U.K.: The Recognition We All Share

by Press for Change

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Many thanks to Tracy for announcing the news about the awards contained in the New Year's Honours List ... and many many heartfelt thanks to all those who have written in to offer their congratulations. The question of individual awards will probably always be an embarrassing one for those picked out to receive them. It is bound to always feel unfair. In my opinion, everyone who has stood up to do anything as part of a campaign like ours over the years deserves a medal. Just for surviving in our society as a transperson you deserve a medal! However you see the problem ... how to name any of those people without unintentionally forgetting others who are equally deserving ... or, worse still, inviting divisive and pointless comparisons of one contribution against another. The moment you start making lists of people for any purpose you are on a rocky road to division and hurt. These were thoughts that certainly troubled me when I was first notified of the prospect of an award. How do you accept such things with good grace, knowing how others may be equally or even more deserving too. In particular, how do you face close working colleagues whose names didn't come up? I remembered back to this same time five years ago when Angela Mason of Stonewall received an O.B.E. for her work in Stonewall. It struck me back then in 1999 that the importance of such an award was not measured by what it said of Angela's own fantastic contribution, but by what it said of public and official respect for the entire G.L.B. cause. This time around, it is perhaps a significant sign of the social advance of our communities that not one but two national honours can have gone almost completely unremarked by the press. If ever there were a case that "No news is good news" then this is it ... and Stephen Whittle said, inter alia:

I would very much like to echo Christine's words. As a "dyed in the wool" anti-imperialist, there was a great temptation to turn down such an honour. But it is part of what we have all fought for over these years, that is to just be equally accepted and respected as the transpeople we are.

I accepted this honour for several reasons.

• I accepted it so that it would be another step on the road to respect and equality for all trans people.
• I accepted it because I am proud to stand up and represent my community and all of the members of it.
• I hope you will all feel that it is an award you can share with me. I remember jumping up and down when Dana won the Eurovision Song Contest ... of all the silly things to do. But it was something that "we" did, and any honour that I or Christine have is because all of us did it and all of us deserve it.
• It is an opportunity for government to acknowledge trans people as members of our society, and accepting it allows them to say that we are all welcome in Britain today.
• I get to do something really nice for my mum, and that is to get her inside Buck Palace.

But what it is really important for me to say is that this is an honour for us all. I would like all of you to take a glass of champers and to give yourselves a hearty toast for new year, in which we will finally see those damn birth certificates and weddings.

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