If I tell you that it wasn’t until I was heading for the train home that I realised I had accidentally dressed in the colours of the trans flag, that should show you how busy, lively and all-encompassing Transcend was as a day!
Transcend is an interactive day for trans young people aged 16-19 years to develop their advocacy and campaigning skills, and more importantly connect with each other. It’s attended by young people across the Mermaids community, from our youth forum, to MANGO, to YAP and more.
This was my first time volunteering at an in-person Mermaids event, normally I am on the support line. But this day involved breakfast on the train and then second breakfast when I arrived, because another volunteer immediately greeted me with a hug, and a coffee and pastry. I knew the day was going to be great when one of the first conversations I had with other volunteers and young people was about our funky socks (an important choice that morning: I had gone with trans moomins.)
My favourite session of the day had to be zine-making with representatives from the Museum of Transology, somewhere I’d heard of but had never worked up the guts to go to. About 3 weeks after Transcend, my partner and I walked around the museum, shedding tears at being surrounded by beautiful trans stories.
The folks leading the session at Transcend reminded us all that we are making our own history, right now. That we will be the ones to save us. That we stand on the shoulders of a long line of trans ancestors who are with us in our continued perseverance. That we are the ones who are privileged to continue writing the story of trans* people.
Earlier in the day we took part in a creative writing workshop, where we imagined what a future full of ‘radical trans care’ might look like. Frankly I’m not sure any of us know how this happened, but on our table, we ended up debating how you might therapise an alien and discussing different options for prison reform!
But before we got off topic, the very first question we were asked was: ‘what would a future full of radical trans care look like?’. This led to many similar answers from the young people present: access to healthcare, the right to self-expression, schools that let you go to the loo in the place that feels right for you, protection from discrimination.
Such simple requests. So simple that, if you think about it for more than 5 seconds, the only appropriate reaction to learning that this is what these young people dream of is anger.
I volunteer at Mermaids because I want trans youth to have so much bigger dreams. I want trans youth to not just hope, but to know that their future is so joyful. The first trans person I met is now a 36-year-old trans woman. I met her when I was 10, when I didn’t know that ‘being trans’ was an option. Alice was, and is still, the person who showed me a future is possible as a trans person.
I volunteer for Mermaids because I want young people to know that that future exists. I want them to know there are people advocating for and standing by them while they build their futures, and that doing that is an immense privilege.
Getting to exist as ‘just another’ trans person, surrounded by other ‘just another’ trans persons is an experience I rarely get, and so many young people commented on how important this part of the day was for them.
Even if everything pre-prepared had suddenly not been able to happen, the day would still have been a success. This is because, at the heart of it, the day was about empowering trans youth.
Watching friendships form, smiles slowly appear, young people realising they could ask people to use whatever name they’d like for them, overhearing conversations about what advocacy everyone present was doing just by existing.
Seeing these young people being joyfully trans has given me all the strength and hope I need to continue uplifting them and living authentically as trans.
-Mo (they/them), aged 21
Image credits: Rachel Jones Photography