I don’t know how to.....understand when to laugh or when to cry!
Let’s explain, or attempt to, about “The Small (But Mighty) Things About Being a Trans Woman in 2025”
It’s funny. Not ha-ha funny, it’s more the kind of funny where you laugh under your breath because the alternative is crying into your cuppa. Being a trans woman in 2025 means constantly living between progress and parody. One foot in a world that celebrates diversity, and another in a world that debates your existence for likes, retweets (if that is still the phrase?), or laughs. It’s not the big stuff that wears you down anymore, it’s the small, everyday reminders that even when society says it’s moved on...........it really hasn’t.
How Can I explain when “It’s Just a Joke” stops being Funny? I mean, I love comedy. Always have. There’s something magical about how humour can disarm, connect, and challenge people to see the world differently. But lately,and when I say lately I am messing with the timescale because it actually goes back years, it’s started to feel like comedy has turned trans people into content.........Yes I know this isn’t “breaking news” but it feels like it’s continually bubbling along and certain elements of the “joke” are being played off as the victim as opposed to taking accountability.
Take Ricky Gervais. I’ve adored so much of his work! The Office, After Life, his knack for weaving humour through heartbreak and holding up a mirror to human absurdity. Someone who calls things out, plays with the notion of privilege and writes some of the most heartwarming sequences in TV history! But then came his stand up persona and the trans jokes, an ongoing thread in one special, then referenced again in the next, where he doubled down with, “People are laughing at the wrong parts.”
Well, that’s not my fault, Ricky......or is it? I mean, If your audience can’t tell the difference between subtlety and spite, maybe the nuance wasn’t as clever as you think. Because when I hear those jokes, I don’t hear clever satire, I hear weariness. That creeping, familiar feeling of being the punchline again, in a room full of people laughing for the wrong reasons. It’s complicated because I still find his previous work amazing. That’s what makes it sting more. It’s hard to separate the art from the artist when the artist makes your existence into a gag. How am I supposed to react, live with this and accept it?
And he’s not alone. Dave Chappelle, who once dissected social truths with brilliance, now spends more time defending himself than challenging the world and then there is Jimmy Carr, who built a career on precision, an annoying laugh, and openness to depression and dark humour, now throws in trans jokes that feel like low-hanging fruit. In a weird way, one that doesn’t make it any easier, I expect it from him due to his style of humour, but that doesn’t help the cause. His recent comments’ about Graham Linehan, and how brave he is to speak out about “What is a Man and What is a Woman” being brave due to him losing work, family and friends...........Sorry Jimmy, It’s brave to speak out and harass women (trans or not) I am still waiting for that punchline!
And speaking of Graham Linehan, who was once herald as a brilliant comedy writer and staple of british comedy, is now a self-proclaimed defender of womanhood and has become a walking caricature of a TERF. He has lost so much that he built, people have spoken out and/or distanced themselves from him, but other’s are now speaking out because of the fear of losing “their” right to say whatever they want without repercussions. The man who gave us Father Ted has become the punchline in his own unfunny sketch.......and as stated above, is playing victim to his “freedom of speech”?! It feel’s like a huge elaborate joke........I am just unsure how much longer it will continue.
Comedy doesn’t have to be cruel to be clever. It doesn’t have to mock to make a point. If your laughter requires someone else’s pain.........maybe the joke isn’t as funny as you think.! But then again, who I am to speak? I am not a comedian!
Then there’s another kind of hurt.......the quiet one. When someone you’ve admired for years either makes an ignorant comment or, worse, says nothing at all. That silence is deafening. It whispers: “You don’t matter enough to risk saying something.” You start watching their work differently, with this faint ache behind it. You can’t help but wonder how many of the people you once admired would actually defend you if you were in the room. It’s like realising the show you loved doesn’t love you back. I mean, I say this like I am going to be on the radar of someone like Keira Knightly, but I am not, I am speaking from a place of hoping the good in people will always shine through the nonsense and people with ethics will understand that being kind, open and aware is much easier than staying silent.
It leads to this.......Apparently, the existence of trans people is still up for “debate.” And somehow, I’m the one making everyone uncomfortable. We’re told we’re
“too sensitive,”
that we “shut down conversation,”
or that we’re “cancelling” people.
