Opinion – TransOutLoud

I Am a Trans Texan

April Marshall — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 16:25:40 +0000

It strikes me, and may strike you, as a bit crazy to come out as transgender in an essay like this. I’m publicly revealing myself to be a member of a marginalized community in the midst of a moral panic targeting our very existence. Ascribe it to my defiant streak, if you will.

I’m hardly an ideal spokesperson. I’m 43, and I’ve lived my entire life up to this point (with fleeting exceptions) in the gender assigned to me at birth, which is male. Think of my biography as a cautionary tale. It’s painful and messy, and I’m going to tell you some of it. You may find this unpleasant, but I have no other way to say what I need to say. Only bear in mind that my experiences, though common, are not normative. I don’t speak for anyone but myself.

Growing up at the edge of San Antonio’s south side in the 1980s, I learned the usual things about gender and sexuality: Boys are boys and girls are girls and all that. My dad was a biology teacher. I knew the differences. But something seemed to be awry in me for, as far back as I can remember, I felt that I ought to have been a girl, or that in some strange way, I really was a girl, even though everyone treated me as a boy.

Adults policed my gender expression conscientiously, and I inferred that my feelings were unnatural and shameful. Still, I would sit in the pew at church as my parents took communion—we were Catholic—and silently rank which of the women who passed me I would most like to grow up to be. As a small, less-than-masculine child who hated sports, I became the target of bullying once I went to school. But I would lie awake every night, imagining myself becoming a girl—my only refuge from my strange alien existence.

Environmental factors didn’t make me this way. My parents were present and involved; my mother a caring, feminine homemaker and my father, a loud, masculine teacher and artillery officer who was sometimes frustrated by my unmanliness. Expecting me to grow up and marry and follow the same pattern, they enforced the “natural” gender norms they espoused every day of my life. Far from becoming trans through exposure to modern “gender ideology,” I was, simply and naturally, a trans child, even though everything in my upbringing went toward imposing a gender binary that itself represented an unacknowledged ideology. There is no “real me” beneath my transgender self. I have learned to mask it, yes, but if I were somehow to remove it, there would be no me left behind. No more could you remove the flour from a loaf of bread.

As soon as I was old enough to be left home alone, I began secretly wearing my mother’s clothes. Experimenting with femininity launched me into a deep and pervasive calm tinged with a fear of being discovered. After some years, I was found out through a misplaced blouse. I lied my way out of the tribunal that ensued—standing, panicked and alone, before my father and mother. My parents’ eagerness to accept my lies made up for their implausibility. The alternative was believing me to be some kind of queer, which I suppose is what I am.

My junior high coach, a morose sadist who later got fired and went on to a career as a campus cop, compelled boys to shower together in a dimly-lit subterranean cell. A small, undeveloped sixth-grader, I was thrust in there with big, masculine eighth-graders, their eyes ever-roving for some weakling to abuse. My unboyishness and isolation made me easy prey. As a transgender person whose brain was telling me that my body should be female, it’s hard to describe just how traumatic such experiences were. What made them unbearable—to such an extent that I began to self-harm and eventually to plan my own death—was that I had no words or concepts to describe or understand what was going on with me. I was simply a freak of nature, an abomination who had to hide in plain sight, surviving from one morning to the next, hoping that no one would discover my secret, dying a little each day.

You may believe that the problem here was not my being forced into a simplistic gender binary that left me vulnerable to abuse and trauma, but rather my gender dissonance, and that I should have been made to feel at home in my assigned gender. In other words, I should have been coerced into being a normal boy. If you think that, survey the research: It shows, overwhelmingly, that attempts to “convert” gender nonconforming people into traditional gender identities and other forms of rejection are ineffective and traumatizing—in fact, the scientific consensus is that all forms of conversion therapy aimed at altering a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity result in long-term harm—while care that affirms gender identity results almost universally in positive outcomes. It’s also clear that what negative outcomes do occur owe largely to hostile environments.

But since we’re in the middle of a panic about transgender people “invading” sex-segregated spaces, let me add this: Far be it from me to make anyone feel uncomfortable or unsafe, but I have never felt comfortable or safe in any male space. Nor, I believe, would I have felt better in a female space. I prefer privacy for doing such things as defecating and stripping naked, and I find our regime of communal showers and toilets just a little weird and, yes, oppressive. Perhaps that’s one aspect of the problem we should be examining?

