Profile | Skye Morden | Transgender Day of Visibility

Today is International Transgender Day of Visibility. A day where we celebrate and acknowledge the lives and contributions of members of the trans community. This year, we are proud to profile some of our members and share what Transgender Day of Visibility means to them.

 

PC Skye Morden – West Midlands Police

Trans Day of Visibility is vastly important in 2021, possibly more so than it has been for many years. Trans people are subjected to daily abuse, anger and misinformation is everywhere. Police social media accounts receive hate every time they post support for LGBTQ+ or other vulnerable communities. All of these hateful comments, it’s like a death by a thousand cuts.

Trans people exist. Science shows this. We are ALL a complex mix of biological, psychological, and social elements which are interconnected. We are all diverse, with all of us having different chromosomes, different levels of hormones and there are many men who have a more ‘female’ pattern brain and vice versa (British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists and Joel and FaustoSterling, 2016). Some people are trans, some people are cis gendered, some people are non-binary. To me, gender is a spectrum.

It’s important for me to stand tall and show my strength for my community, as so many trans people feel under constant attack from all sides, with many young trans people are terrified in their daily lives just for living as their true authentic selves. Standing up for myself and my community is possibly the most important thing I have ever done, though I feel like a mouse roaring into a storm. As a police officer we have a position in society where many people look up to us. That means I have a privilege and access to a platform others don’t have. I feel it’s really important for me to stand up and show the trans community, there are people like me and others in the police that hear them and will stand up for them, even though I am terrified inside too.

Simply going to the shops to buy bread, as me, feels like an act of protest and it can be truly frightening. Trans people just want to exist and be themselves in all aspects of life, and I want that for me too. To live without fear in a modern society shouldn’t be too much to ask, but it seems that we trans people and other communities have a long way to go.  I know we’ll get there, but that road to full acceptance and inclusion of trans people, it’s long.