On traveling abroad.

August 27, 2019

Six years total, and one full year of hrt between these two photos.

I had the opportunity this week at Edinburgh Fringe to witness @travisalabanza perform their incredible, sold-out new show: Burgerz. The performance is a beautiful and challenging dissection of an act of transphobic violence that Travis experienced in 2016, when a man hurled a burger topped with a slur out of a car window at them in broad daylight in London.

This trip back to Scotland has been my first overseas since coming out. I’ve written before about the lived experience of travelling while trans, including the mandatory interaction with misunderstanding authority figures, embarrassment around mismatching documentation, and volatility in cultural difference from place to place. However, in addition to all of those things, this trip was a look in the mirror at my own personal strength and conviction in my identity.

Camping for ten days on the north coast of the Scottish Highlands, I found myself without the security blankets of shaving my facial hair, gender-affirming clothing, makeup — all things that allow me to keep my dysphoria in check during my day-to-day life back home. When I would avoid interacting with other campers on the trail because I was ashamed to juxtapose my chosen name with how I looked. The pain in my neck from keeping my head down at restaurants or in public toilets when we stopped in town, ashamed to order food or use the washroom I felt most comfortable with. The moment of hesitation at the first B&B after I introduced myself to our host and he stared just a little too hard at my upper lip. But no one threw anything at me.

I don’t experience the kind of violence that Travis describes for a million and one reasons that start with my passing privilege and end with the gruesome hegemony of white supremacy and colonialism. I have a deep reverence for people like them whose daily life, art and expression challenge our conventions of gender & culture and demand an incredible resilience. I hope that as the years pass I find some of that strength for myself, but I hope much more that the world softens to make it irrelevant for us all.