Transphobia Is Getting Worse; I Can Prove It
My Unlikely Connection With The Woman Revolutionizing The Conversation Around Being Transgender.
My ex was a true Joker. The sinister laughter, mommy issues, brazen sociopathy and a serious anger problem. One of his favourite weapons was brandishing women at me like bundles of TNT in order to keep me silent; threatening me with their explosive beauty and talent. All it would take was one message from him and the spark would go off. He made absolutely no secret that he could, seemingly, have anyone. And Cecilia Jacobsen was one of those women.
Beautiful, willful, confident, powerful, influential, and incredibly intelligent; everything I was apparently not. And totally into him; Totally and utterly stalking him and he had no escape. And having a conversation with her? Gods no! She would surely just pounce on him like some sexual deviant and he would have no control. I mean, just look at her.
This was the narrative I followed for the two years of my relationship with him. And further into a year of my recovery from his abuse. That was until I actually had the guts start looking at these women I had never met; who I was absolutely petrified of: these characters in my story who, in actuality, had less influence on my life than the average background shadow wandering across the frame of my relationship.
Little was I to know, and with her being completely oblivious, she was about to become a lynch-pin in securing my recovery; putting another staple in the final issue of a dangerous and abusive relationship that should have gone out of print the moment it started.
I’m a solid member of the LGBTQ+ community. I am part of a few Pro-Queer groups on Facebook and I can’t seem to shut my mouth about being bi.
This beautiful familiar face that caused such terror in me looked out one Tuesday while scrolling. This time blonde instead of brunette, flashing a genuine crystal white smile. I got off three bus stops too soon in Thessaloniki, Greece. I gagged. And then I sobbed. Not because Cecilia Jacobsen was a woman, and I felt I had betrayed all women. But because she was a trans-woman. The first trans woman of the Faroe Islands. And she was outing herself proudly to the world at large.
As a staunch feminist, I already felt a sense of shame and guilt for the thoughts I had held about the women my ex waved in front of me; how we would sit and settle the nerves he had rankled by discussing their looks or their behaviours by strategically dissecting their Instagram post-by-post. Only with Cecilia he wasn’t re-teaching me to compare myself to any ordinary woman like an insecure 16 year old teenager; but a woman who had self-confessed body dysmorphia and, whether my ex knew it or didn’t.; A trans woman.
I was repulsed. At him, of course. But deeply at myself. How could I do that to her? I’m an ally. She was and is and always has been a woman. She had experiences that I knew about alongside the myriad of life experience I did not; the toil of acceptance, “passing”, seeking medical intervention and surgeries to form her body into how it should always have been, healing, maintaining composure over abuse. And on top of that she was a woman; the patriarchy had the supreme upper hand.
I had watched and encouraged the transformation of some very beautiful men and women; taught some to do their make-up, select their wardrobe. Encouraged others to challenge misgendering and what we call social “norms”. I had heard the slurs and the whispers, I had held them as they cried through their battle for acceptance. Praised them at their successes.
But unknowingly I had betrayed it all. Ceecee was the lightbulb moment. At my core I am a cis-woman. At my core I believe in tolerance, individuality and acceptance. I taught it to the children I worked with, I upheld it as much as I could even in my relationship. But the combination of my ex waging war on me, my gender, and then on my alliance with the trans community. They say that everything comes in threes. And this was the tragic trilogy of a life-time. With one message to her I was pushed from reluctant acceptance into full on healing. I was not going to let this story end his way.
“Hello,
I don’t think you know me or even know of me. And I apologise if this message takes you off-guard or causes you any form of distress or hurt.
I am writing to you out of sincere shame and guilt of myself but also out of sincere love and respect for myself.”
The rest, as they say, is history because I wish to move on from how I knew her to why I still know her. I believe I missed out on meeting so many incredible women thanks to the isolation instilled and reinforced by my ex. And Cecilia proved that hypothesis.
[Virtually] Meeting Cecilia Jacobsen was the equivalent of meeting the antihero in my own Comic Series. I felt as though I had found the Poison Ivy to my inner Harley Quinn; If we lift SERIOUS the lesbian undertones (though only a little as I am bi). Ferociously flawed and palpably passionate with such a quick wit it would hit you in the face with a POW bubble. But before I even encountered that side of her, I had to deal with the elephant in the margins. The reason I was compelled to contact her was because her existence and unknowing involvement in my relationship resulted in so much guilt and resentment in myself. I admit that it was entirely selfish; who was I to wade into her life with my issues and my self-contempt.
