During an event organised by the PL youth branch Żgħażagħ Laburisti to mark the start of a new equality campaign called ‘Indaqs’, Cossai was asked about the implications on trans people when they’re referred to with the wrong pronouns.

To preface her response, she classified two types of instances when this happens, one being acceptable and the other not.

“There are some people who do it unknowingly or accidentally, and there are those who do it maliciously,” she said.

“Trans people will always want to be referred to with the right pronouns. For example, I am a trans woman so I ask people to refer to me with female pronouns. However, I know it takes time to get used to a new name and new pronouns.”

“My mum, for instance, found it a bit difficult to get used to referring to me as her daughter after always knowing me as her son and I can completely understand that. What the trans community doesn’t accept, however, is when people do it as a means to offend us,” she explained.

Cossai continued to recount the first time someone tried to hurt her by purposely using the wrong pronouns, and not only is it unprofessional – it’s also cruel.

“During the beginning of my transition, I went to a shop and the person helping was very kind and friendly. After a while, I changed my mind and was no longer interested in what I was initially going to buy, so I told her that.”

“From that moment, the mask slipped off. She immediately started to misgender me, saying things like ‘ok sir’. I had never experienced something like that so it affected me a lot – I felt lost.”

Since this was at the beginning of her transition, Cossai has grown a lot since then and admitted that something like that won’t impact her anymore, but that it will affect people and children still at the beginning of their journey.

“Today, if someone had to do something like that to me it wouldn’t affect me. But I know that there are people, especially those who are still coming out, including children at the beginning of their journey who can be really hurt by something like this.”

Concluding her reply, Cossai explained that one way to prevent something like this from happening is to essentially dispose of the ‘not my business’ mentality.

“If you see a situation like this with someone using the wrong name or insulting them in any similar way, stand up for them. It helps a lot – it would’ve helped me.”

Trans people have long warned of the detrimental effects of dead-naming and misgendering, and how this behaviour can destroy their confidence and sense of self when they’re just individuals simply trying to live their lives as themselves.

During this same discussion, Cossai also called for the creation of a new word in the Maltese language to refer to non-binary people.

“In English, we use the polite pronoun ‘they/them’, but Maltese is a more gendered language which makes it harder. Some take the literal translation and use ‘huma’ but I believe we must find or create a new word. Why not? Language is constantly evolving,” she explained.

According to the PL, the Indaqs campaign will be the driving force behind the work of the Labour Youth for the next two years.

It will mainly be addressing the theme of equality in its broadest view. Consequently, this branch of the party will be at the forefront of campaigns and proposals regarding subjects like sexual health and gender inequality.

Have you ever experienced something similar to Cossai?