But what we’re really doing is setting boundaries, and boundaries make people who’ve never had to question theirs very uncomfortable. Freedom of speech? Absolutely. Freedom from consequences? Not so much. You can say what you like, that’s your right. But people have the right to respond, to disagree, to disengage. That’s not censorship.......that’s conversation.
Let’s Get One Thing Straight (Pun Fully Intended!)
I am not a man. I wasn’t “born a man.” I was born a baby, like everyone else. The rest is a long, complicated, brave, and beautiful journey of figuring out who I am.......well from my own perspective it is, I was born a human baby and due to the biology and anatomy side of things, I was assigned a Gender and set into the biological bracket of male! I get that, I accept that, but I don’t fully believe that my existence is determined by this.
If calling me a trans woman helps you understand me better, that’s fine! I am a trans woman, I am one person who embraces that and understands it and also celebrates it. But don’t use it to qualify or soften my womanhood. I’m not “technically” or “biologically” anything......I’m just me. And trust me, no one goes through all this for attention! I have always said, if I wanted attention, I would simply wear crocs to a funeral!
I am under no illusion that Cis women face patriarchal oppression, That i am fully aware of and understand. As a Trans woman, I can say that I face that and gender dysphoria, that deeply uncomfortable disconnect between your body and your identity. I mean, how lucky am I? I get a double dose!! Cis and trans women are judged for how we look, how we speak, and how we exist......all while navigating a world that can’t decide whether to fear us or sexualise/fetishise us. So when trans women speak up about feminism or women’s rights, it’s not intrusion. It’s participation. We’re fighting the same system.......just from two sides of the same wall. Maybe, instead of arguing over definitions, we could try something radical. Like supporting one another.
And then there’s Judy (For the purpose of this section Judy is not an actual person!). You know the one, she’s on Facebook, under every article about gender, typing furiously:
“Protect women’s spaces! Only real women! the ones born female!”
As if gender identity can be verified at the door. As if trans women walk around with a blinking neon sign that says “different.” What’s the plan, Judy? A badge? A mark? A bathroom bouncer with a checklist? A Tattoo? Because that sounds eerily familiar...........and history’s already shown us where that kind of thinking leads.
Here’s the truth: Trans women aren’t invading anyone’s spaces. We’re just trying to exist in them safely. To get changed, use the loo, exist.......without it becoming a political statement.
Being trans in 2025 isn’t about demanding special treatment. It’s about surviving a thousand small cuts that most people never notice.
The jokes.
The silences.
The “debates.”
The paperwork.
The subtle shifts in tone when someone realises.
It’s about waking up each day knowing you’ll need a little extra resilience just to get through it. And still choosing kindness. Still choosing to educate. Still choosing to exist with love. Because we’re not symbols or slogans. We’re just people trying to live authentically in a world that keeps asking us to justify it. Trans awareness isn’t about pointing at trans people. It’s about understanding us. It’s about empathy over ego. Listening over debating. And remembering that equality isn’t pie..........there’s enough for everyone.
So if you really want to be an ally, don’t just post in Pride Month. Speak up when it’s quiet. Challenge the jokes when they land wrong. Support us when no one’s watching. And if you don’t understand something.........just ask, with kindness. Because the small things? They’re mighty. They’re where awareness really begins.
#TransAwareness #IDontKnowHowToBeTrans #Inclusion #Equality #HumanFirst #TransJokes
In some ways, 2025 has been a great year for me - confidence in my appearance has grown exponentially, existing in my own body has increased, other people - strangers - merely seeing and treating me as a woman.
But, as this post points out, 2025 has been so emotionally draining, exhausting…
…I, like so many trans people, am wiped out. Curling up on the sofa and closing the world off is an option I find I choose far too often.
Will the world, as it stands at the present, deter me from being my authentic self? NEVER!
I am stronger than the current climate, and I will continue to be, and continue to thrive.
This is why I'm not "out at my current job.
I'm accepted as me (I have transitioned), but if they knew that I'm trans, would I experience that subtle shift, would have to justify my existence?