There hangs in my parents’ home a circle of my annual school portraits, which show me becoming progressively sadder from year to year. My body was turning into an alien thing with the onset of biological manhood. By the time I graduated, my mounting dysphoria and social problems—I also had an undiagnosed autism disorder—led me to begin planning suicide. In secret, I painted a picture of a girl cutting her wrists. I was the girl, you see. In recurring dreams, I was a young mother. Despair held sway over my waking life.

It was either leave home or die, so I moved across the state for college. My plan was to wait a few weeks and, if nothing changed, to kill myself in a shower stall. Something did change: I found love and acceptance in the woman who became my best friend and then my wife. Several years later, I was still alive, presenting as female in the privacy of our home and as male when I went out. This made me happy. For the first time in my life, I began to approach peace.

It was the turn of the millennium. I was a shelver at the university library, which often left me alone in the stacks at night. Sometimes, I would work in the gender and sexuality section and take down books to try to understand what I was. Many of the books were out of date for that time, and much has changed in our understanding of transgender people since. In them and on the nascent Internet, I encountered terms and categories that didn’t seem to apply to me, reflecting a time when researchers developed theories with little input from the trans community itself. So my gender confusion persisted.

My fragile peace was disturbed when someone to whom we’d entrusted our key entered our home without permission and went through our things. I felt certain that my secret self must have been detected. Mortified and afraid of being outed, I threw all evidence in the dumpster. I grew a beard as a bulwark against “temptation” and began two decades of self-contradiction and mounting desperation, which brings us to today.

“You have to go the way your blood beats,” James Baldwin said in an interview. “If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.” Belatedly, I’m coming to grips with this. My attempts to cope with gender dissonance have consumed much of my life, taking hours away from each day, isolating me from loved ones, alienating me from my body, leading to bouts of depression, ideations of suicide, and alcohol abuse. It doesn’t go away. In middle age, I’m forced to recognize that nothing short of being who I am will resolve my profound inner conflict. The word “transition” is terrifying but, however catastrophic the process of coming out may be, I’ll not be much good to those I love if I’m burned out, incapacitated, or dead.

Knowledge is power. If I had simply known more, I would have been spared some suffering. The idea that I’ve been converted by the “gender cult” is preposterous. My starting point was my own experience, going back years before I could even articulate it. I simply was what I now call “transgender.” My brain and flesh and bones told me so. And peace could never be mine until I had uncovered its nature and found a way to live with it.

The many bills trying to prevent youth from learning about trans identity trouble me deeply. They seek to condemn another generation to the deathly dysphoria that has burdened me in the belief that people like me are misbegotten or perverted, and that state-imposed ignorance can prevent children from turning out like us.

Painful though it’s been, too much good has happened in my life for me to have regrets. Still, I can imagine meeting perhaps not my actual younger self, but a version of that self living today. What would I want for myself? I would want knowledge and understanding of gender variance. I would want to know that I’m not alone. I would want adults who could sympathize and offer real solutions. And I would want the ability to pursue gender-affirming care in accordance with research-backed practices.

A growing body of research supports the thesis that gender incongruence has a biological basis, though the causes are a matter of dispute in the scientific community. Studies also indicate that the only effective treatment is gender-affirming care. Opponents of gender-affirming care often call it “experimental.” But the first gender reassignment surgeries were performed over a century ago. The use of hormones in gender-affirming care began as early as 1918. To put that in perspective, recall that the first heart transplant was performed in 1967.

Gender-affirming care was pioneered by the German physician Magnus Hirschfeld. As recounted in Susan Stryker’s Transgender History, Hirschfeld became a target when the Nazis came to power—he was both Jewish and gay—and Hitler denounced him as “the most dangerous Jew in Germany.” His Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was sacked and its library burned by Nazis in 1933, setting the cause of liberation back a generation. He fled the country and died in 1935. But the physician Harry Benjamin, mentored by Hirschfeld, went on to champion gender-affirming care in the United States, and since 1979, the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, now called the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, has issued the standards of care for transgender people.

The parallels between Nazi violence and the current trans panic are unmistakable. It’s easy enough to compare people whose politics you don’t like to Nazis. Still, if someone finds themselves following the Nazis’ footsteps and arguing that Hitler was clearly right about some things, it might be time for them to take stock of what they’re doing and why.