There was much in the way of reassurances, and my ex’s fustian opinions sort of… evaporated. The adversity and triumph this woman has experienced is more than impressive; it is infectious to the point of eradicating 2 years worth of bad press.
Enthusiastic, flamboyant yet strategically articulate, she stands as a proud and altogether, entertaining character. She reassures me without hesitation that, regardless of what I was made to think: I am a woman. A good woman. And, despite the brainwashing, I am an ally.
“I appreciate that [you] do that. It truely is better for cis people to have these conversations. They are simply less triggering. Obviously, trans people need to lead them.”
Apparently it’s easier to hear the message from a cis-proxy than straight from the horse’s mouth. And yes, I am indignant about that. No person should be outright denied their existence and their human rights under any circumstances.
Cecilia describes herself as neurodiverse, sex positive, vulnerable, powerful. Her humour as dry as posh wine and is equally as flippant towards transphobia as she is earnest in establishing coherent, sensible and supportive dialogues on transgender rights, and human rights.
“The cishets are angry because I refuse to identify into their made up systems…the truth is I have known gender and sexuality is restrictive and invented- or certainly exaggerated- my whole life”
It is something she revealed on her tiktok last month with a viral tiktok that now has over 11 Million views: A glib but poignant discourse regarding short term intimacy with a transwoman and a lack of period. It was a joke that many found hilarious, myself also because I am 97% infertile and rarely get a period more than once a year. I also wouldn’t disclose why if a sexual partner I had no emotional intimacy with would ask. But where I am pitied (ironically as I do not want to have children of my own) for being barren, she is ridiculed, chastised and threatened with murder.
Why? Because she has sex with men and doesn’t give them the medical serial number of what is going on between her legs.
Her joke has been described as akin to rape and sexual assault, earned her death threats and advice to “kill yourself”. And all because she “passes”.
The power of this rhetoric can be demonstrated by Amanda Benson (currently She-Ra) of Inverclyde, mother of 4 and admin of Facebook covid Support Group “Heart of Inverclyde”.
Adopting the term TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) and wearing it proudly, Benson who has a history of violence towards men and women alike, also insists that early transition is a form of “child abuse” stating: [I] hate seeing this children being allowed puberty blockers and hormones and stuff without proper counselling first.
Her argument stems directly from discussion regarding the rights of MtF transgender people and whether they should wear a badge of identification. Benson’s direct reference to Ms Jacobsen’s Tiktok being the literal background to her argument she insists:
“It’s terrifying that these men can just access the spaces of vulnerable women and children like women’s aid, toilets, prisons, schools etc. It makes me actually want to kill myself and get right off this planet if I’m honest. The danger I can foresee with this unfathomable.”
The connection between pedophilia, the risk to children, and the link to transgender people is highly contentious, widely debated and studied. It is certainly condemned by the majority of the LGBTQ+ community.
Ministry of Justice in the UK itself insists that there is no reason, or study, or literature to suggest a significant link between being transgender, and committing sexual assault.
Benson has adoped the term TERF as a joke, and then uses her assigned-gender-at-birth privilege to perpetuate ignorance in the non-trans community.
“I’m not the one with a carer…maybe [you] should see a therapist due to the fact [you] think men can have vaginas and give birth and have periods,” said Amanda Benson when questioned on her perspective. She refused further comment.
This is the TERF solution to the increase in violence and stigma towards MtF transgender people. And the results are traumatic, demonstrated in recent studies completed by gov.uk and Stonewal. It was revealed that 41% of trans people and 31% of non-binary people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity, almost half of trans pupils in Britain have attempted suicide, and 40 % of trans people adjust the way they dress because they fear discrimination or harassment.
Justifiably, Cecilia Jacobsen is concerned however she is not swayed in contributing her honest, often satirical, and certainly intelligent dialogue to combat the stigma and violence towards transgender people without engaging in argument:
“…I will NOT do is play into peoples phobias and predjudices. ‘What if they don’t like trans people?’. I DO NOT CARE. I will not center transphobia in my experience of the world. I identify out of [that] predjudice”
To find out more about Cecilia Jacobsen you can access her professional links here: https://linktr.ee/Ceeceejacobsen
References
