Trans People Need You to Step Up

We start the 47th president’s term with a ban on transgender student athletes passing the House of Representatives and heading for the senate, so I am imploring you today to step up for the trans people in your life and push back against anti-trans bills now, for the next four years, and beyond.

You might think, “Oh, well, it’s just about student athletes.” Yes, but children are our most vulnerable demographic, and if they can make the world so hostile that the next generation of trans kids goes back into the closet, they are truly aiming for ALL trans people. It starts with “protect the girls, protect the children,” and I have to ask myself, from what? Trans kids are not a danger to cis kids. Trans girls playing softball or soccer are not taking a spot from a cis girl or going to molest anyone. Their cis male coaches are much more likely to do that statistically, and trust me when I say, absolutely no one is pretending to be trans to get close to cis kids to do them harm. The risk of harm to the trans person far outweighs anything else. Trans people are four times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than cis people.

This leads to the very high suicide rate among trans people. Some in the anti-trans movement will ascribe that to trans people being mentally ill, but much like autistic people, it isn’t the marginalization itself that makes them suicidal, it’s the societal conditions in which we live. Trans people have a harder time finding and keeping work, they are more likely to be cast out by their families than cis people, and the conservative side of our nation does everything in its power to make our lives harder, whether that’s through taking away gender affirming care, making name and gender marker changes near impossible, or by creating a social climate that is openly hostile to trans people.

A lot of push back comes from the fear of children being “mutilated,” but who knows your heart better than you? You can be the most seemingly loving parent, but your child still knows themselves better than you do, and I think that scares a lot of people. I grew up not having a word for how I felt, but I’m still nonbinary, I’m still trans. I grew up, found words for it, and had to live with the regret that I may never be the person I could have been if gender-affirming care had been available to me as a teenager. Most prepubescent kids just want you to call them by the correct name and wear the clothes they want. They’re not getting surgery or hormones. They just want autonomy and to be accepted for who they are. When they hit puberty, they sometimes get hormone blockers to stave off those permanent changes until they are old enough to decide they are sure in their decision to transition. I hit puberty at 11, hard and fast, and it completely screwed with my mental health and my perception of who I was. Not every trans person gets dysphoria (the gender version of dysmorphia), but I can tell you that it is hell on earth to feel like your body never fits right. You eventually stop looking in the mirror because the you in your head is never there, and the outside world perceives you in a way that goes against your inner identity.

Teenagers (16 and up, most over 18) who take hormone replacement therapy to have their bodies align with their inner identity have far better mental health and well-being outcomes than those who don’t get that sort of care. A trans kid allowed to transition is a happier, more well-adjusted child and a future adult with a better outlook. Hormone replacement therapy is safe and well-studied. This isn’t new technology, and there’s no reason to force a child to go through a puberty they didn’t want just to have them go through surgeries later when they are out of their parents’ control. Because that is what happens. That child/adult has always been trans. They just have to work far harder and go through far more pain to become the person they have always been.

Ultimately, that is the purpose of these sorts of laws: to cause pain. Conservatives and fascists seek to exert hierarchy and control. A trans person changing their identity disrupts that hierarchy. A woman becoming a man means having a usurper in their midst, and a man becoming a woman disrupts the belief that women are lesser. And a nonbinary person choosing to step out of the gender hierarchy all together is akin to anarchy.

One of the first places the Nazis went after when they came into power was Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or the Institute for Sexual Science, was because it supported gay and trans people. It was a place where trans people could get hormones and gender affirming surgeries. The Nazis had to clamp down on this because it disrupted the social order, and those who did were labeled as degenerates. They burned Hirshfeld’s research, set transgender research back for decades, and put many queer and trans people in concentration camps. Even if you don’t understand why someone would want to change genders, I have to ask if you really want to support something the Nazis thought was a great idea.

What I am asking you to do is to be vocal in your support of trans people. Call those out who want to harass trans people and anyone who doesn’t fit the gender mold because ultimately cis Black girls and tomboys are the ones who will face the most backlash and scrutiny under these anti-trans laws because they aren’t really about trans people, they’re about control and enforcing ever shifting gender norms.

Please reach out to your senators and reps (federal and state) and tell them to support transgender people. If you’re able, call your senators and tell them not to support SB9. You can see all the anti-trans bills that are filtering through congress here. If you aren’t comfortable calling your reps, you can send an email to all of your senators and your house rep through democracy.io

Your support is needed now more than ever, so I hope you will stand up for people like me and my partner, and make the world a better place for everyone, regardless of gender.