Julia Serano’s trans feminist manifesto, Whipping Girl, ascribes the perception of trans women as a public menace to the belief that masculinity is superior to femininity. In How Fascism Works, historian Jason Stanley cites numerous instances in which violence against the “other” in the name of protecting women and children has been used to cement the patriarchal fascist state. Quoting Serano, he notes that irrational fear of trans women in particular is a bellwether because of the threat we supposedly pose to the nation’s manhood. Anti-trans panic is the knifepoint of fascism protruding into the body politic. But as it slides in, the wound widens, cutting across other minorities.

Texas lawmakers, it doesn’t have to be this way. Trans people already live daily with the threat of violence and attempt suicide at far higher rates than the general population. You can’t “fix” us. You can only exclude or kill us. Protect children by all means. But educate yourselves on how interventions are actually made—in the vast majority of cases, they are tentative and reversible, and in all cases are pursued only under great scrutiny—and base your actions on valid evidence, not hyperbole or cherry-picked cases or cynical culture-war politics. Don’t tear families apart or force them to flee. Let them make well-informed decisions under the guidance of medical caregivers.

Trans people are not a threat. We just want to exist and be left alone. Our dignity cannot be taken. But the Texas Legislature is in danger of trading away its own. Sessions are short and come only once every two years. There are so many urgent issues that need your attention: fixing the power grid and the rest of our infrastructure, finding humane, secure solutions to the border crisis, and protecting our children from being murdered at school. Do the work you were elected to do. Don’t terrorize trans people.

I live in Uvalde. I used to have to describe where that was. I never will again. It’s hard to explain, but I doubt my egg would have cracked if I hadn’t witnessed the kind of things I’ve witnessed this past year. A whirlwind of grief. A spectacle of coverage. Incandescent anger of bereft families. Stultifying indifference of public officials. You’re not saving kids by going after gender-affirming care. You’re killing them. You’re killing them, and you’re leaving the ones who really do need your help exposed. It has got to stop.

We have always been here. We just haven’t always felt safe coming out. But there’s no turning back the clock. We’re going to win our liberation today or tomorrow. At most, those who wish us ill will succeed in causing pain and suffering on their way out. I call on their well-meaning allies not to help them.

But whether you do or don’t, I, for one, refuse to live in the dark any longer. You can hate me or kill me, but you can’t steal the joy that comes from knowing who I am.

Source link

J.K. Rowling Doesn’t Back Down From Transgender Beliefs, Says ‘There’s Something Dangerous About This Movement’ – OutKick

April Marshall — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 06:26:57 +0000

J.K. Rowling continues to be one of the biggest villains of the transgender movement.

Rowling believes women are women, men are men and spaces for women should be protected from biological men. And for this, she has received attacks and threats from trans activists.

While speaking with host Megan Phelps-Roper on “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” podcast, the wildly successful author said she stands by her beliefs.

“I thought about it deeply and hard and long and I’ve listened, I promise, to the other side,” she said. “And I believe, absolutely, that there is something dangerous about this movement and that it must be challenged.”

(Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

Rowling admits she knew what she was getting herself into.

“When I first became interested in, and then deeply troubled by, what I saw as a cultural movement that was illiberal in its methods and questionable in its ideas, I absolutely knew that if I spoke out, many people who love my books would be deeply unhappy with me,” she said.

The 57-year-old author said the trans activist movement “echoes the very thing that I was warning against in ‘Harry Potter.’”

“In fact, a ton of Potter fans are grateful that I said what I said,”

And although she admitted it would have been easier not to get involved, Rowling said she feels she’s doing the right thing.

“I am fighting what I see as a powerful, insidious, misogynistic movement, that has gained huge purchase in very influential areas of society,” Rowling said. “I do not see this particular movement as either benign or powerless, so I’m afraid I stand with the women who are fighting to be heard against threats of loss of livelihood and threats to their safety.”

J.K. Rowling is not afraid to stand up for women.

And she first ruffled feathers in 2020 when she sent out a tweet suggesting that “people who menstruate” could simply be called “women.”

‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?

Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate https://t.co/cVpZxG7gaA

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020

That initial tweet garnered a lot of backlash, but Rowling didn’t relent. She wrote about her views in more detail.

The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women – ie, to male violence – ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences – is a nonsense.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020

In the months following, woke activists and celebrities — including the star actors in the “Harry Potter” movies — spoke out against Rowling.

And it got even more asinine from there.

Quidditch — which Rowling literally invented – became “quad ball.” Then, critics called for a boycott of a new video game, Hogwarts Legacy, due to a lack of “queer” people in the development of the game. Even Rowling’s own friends begged her not to go public with her beliefs on gender ideology.

