It dawned on them that their family did not think about gender in the way that those white transmen did. Ten white transmen.”Īll of a sudden, they were able to place a finger on why they felt all those feelings. Before I left, I took another look at everyone in the group and counted ten transmen. I knew this was the support I needed: this is my community, and I should feel connected to them. They recall, “I felt worried, scared, and sad. As each person spoke, Choudrey felt a heaviness grow in their stomach. One of the most poignant moments in this book is Choudrey’s description of when they walked into a support group for transmen and listened to all the coming-out experiences. They wanted to be close to white culture as their own culture seemed “backward, oppressive, and regressive.” They did not want to “fight twice as hard to be seen, heard and loved.”Īt the same time, Choudrey used to scroll through YouTube, looking for videos of trans men who looked like themselves – “Pakistani. Choudrey did want to disconnect from their upbringing. They saw Choudrey’s queerness as a Western disease, a sort of rebellion against their desi roots, a repudiation of where they came from. Their family did not respond kindly at first.
They do not remember coming out by expressing it in words. When they were older, they coloured their hair, got more piercings, and moved out of their parents’ home to another city. In childhood, they realised that they were different from others at school. What does “inclusive practice” look like, from Choudrey’s perspective as someone who is a psychotherapist in training, works with trans youth of colour to explore who they are and how they can thrive, cares deeply about community work, and challenges racism in LGBTQ+ spaces? It begins by adopting an intersectional lens, by learning from the experiences of trans people of colour, for they are doubly marginalised because of their gender identity and race.īorn in a Pakistani Muslim family in the UK, Choudrey opens up about growing up as a trans person of colour. It gives us permission to show our whole selves when we can see it in others.” According to Choudrey, seeing trans people of colour represented in print and digital media is “seeing a possibility that we can exist anywhere and testimony that we do exist everywhere.” When we see a possibility, it pulls us towards that too. When we see a part of ourselves in someone else made visible, we are drawn towards it.
#International transgender day of visibility how to#
How does visibility help trans people in their quest for well-being? Sabah Choudrey, a trans person who works with Gendered Intelligence – a trans-led charity improving the lives of trans people in the UK – and is also a trustee of the Inclusive Mosque Initiative, has a beautiful explanation to offer in their new book Supporting Trans People of Colour: How to Make Your Practice Inclusive (2022), published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.Ĭhoudrey writes, “Visibility is like a magnet.
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