The third annual Trans, Non-Binary and Intersex Annual Conference is being held during Trans Pride 2018 at the University of Brighton on July 19-20.
THE conference seeks to bring trans, non-binary and intersex people, researchers and allies (as well as those who seek to work better with trans, non-binary and intersex people) together in order to work towards making a more trans, non-binary and intersex inclusive society.
This year, following feedback from last year, the organisers have linked up with Intersex UK to improve the representation of intersex issues within the programme including a panel, films and Q&A.
Keynote speakers include: Prof Stephen Whittle (Manchester Metropolitan University), Munroe Bergdorf (activist and model) and a panel of speakers from Intersex UK facilitated by Holly Greenbury and Dawn Vago.
The conference is funded by University of Brighton, University of Sussex, Brighton & Hove City Council, Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust and the Clinical Commissioning Group.
The event is free for a small number of staff from these organisation and members of the trans, non-binary and intersex communities. A small attendance fee is charged for all other participants.
Registration is now open and the event is likely to sell out early.
“I know that one day I’ll kill myself, because I don’t know how to stop feeling this way but it won’t be today. In the meantime I’m going to do the best I can to enjoy every single day and then on the day that I die, in many, many years time, I’ll look back and realise that I didn’t get around to doing it. With this simple revelation I found a way to live. It may not have slain my demons completely but it significantly reduced their power to hurt me.”
Having spent a lifetime hating herself and struggling with post traumatic stress, her gender identity, self harm and suicide, RAF veteran and former motorbike racer, newspaper editor, Premier League football and rock photographer, Sophie Cook was at breaking point when she transitioned in 2015.
“I’d reached the point where I had to either change my life or end it.” Sophie says as she sips her coffee and looks wistfully out to sea.
Since that point she has been busy and packed an amazing amount into her life during the last three years.
Following her transition she became the first transgender woman to work in football’s Premier League as club photographer for AFC Bournemouth, and was Europe’s first trans TV newscaster with Latest TV where she also presented her own chat show. She now has a show on RadioReverb the local not for profit community radio station.
Sophie has also been flying the flag for diversity and inclusion as well as forcing the discussion about mental health awareness as an in-demand public speaker, delivering keynote talks and LGBT+workshops across the UK for high profile organisations including TUC, Kick It Out and Stonewall.
In April 2017 she was selected by the Labour Party to contest the East Worthing and Shoreham seat in the General Election where against all the odds, she increased the Labour vote by 114% and narrowly missed out on becoming the UK’s first transgender MP, something she aims to rectify sooner rather than later.
“Everything that I’ve done since my transition has been about trying to raise awareness and help others, whether it’s mental health, hate crime, trans inclusion or breaking down the walls of prejudice. Politics felt like the ultimate way in which I could try to make a difference.” she said.
Sophie is currently working on her autobiography Not Today: How I chose life which charts her personal journey from despair to redemption and acts as a self-help book for anyone struggling with their mental health or identity. From her childhood and her first suicide attempt at the age of 12, through post traumatic stress after saving a colleague’s life following an explosion whilst in the RAF. Sophie explores and examines her self harming and depression, ultimately finding redemption, awareness and self love.
“Over the past three years I’ve spoken to thousands of people about my journey and how I overcame my demons and this, in turn, has helped them with their mental health and now it’s time to tell my full story for the first time.”
Poignant and heart-rending, yet at the same time inspiring and uplifting, Not Today traces a journey from private torment to personal triumph. Told with honesty and candour – and written with warmth and intimacy, outlining the huge emotional and social toll of gender dysphoria while chronicling a voyage towards truth, validation and authenticity. Sophie’s compelling story portrays the fragility and fortitude of human emotions, demonstrating how – by conquering fear and summoning strength – a person is capable of making the progression from loathing themselves to loving themselves.
But Not Today isn’t just a memoir.
“There’s all of the stories and ideas that are floating around in my head and I really needed to share them. It’s part autobiography, part self-help book, part political manifesto, and part personal philosophy. It’s everything that makes me me, and everything that I understand about how my journey led me here.
“Not everyone has the opportunity to change the world with a single act but we can all make incremental changes, by being nicer to people, by helping them, by standing up to hate or by respecting those that we meet.
“If we want to change the world we first need to look within ourselves and find the strength, compassion and love that fuels the human spirit. By loving ourselves we can learn to love others, by being kind to others we can learn to be kind to ourselves, unfortunately so many of us fall down on loving ourselves.”
Sophie is crowdfunding the publication of Not Today: How I chose life. To pre-order copies or become a partner, click here:
A new Care2 Petition, authored by transgender woman Lily Madigan, calls on UK Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, Jeremy Hunt to provide funding to reduce waiting times for transgender people looking to access specialist services.
As of today, (June 23) the petition has gathered over 17,700 signatures.
According to the NHS the maximum waiting time for “non-urgent consultant-led treatments” should be 18 weeks from the day your appointment is booked or when the hospital receives your referral letter.
The BBC reports that for transgender people the wait has been much longer than the 18 week maximum, “Transgender people are waiting up to two and a half years for initial consultations at NHS gender identity clinics”.
In 2015, N. Nicole Nassbaum, former president of Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health and staff lawyer at Legal Aid Ontario said: “Trans people are at the highest risk of suicide and self-harm between the period that they’ve mentally decided to transition and when they complete their medical transition”.
“Timely NHS support is an issue of life or death for many trans people”, Lily Madigan writes in her Care2 petition. “The suicide rate of trans people is high, and receiving specialist NHS support quickly may make suicide less likely for some trans people.”
A 2017 Stonewall study focusing on LGBT students in schools and colleges in the UK found “eight out of 10 trans young people have self-harmed and almost half have attempted to kill themselves”.
“There’s all of the stories and ideas that are floating around in my head and I really needed to share them. It’s part autobiography, part self-help book, part political manifesto, and part personal philosophy. It’s everything that makes me me, and everything that I understand about how my journey led me here.
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