just, you know, he eventually just shut up and played video games and you heard trans woman after trans woman after trans person after trans person, trans person of colour. All of these voices just being allowed to be platformed and I was hearing people, like me, being treated as individuals and academics and intellectuals and you know, as people who had a voice and were able to contribute meaningfully to their own debate and to actually have a debate beyond like the ontological questions of whether we exist or not, right? There’s a lot more to being trans and like there’s a lot more trans people are wonderful people, you know. And it’s fucking tough, do you know what I mean? And actually like in that adversity comes great art and opinion and insight and everything else. You know, and I would love for that to be what your average person thought of the, you know, trans people in media. I would love, for example, that they stop putting people’s fucking dead names and you know, before pictures when they fucking do articles of people, thank you very much. Yeah. But I yeah, you know, I, for a number of reasons, I don’t engage with much mainstream media anymore.

See also:

Trans and gender diverse young people: diverse journeys and pathways 

Trans and gender diverse young people’s experiences of mental health

Trans and gender diverse young people’s experiences of getting support for their mental health

 

* Interviews we conducted between 2019 – 2020.

 

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