A transgender parent has shared the lengths she goes to to protect her children from hatred and bigotry.
Adrianne Elson, who is originally from the Wirral, and her partner, Michael Steven, are recognised as being the first UK trans couple to have twins. The couple welcomed their two girls, Mavis and Christin, into the world just under two years ago.
Since then, the 51-year-old has been dealing with the expected challenges that come with being a parent such as “sleepless nights, the intense feelings of love and the overwhelming sense of responsibility”. On top of that, the railway depot operative is having to make conscious decisions on how she acts, dresses and presents herself as a transgender parent.
READ MORE: Charity claims government ‘isn’t doing enough to end HIV’
She told the ECHO : “I tend to dress down out of necessity since the children have been born. One reason is I haven’t got much time now as a parent and would rather concentrate on my children. But another reason is I wouldn’t feel safe at this current moment of time to dress in a more feminine fashion than how I am currently dressing. As much as I may want to, my emphasises is very much on the safety of my children and transphobia is currently at a level where I wouldn’t feel safe. I’ve very much so had to dull down who I am.”
Adrianne’s claims come after the Home Office released figures which highlighted that hate crime had hit a new record high in 2022. The new statistics detailed at least 155,841 recorded hate crimes between March 2021 and March this year. According to the report, transgender hate crimes, though the least in overall quantity, saw the biggest percentage increase, rising by 56%. Just one day before the ECHO spoke with Adrianne, she claims she was mocked for her appearance while in her local grocery store.
She said: “Many people feel emboldened, it’s as if they have a license to be mildly transphobic because they see those messages coming out from a socially conservative government and it has also been lobbied very hard by gender critical feminists. It’s like they think they’ve got a bit of a free pass now.”
In fear that a verbal assault could lead to a physical attack, Adrianne has taken precautionary measures in the past and informed the police of the transphobia she endured.
She added: “The thing now as to why I’m so dumbed down in terms of how I present in public is because if I was to go out without the children, I don’t want to come home to them with two black eyes. That’s the reality we are facing. LGBTQ+ rights are slowly but surely going in the right direction, but lately, it definitely feels as if it's two steps forward and three steps back. I really feel that we’re perceived as being the soft underbelly of identity politics and then that's the arrow that can be used in public with us as the soft target.”
Growing up Adrianne always had two thoughts in her head: one being that she wanted to be a parent and two being the idea that she may be transgender.
Wanting to get rid of the latter thought, Adrianne moved to Northern Ireland when she was 34 to join Ian Paisley's Martyrs’ Memorial Free Presbyterian Church in the hope that they would somehow help her “purge” her desire to be a woman. Alongside the church, Adrianne stood with Evangelical Christian protesters as Belfast’s Pride celebrations took over the city. However, when one of the Pride attendees caught her eye, she realised “nothing could purge the truth”.
Now, having lived life as her true authentic self for years now, Adrianne hopes society progress sooner rather than later so if her children happen to be LGBTQ+, they don’t have to go through the same experiences she did.
She said: “There was no means to discuss these sorts of feelings when I was a child. If there was I think I would have had a much more stable and much happier childhood. If I was able to discuss these feelings openly rather than having to have the burden as a young child and feeling that the feelings that I was experiencing were too wicked, perverse and repugnant to talk to other people about.
“This is how and who I am. I have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. I've had feelings of confusion about my gender identity. My life is not a flash or a phase, it’s not a sexual thing either like many people would suggest. If my children turned out to be LGBTQ+, be that homosexual or trans, then I would support them wholeheartedly. But I can honestly say, I sincerely hope they're not because even today, we're still facing prejudice and I just wouldn't want my children to go through a fraction of what I've experienced in life, harbouring these feelings.”
Receive our weekly LGBTQIA+ newsletter by signing up here .
READ NEXT
