“If you put on that clothing one more time, I will beat you together,” an unknown man shouted on the street. Two years after Julia went into transition, she started wearing women’s clothing. That is also the moment when insults and even death threats started.
This weekend a trans woman on the train was threatened with death. It is a story that many trans people does not sound unknown. The COC Eindhoven sees the number of LGBTI-oriented incidents. “I even experienced it every week,” says Julia. “From the bus stop to the house was a ten -minute walk, but I could rarely cover those ten minutes without a stranger going to me.”
Traumatic experiences
Since she has finished her transition, things are going better. Death threats have become a lot less, scolding and threatening movements still happen regularly, but less than at the start of the transition. It now happens ‘only’ once every two months instead of every week.
Julia did not sit in the cold clothes. “I have probably sustained a trauma through the many threats over the years. When I add everything together, it is about two hundred events.” Still left, when she was on the train: “I played a game on my phone and heard people shout nasty words. I thought: is that to me? That was so and that was very scared to me.”
Report
For such situations, the Dutch Railways has a reporting number, which Julia always uses when something happens. “It is important to make a message,” she says. “First of all because they know that something is going on. Especially if there is a physical danger, that is important,” she says. “But I also think it is important that the person who does something like that notices that it can have consequences.”
At the COC they also think it is important that these reports are made, says Kay Sachse of COC Eindhoven. “That way you can tell your story yourself, but we really benefit from those reports,” he says. “This way we can see how often it happens and society also sees that it is a problem. Moreover, with current figures we better make a proverbial fist to stop these events.” You can make a report with, among other things, Meld Misdaad Anonymous and to the police or pink in blue.
Insecurity
Why that kind of aggression or discrimination happens against LGBTI people, Julia often wonders. “I may think a bit of ignorance about what it’s like to be translations,” she thinks. “But maybe it’s also jealousy,” she adds. “I dare to wear what I like to wear myself. Not everyone dares that. She might get into their own uncertainty. To be the boss of that uncertainty, they believe another,” she says sadly.
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