What are your hopes and fears for the future?
Austin: As a Trans person, my short term hopes for the future are for trans
people to either be discussed in politics in a supportive way, or not at all.
When I vote for the first in the next UK elections, one of my biggest hopes is
that I won’t be forced into being a single-issue voter. At the moment, trans
people barely get a say in politics because we’re often forced into tactically
voting for parties that won’t even give us protections against discrimination but
will leave us and our issues alone. Secondly, a hope I have as I enter the
workforce is that my workplace, colleagues and employers will celebrate
Queer people visibly. Right now, Queerness is mostly tolerated in the
workplace but being visibly so rarely is.
What changes would you like to happen to have a better life?
Austin: In terms of the government, it would be really important and great to
have stronger enforced hate speech laws because so many people,
particularly in mainstream media like news stations, get away with ‘disguised’
hate speech. This, in my opinion, is fuelling the rise in discrimination that us
Queer and especially trans people face. Regarding jobs and housing, I think
the majority of my generation can agree that the state of housing is looking
dire for the future. We want to be able to own a house before age 35 and not
have to worry about the shortage of jobs or about whether our job will even
cover our living expenses.
How are you involved in making decisions about what matters to you?
Austin: As a fifteen year old, I do not have much choice about lots of important
decisions but as an activist I make a conscious effort to live my life centred
around the bigger issues that I care about. This can sometimes look like going
out to protests and organising campaigns in my school, but most of the time
it’s small things like reading the news or books about different issues, debating
competitively or going to Model United Nation Conferences to be as politically
involved as I can be.