Still, she won’t kneel at the feet of the mob.

In a world where regular people can lose their jobs and be labeled transphobic bigots simply for acknowledging biological reality, high-profile voices like J.K. Rowling’s are so important.

She doesn’t care about legacy, cancellation or money. Because her legacy is undeniable, she’s un-cancellable and she’s already worth about $1 billion.

Source link

ICYMI: Watch John Oliver Hit Back Against Latest Round of Attacks on Transgender Youth

April Marshall — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 16:16:42 +0000

As extremist politicians continue their unprecedented legislative assault on transgender individuals – especially transgender children and young people – working overtime to shamelessly advance discrimination on a scale never seen before, the newest episode of HBO’s hit show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver discusses the newest threats facing transgender rights. The episode comes one week after Jon Stewart debunked anti-transgender myths on his AppleTV show, “The Problem with Jon Stewart.”

“This powerful segment from John Oliver, is another excellent example of a comedian doing high-quality, thorough reporting on transgender rights while refuting rampant lies and disinformation,” said Human Rights Campaign Senior Vice President for Programs, Research, and Training Jay Brown. “With the rights of transgender individuals under attack by state legislators around the country, it is of utmost urgency that these issues are elevated in our national discourse. We are grateful that prominent figures are talking about these important issues and debunking virulent anti-trans propaganda.”

WATCH THE EPISODE HERE

Excerpts from the show:

“This year alone over a hundred anti-trans bills have been introduced in state houses, and twelve states have signed or enacted them, with all of this happening against a backdrop of violence and threats including attacks and harassment aimed at hospitals providing gender-affirming care to youth.”

“We’re going to be taking the arguments behind a lot of these anti-trans bills seriously – but not sincerely – because of what they’re doing so often they seem to be based more on political calculation than what is actually happening.”

“To be very clear there is ample evidence of gender variance throughout human history. And as far back as historians have found evidence of trans people, they found trans children. As for the rapid rise in kids identifying as trans, the writer Julia Serrano has pointed out that when you look at a chart of left-handedness among Americans over the 20th century you see a massive spike when we stopped forcing kids to write with their right hand, and then a plateau. That doesn’t mean everyone became left-handed or there was a rapid onset of South Paw Dysphoria it means people were free to be who they were.”

“So much of the fear of and arguments against transgender people seems to flow from misinformation and misunderstanding. Maybe the biggest and most dangerous area of ignorance surrounds the concept of gender-affirming care in recent years. Four states have enacted bans or restrictions on youth access to it and over a dozen more have considered similar legislation this year alone. They have been fueled by a lack of basic knowledge about what gender-affirming care actually consists of.”

“Let’s break down exactly what gender-affirming care consists of because in younger children it can mean nothing more than a social transition, like calling them by a new name or giving them a new haircut or clothing… Because, to be very clear, prepubescent children are not eligible for medical interventions. Now at the onset of puberty, an adolescent and their family might consider puberty blockers hormones that delay [puberty] – and importantly if that treatment is suspended then puberty will resume – meaning that this is reversible. Think of it like a pause button. All of this would only happen after a team of medical professionals discussed all of its risks and benefits with their patients and their patient’s parent or guardians – all of whom would have to sign off on it. Basically, no kid is casually dropping into an operating room because they just decided to get their uterus removed with the impulsive recklessness normally associated with getting bangs.”

“The benefits of providing care are immense, and the risks of withholding it are dire. A survey of trans people found that of those who wanted hormone therapy and didn’t receive it, 58% reported suicidal thoughts in a given year. This is why the three major professional associations of child and adolescent doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists have endorsed gender-affirming care and condemned efforts to deny it.”

“I love ballet, math, science, and geology. I spend my free time with my cats and chickens, FaceTiming my friends, and dreaming of when I will finally meet Dolly Parton. I do not like spending my free time asking adults to make good choices. It just makes me sad that some politicians use trans kids like me to get votes from people who hate me just because I exist. God made me. God loves me for who I am and God does not make mistakes.” – Transgender youth activist, Kai Shapley

“I am glad that Kai is advocating for herself, but if a child has to be an activist we have already failed that child because she should just get to be a kid and enjoy her life. I’m actually glad that you got to hear her talk about ballet and FaceTime and Dolly Parton because there is something that too often gets left out of these stories and that is joy. While opponents of trans rights will say that these kids are either a menace or brainwashed, their defenders will often gravitate towards the same sad statistics that I’ve shown you tonight – of depression and suicide…It’s clearly not the whole story, which is that when supported trans kids can experience full vibrant lives because trans people are not by default unhappier or more prone to suffering than everyone else. That is something that we are putting on them.”

