TEDxBrighton 2014 – Many Hands

Brighton Dome Concert Hall, Church Street, Friday, October 31

CONNECTIVITY, convergence and community are at the heart of this year’s TEDxBrighton, which sees writers, activists and entrepreneurs giving 18-minute talks on the theme of Many Hands. Imogen Goodman talks to Fox Fisher, one of 19 speakers at today’s event inspired by the 25-year-old Californian TED conference

"Lucy Meadows – you remember Lucy?” Fox Fisher asks. It’s hard to forget.

Born Nathan Upton, Lucy was a school teacher who returned to work in 2012 after her gender reassignment surgery.

She was outed as trans by a Daily Mail columnist and hounded by the tabloids, and in March 2013, she committed suicide.

“It was horrific,” says Fox. “We just thought, God, the general public needs a bit of education. We can’t change what happened unless we all try and do something about it.”

Together with his friend Lewis Hancox, Fox Fisher set up documentary project My Genderation, a series of short films tracing the stories of trans people around the country.

After featuring in Channel 4’s series My Transsexual Summer exploring his own transition from female to male, Fox has been a trans awareness activist in Brighton and was one of the organisers of the first Trans Pride event in 2013.

“If you’d asked me three years ago whether there’s a trans community, I’d have said no, but there’s definitely a wave of something happening at the moment,” he says.

But even with the changes that have come about, there’s work to be done.

Currently a staggering 41% of trans people will self-harm or attempt suicide at some point, compared with 0.4% in the UK as a whole.

“I think that if you’re in that state of depression, of feeling stuck, like your body’s betrayed you, it’s really hard to imagine a better future for yourself,” he says.

“We wanted to make these films to show people that you may be having these tough times because we live in a binary world, a world where male and female are treated as polar opposites.”

He is keen to reach out to young people, and hopes that My Genderation films might be shown in schools in the future.

“It’s the younger generation who can really change the stigma around trans people,” he says.

“It’s quite an old-school approach to think trans people are deviants or get a fetish out of dressing as the opposite sex. It’s so not the case. It’s people trying to live their lives and express themselves as authentically as possible.”

Fox understands this stigma on a personal level, having grappled with his own feelings of separateness from childhood through puberty.

“I used to have panic attacks before I medically transitioned,” he says.

“I just felt inherently wrong. I felt panicky about life and I knew that it was beyond the usual panic that people have at points in their life. I think I knew the wrong puberty was happening and it made me feel so separated from my body.”

With an impressive turn-out of almost 500 people at this year’s Trans Pride event, Fox Fisher feels positive that the tide is changing.

He’s hopeful that young people won’t have to go through the distress that he faced in his teens.

“We’re at a time right now where it’s just important to stand up and be counted,” he says. “Maybe in ten years we’ll get to that stage where it’s a real non-issue. I love the idea of people living life to the full and not having any regrets.”

Fox Fisher will be headlining alongside Sam Roddick, feminist activist and founder of Coco de Mer, and Peter James, the Brighton-based crime writer.

Starts 9.15am to 4.30pm, tickets £30/£20.Visit tedxbrighton.com