Trans and Disability Justice: How Are Our Struggles Linked?

Under the current welfare cut proposals and long history of state-sanctioned violence, both Disabled and Trans communities have found ourselves in a perpetual state of grieving. Yet, through our grief, we still manage to resist the system killing us. We have a lot more in common than those in power would ever like us to believe. 

What are the links between Trans and Disabled lives and our fights for justice? 

Disabling The Binary 

The gender roles we are currently working with are constructed around the idea of a white, cis, non-Disabled person – they don’t serve Disabled people, just as they don’t serve Trans people. In fact, our experiences as Disabled people can help to shine a light on the failures of a biologically gendered worldview. 

If you have a hysterectomy as a result of having endometriosis, does that make you ‘less of a woman’?  

If you have hypogonadism, meaning you produce less testosterone than ‘normal levels’, does that make you less of a man? 

Do the biological markers we rely on to decipher gender suddenly get blown wide open when we consider Disabled bodies?  

Being Trans is Disabling 

Being Trans is Disabling. Trans people are almost twice as likely to be Disabled as our non-Trans counterparts. Why? Simply put, just as with other oppressed communities, the resources needed to live healthily and to take care of pre-existing impairments are made even more scarce for us. 

The impact of transphobic violence is also disabling – being permanently paralysed, losing sight or having bones broken are all real-life consequences of violent street attacks on Trans people. Just like how many toilets throughout the country are not accessible for Disabled people, Trans people are developing debilitating conditions and bladder problems from being unable to use public bathrooms for fear of harassment.  

Bureaucratic faults that come about from medical institutions’ reductive gender reporting, such as not notifying Trans men about cervical smears, can also lead to illness and disability. Naturally, this leads to a distrust of medical professionals that many Disabled and marginalised people share. For all of us, whether it is forced medication against our consent or prescriptions being withheld from us, we will experience our lives being held in the balance by medical gatekeepers. 

Medical Ingenuity  

What we are all fighting for, ultimately, is the right to exist in our bodies without discrimination. We are fighting for full humanity and complete bodily autonomy.  

One thing Disabled and Trans communities have in common is our creative solutions to medical survival outside the confines of a state that seems hell-bent on our suffering. Did I learn how to safely inject myself intra-muscularly because of naloxone or because of transition hormones? That’s for you to guess. What I can tell you is that I was forced, like many of us, to figure it out without the help of any medical professional, relying only on the care and knowledge of Disabled, Trans people around me. 

Trans and Disability Liberation: Everyone Wins 

If we oppose Trans people’s right to transition, what precedent does that set for the rest of the Disabled community? I am frightened at the implications of a world where we can tell people what to do with their bodies against their wishes. As a Disabled person, does that not horrify you? Does the history of involuntary sterilisation, forced institutionalisation, and non-consensual Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders not haunt you? When you advocate for the denial of bodily autonomy to others, you pave the way smoothly for the denial of humanity to us.  

If we make gender-affirming surgeries more accessible, everyone wins. Because when we pump resources into making hormone replacement therapy (HRT) more accessible, menopausal women win, people who want to take contraception win, Trans people win.  

When we make medical procedures free and accessible for all who need, want and consent to them, Disabled people win. When we fight for a medical establishment that values bodily autonomy at its core, everyone wins.  

When we make the world more accessible, everyone wins.