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Be trans, do crime

Rachel Saunders
4 min readFeb 6, 2024

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Photo by Sides Imagery: https://www.pexels.com/photo/monochrome-photo-of-resist-signage-3141240/

To paraphrase Florence Ashley and numerous queer anarchists, be trans do crime. Or at least that is the spirit of being trans in a world where being trans is often treated as either criminal or the means of successful transition are criminalised. In countries like the UK trans identities have had legal protection for a decade or more, yet increasingly across the globe countries and states are seemingly determined to outlaw trans healthcare, trans legal documents, and trans gender expression. While actually identifying as trans may not be illegal, the outward trans existence potentially will be. Even in the UK there is grey legal area with respects to trans medication, as due to the lengthy NHS waiting list many trans folk turn to the grey online market to obtain medication. As such, while the recipient is unlikely to be prosecuted, the lack of publicly funded support have meant that to be trans does involve quasi-criminality.

All of this should be a meme at this point, that prior acts of rebellion and protest to obtain trans rights relegated trans criminality to the history books. That just to be yourself requires a degree of criminality says much about the way gender critical and far right voices have demonised trans folk to the point of regressive lawmaking. There is nothing noble or objective about demeaning trans identities; indeed, when right wing lawmakers proclaim objective science in reality they…

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Rachel Saunders
Rachel Saunders

Written by Rachel Saunders

Writer, researcher, and generally curious

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