“Hope and joy are crucial here. They are the fuel that powers the ongoing vote for equality. And while there is a lot of fear and uncertainty right now, it is worth remembering that progress while not always linear is always possible. We are working toward the goal of every trans kid knowing that they are loved, valued and indispensable as Dolly Parton… and never ever going back to a point where anyone feels that if they appear on TV they have to hide behind a plant.”

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ+ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

Source link

Violence Against Transgender People is on the Rise, Stopping it Requires a Holistic Solution

April Marshall — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 15:12:00 +0000

In late July, drag queen Patty Bourrée was reading a children’s book and playing the ukulele at a story hour event in Boston, Mass. when a group of masked neo-Nazis stormed the event. Bourrée is doing just fine, but she’s concerned about the children who had to walk among neo-Nazis chanting anti-transgender, anti-LGBTQ slurs and about the parents who brought their children to the small, regularly-held, and popular event.

So when Bourrée pulled up to her next event, planned for the first weekend of August, and saw the same neo-Nazis lurking outside, she knew she had to cancel. “I can’t put myself (and the kids!) in a potentially violent situation,” she said on Twitter. According to Bourrée, every drag queen story hour in the past few months has received some level of anti-LGBT attention. Local media has documented a sharp uptick in neo-Nazi activity in 2022, including from NSC-131, the group that targeted Bourrée.

Neo-Nazis in Boston. Proud Boys in California. Anti-trans rhetoric in the Buffalo shooter’s manifesto. Accusations about grooming. Panic over recruitment. A headline from The Daily Signal, the Heritage Foundation’s news outlet, warns that “‘A Drag Queen in Every School’ Is Modern Left’s ‘Chicken in Every Pot.’” Violent anti-LGBT (and specifically anti-transgender) rhetoric is increasing across the country and around the globe, explicitly stoked by the Christian Right and right-wing media with exclusionary and exterminationist language. Increasingly, this exterminationist rhetoric has been followed up with physical violence, and members of violent far-right groups are using the issue to recruit new followers.

This increase in violent rhetoric has led directly to legitimate security concerns for the LGBT community. Organized militia, interpersonal violence, and state violence have increased significantly in the past two years.

Radicalizing Against Transgender People

Anti-transgender rhetoric is one of the most successful modern radicalization techniques of the far right, from the Christian Right organizations calling for an end to trans-affirming care and nondiscrimination protections, to social media luminaries targeting children’s hospitals by drawing names from a hat. Trans people are always the villain.

The dog-whistles of anti-trans rhetoric are instantly recognizable: they’re taking our children, they’re making our spaces unsafe, they’re mutilating themselves, it’s a choice, it’s a sham. These messages smack of the messages of anti-migrant, anti-Black, and particularly antisemitic rhetoric. As I wrote with a colleague in 2021, “Despite cloaking their rhetoric under the guise of plausible deniability and finger-wagging at the supposed excesses of ‘wokeness,’ anti-trans activists are lifting their conspiracies from a familiar far-right arsenal, and are comfortably aligned with white nationalists in their choice of the ‘enemies’ they name.”

Anti-transgender rhetoric is increasing in all sectors of the Right.

Increases in Organized Militia, Interpersonal, and State Violence

Organized Militia Violence

In Los Angeles, in early summer 2021, right-wing anti-transgender misinformation directly led to an increase of interpersonal threats and violence against transgender people living in the city. A video of a woman claiming to have seen a naked transgender woman in the women’s changing area of coed Korean spa WiSpa in downtown Los Angeles went viral on right-wing media. The aftermath turned violent. Armed Proud Boys attacked protestors and the Los Angeles Police Department retaliated against both the Proud Boys and spa supporters. Precious Angel, a trans woman from Los Angeles who was briefly incorrectly identified as the alleged WiSpa flasher, told the Guardian US that “the hundreds of comments calling her ‘pedo’ and accusing her of being a pedophile were especially painful to her, because she is a survivor of child sexual abuse.”

