Trans Solidarity Campaign Continues, With Growing Interest And Support

Last Sunday, a group of trans activists and their allies arrived at Árbæjarlaug swimming pool for the third iteration of a campaign aimed at gender inclusivity in Reykjavík public pools. A councilperson for Reykjavík City Council is hopeful that relevant government ministries will give the green light for the city to make changes to its regulations regarding swimming pools.

Prodhi Manisha, a trans man and activist who started the first iteration in a campaign called Ég Fer Með Þér (eng. “I’ll go with you”), helped organise the event, which aims for greater inclusion of trans people into gendered spaces, such as the locker rooms of Reykjavík area pools. Prodhi told the Grapevine that what has been particularly encouraging has been the interest and support of more cis people.

“We had the usual core group of people join us this time, but what has been really heartening is the growing interest in cis folks who have reached out wanting to come with us and support us during future iterations,” he told us. “Several cis women have already contacted us about joining in to show support for trans women and femme people who would like to use the women’s locker room and might need solidarity from the cis guests around them. We’re hoping to open the next event up for all genders–not just trans men and their allies in the men’s locker room.”

“I want to ask cis folks why they feel the need to police us when we’re not going out of our way to cause anybody harm.”

The approach of arriving en masse, with trans people using the locker rooms for their gender and both trans and cis allies going with them in a show of support, has had a demonstrable positive effect, and this occasion was no exception. He says that while a shower guard briefly stopped him from entering the men’s locker rooms, someone accompanying Prodhi corrected the guard, who then apologised and let them enter.

“I did notice them staring at me in the showers while I was making a solid point of not missing a single red-circled spot shown on the massive human body diagrams at the pools,” Prodhi says. “Personally, as long as it’s not invasive or marred with harassment, I don’t really mind the staring. Everybody is always learning; if anything, maybe if someone stares long enough they will realize that it’s just another person who is just washing their bits out before jumping into a hot tub–that contrary to the disgusting caricatures of trans people carved out by transphobia as of late, our genitals don’t morph into pedophilic-sexual-assaulting headless babadook in bathrooms and locker rooms when we step in. I had a lovely day in the water under the sun, and in a transphobic world that tells us trans people we don’t get to have such a day, that in itself is a massive revolt.”

Like many activists breaking new ground, Prodhi also experiences a blend of optimism and trepidation; that despite the success of the past three iterations of this campaign, “I am forced to walk in with the weight of the world on my shoulders, a dry mouth from nerves and the sheer hope in the absence of clear inclusive policies that hopefully I will not have to fend myself against an avalanche of transphobia and have my body policed for merely existing.”

He says that multiple trans men who have been made aware of the campaign have expressed the desire to be able to simply go swimming at public pools without fear of bigoted confrontations. At the heart of it, he says, simple things that cis people take for granted are monumental undertakings for trans people, due to the discrimination they very often face in gendered spaces.

“When you think about it, it is the bastardisation of the mundane and the daily at its finest” he says. “Simple joys–like going to the pool, hitting up the gym, going into a bar for our sibling’s birthday celebration, dressing as we want to, taking a darned leak, feeling okay during seemingly innocuous events without having to hide who we are–are sullied for us without policing, harassment, exclusion and violence. We are not at all our suffering, but transphobic systems love reducing us down to just that.”

This is an excerpt of an article published by The Reykjavík Grapevine. You can read the whole article here.

The Reykjavík Grapevine is Iceland´s biggest and most widely read tourist publication. Get your latest on life, travel and entertainment in Iceland on grapevine.is.