Speech for the TransZorgU demonstration

Hello everyone let’s start with a fuck you to the state! For requiring us to pass through this process, where a hospital gets to dangle hope in front of us, and makes us wait literal YEARS to access the healthcare that we need.

I'm 19 now, I've been out as a trans woman for 3 years. And despite being on the waiting list since october of 2019, I've not been able to see a single person from the VU. Any “psychiatric care” they could have given me I’ve done myself, because as it turns out; it’s not that fucking deep. Some people are just fucking trans, and i dont need a man in a labcoat to diagnose me with my own body or with my own experience of my identity. The trans healthcare system in this country is nothing more than a façade for the State’s contempt of queer people, and to make it up to the system to decide who is trans enough.

The State enables this hospital to have a monopoly on trans healthcare, and for the insurance companies to profit from our suffering. The State mandates we carry an ID card, now every trans person carries a reminder of the gender they assigned us until a psychiatrist decides you’re trans enough to change it. And when we change it, the state forever has a list of people who changed their gender.

It is this same State -where the politicians derive their power from- which has oppressed us since psychiatrists put our identities in little boxes. These politicians will never look to abolish this system, we are pawns in their political game.

Politicians will pretend to be part of the solution, and subsequently vote against the motion to decentralise trans healthcare. They will pretend to stand with us, but urge us to pump our brakes, to appeal to the kindness of moderates. Trans liberation does not look like an appeal to the kindness of the state, it is not a reasonable discussion. TRANS LIBERATION IS A STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL And a struggle for survival against the state necessitates resistance against authority, it necessitates radical action. It necessitates building mutual-aid networks and showing the system we’ve got teeth. Im calling for direct action, keep a stash of hormones and help each other, do lock-ins, vandalise their self congratulating acts of pinkwashing, call them out on their bullshit every step of the way. The people in Leiden who tagged that monument to pinkwashing in their city have shown us how it’s done. Protests are not action, this protest should be the last warning the State gets for treating all of us like this.

We don't want any bosses or politicians deciding over our bodies. We know who we are and we know what we need and what we want. We want self-determination for trans people.

GEEN BAZEN OF POLITICI MAAR ZELFBESTUUR EN ANARCHIE

This entire system is at the intersection of ableism, racism,saneism, patriarchy and transphobia, kept in place by the state. They will deny you care for being fat, for being disabled, mentally or physically, they will reduce womanhood down to your genitalia and they will never, ever listen to us trans people as equal human beings. The VU will hold treatment over your head, they will suddenly cut you off if you aren’t being one of the good ones.

If you're looking for the most depressing shit ever then go have a look at the stories from VUGendermistreatment, and then realise that’s all we got. That’s all, I wish I had a message of hope to give, “it gets better” or something, but in truth the only message I can give with honesty is that we have each other's backs. And we’ll need it in the coming decades, this fight isn't even halfway over.

FUCK HET VU TRANSZORG NU

22/05/22

(Kat)erina Romeownov