Over the weekend of June 11-12, 2022, the Anti-Defamation League counted seven separate instances of organized extremist violence, most notably the arrest of 31 Patriot Front militia members in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The Patriot Front members had allegedly planned to riot with festival goers at Coeur d’Alene Pride on Saturday morning. That same weekend, alleged Proud Boys interrupted a Drag Queen Story Hour in San Lorenzo, Calif., members of local neo-Nazi organization NatSoc Florida demonstrated outside a restaurant in Jacksonville, and Proud Boys interrupted a Drag Queen Brunch in Arlington, Texas, along with several other small incidents.

As Kathryn Joyce reports in Salon, Texas also saw a surge of organized, far-right anti-LGBTQ activism over the summer, particularly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Many of the 31 Patriot Front members arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho were from Texas — the majority were in fact from out of state and none were from the Coeur d’Alene area. (Coeur d’Alene is no stranger to extremist activity. Odette Yousef reports for NPR that the small northern Idaho city was home to the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations group from the 1974 to 2000. The group harassed, harmed, and even killed locals. In 1998, the Southern Poverty Law Center teamed up with the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, which was created in the 80s to respond to the violent racism, to sue the group and finally brought it down in 2001. The Patriot Front’s plot for Pride reminded Coeur d’Aleniens of the Aryan Nation and of how northern Idaho rests at the heart of white supremacist, Christian Right country: “Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Washington and Oregon.”)

As the Southern Poverty Law Center reports, right-wing Twitter influencers with millions of followers tweeted about the Coeur d’Alene Pride event in the weeks prior to the festival.

Individual right-wing media personalities are remotely organizing violence against LGBTQ people. Chaya Raichik, the former real estate agent behind LibsOfTikTok, the Twitter account that drew paramilitary and militia attention to Coeur d’Alene has spent the remainder of the summer and early fall picking other targets for violent anti-trans neo-nazis and militias to aim their vitriol at. Boston Children’s Hospital had to close its doors to visitors due to a bomb threat and other harassment the hospital received after Raichik picked it as her campaign of the week. According to NPR, Raichik targeted hospitals in at least four major cities.

In October, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Children’s Hospital Association wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, demanding that the it investigate the “increasing threats of violence against physicians, hospitals and families of children for providing and seeking evidence-based gender-affirming care.”

Interpersonal Violence

The increase in organized violence is motivating spontaneous interpersonal violence. In the few hours after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, a successful anti-trans disinformation campaign sprouted from right-wing messaging boards. Photos from several trans women’s social media accounts were cobbled together to give the impression that the shooter was a transgender woman. The hoax went national, amplified by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA).

The afternoon of the shooting at Robb Elementary, four men in El Paso attacked a young trans girl on the sidewalk, yelling slurs and accusations about the shooting. According to a press report, the girl “had no idea what [the attackers] meant, but she was scared.” It’s not a surprise that she felt that way. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) tracks fatal attacks on transgender people: this year alone, at least 31 people have been killed. In 2021, HRC recorded the violent deaths of 50 transgender people, the majority of whom were transgender women of color.

Violence ripples into impacted communities. The Trevor Project studies the mental health of LGBTQ youth. In 2021, 20 percent of surveyed transgender and nonbinary youth reported attempting suicide. Of these youth, a quarter reported experiencing discrimination on the basis of gender identity in the past year alone.

State Violence

Finally, with the passage of multiple laws banning transgender children’s access to trans-affirming care or scholastic sports, state violence against trans people has multiplied. In their lawsuit against the state of Texas, the “Voe” family (a pseudonym for the litigation) alleges their child attempted suicide shortly after Governor Greg Abbot issued an order authorizing the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate the parents of transgender children the for child abuse. A state court later ordered the Department to cease enforcement of the Governor’s order.

Meanwhile, out of the 18 states which now ban girls from playing on teams that match their gender identity, Idaho, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah require girls challenged under the law to prove their “biological sex” through invasive physical examinations. In Kentucky, all students must undergo a yearly examination of their “biological sex” and provide an affidavit signed by a medical professional. And in Utah, the legislature has created a “School Activity Eligibility Commission” to whom transgender student athletes must apply in order to play sports, and who will assess multiple factors to determine eligibility including a student’s mental health.

Christian-Right advocacy organizations are behind these legislative pushes, and are using their agenda to push transgender people out of the public sphere and to attack public institutions like schools and hospitals. (The Heritage Foundation, the author of many a white paper and panel against justice and health care for trans lives, is also the author of many a white paper and panel against the teaching of Black history in public schools, and the parental rights movement in general.)

The Cost of Violence

The weight of this violence is crushing, and the impacts are not felt evenly throughout the transgender community. Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, two Black transgender female track athletes, were the focus of a Connecticut lawsuit that launched the movement to ban transgender girls from scholastic athletics. While the lawsuit failed in Connecticut, and lawmakers in other states were unable to name a single transgender athlete in their own states, Miller and Yearwood are continually cited as the reason why these laws were so necessary. Anti-Blackness twines with transphobia to create a perfectly horrible concoction of hate.

The undercurrent of all this tumultuous violence, discrimination, and exclusion is a country that still fails to provide its residents with a living wage, affordable health care, affordable housing, or universal education. Transgender and nonbinary people are at higher risk for poverty, poor mental and physical health, and homelessness. Despite what the paper of record might say, the crisis of health care for trans youth is not a preponderance of care, but the opposite. Trans youth face intense obstacles to care, including months and years long waits.

Supporting Leaders, Organizations, and Networks of Safety

What response is called for in answer to this increase in violence? While law enforcement involvement might feel prudent, transgender and gender nonconforming people, particularly Black transgender women, have long been targeted by law enforcement for mistreatment and over-policing and over-incarceration. Likewise, the enforcement of hate-crimes legislation has been shown, anecdotally and empirically, to disproportionately impact Black people, while simultaneously failing to address the current rise in hate crimes. The meager, if any, benefit to the solving of these crimes (not to mention anything about law enforcement’s abject failure to prevent violence against LGBTQ people) is utterly outweighed by the violent impacts of law enforcement on the trans community. In fact, law enforcement’s treatment of transgender people, particularly Black transgender women, should itself be considered state violence.

Instead, any security-minded response to the violence facing LGBTQ communities must focus resources on the leaders and organizations building safe communities and networks of safety. The Trans Latin@ Coalition was founded in 2009 by and for trans Latina migrants living in the United States. Through resources, technical assistance, housing, and health care, the Coalition supports migrants fleeing state and interpersonal violence in their countries of origin, with a deep understanding that communities are made safer through interconnectedness, not policing.

Long-term solutions to anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ violence must also focus on the implementation and maintenance of universal systems, so that transgender people don’t need to continually illustrate our need for nondiscrimination protections. Universal health care, universal housing, universal kindergarten and college will help to bridge the significant wealth and health disparities faced by transgender people in the United States. Without strong federal systems in place, like robust funding for Medicaid and expanded HUD-subsidized and protected housing, backed by robust regulatory implementation, trans people’s vulnerability to security failures will be dependent on where they live and their access to organizations like the Trans Latin@ Coalition.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, advocacy for the safety and security of transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people must be as loud as the Christian Right and right-wing media are in their opposition. If small “c” conservatives believe that governments must conserve scarce resources and therefore make hard decisions about which public resources to invest in, advocates for the security of LGBTQ people must maintain two arguments: that there exists the wealth within our country to create safety, well-being, and security for all; and that community organizations like the Trans Latin@ Coalition are already working to create those conditions now.

Bamby Salcedo is the Executive Director of the Trans Latin@ Coalition. She wrote an op-ed in July 2021 after the Los Angeles police viciously retaliated against Proud Boys and WiSpa supporters in the wake of the viral video.

Proud Boys, Q-Anon and many other conservative groups are looking for a fight. We need to keep our community safe because we need all of us to change the narrative that they are trying to portray. We need to let all of those conservative groups and LAPD that we are better than them.

Anti-LGBT rhetoric is a motivating force for organized militia, interpersonal, and state; it is an effective recruitment technique for all sectors of the Right, and must be taken seriously for the serious threat to individual and community safety that is it. Anti-LGBT rhetoric is being deployed strategically by the Christian Right, amplified by right-wing media and translated into violence and terror by the armed militias, paramilitaries, and neo-nazis. If transgender people are the canary testing for authoritarianism in the coal mine of U.S. government, well, the canary is dead. So are its friends. Perhaps it’s time to put on our gas masks.

IMAGE: People carry a large rainbow flag during the Pride march in Podgorica, Montenegro, on Oct. 8, 2022. (Photo by Savo Prelevic/AFP via Getty Images)

Source link

Amelia: When My Son Met Another Out LGBTQ Kid On The First Day Of School

April Marshall — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 19:47:11 +0000

The first day of school. It’s always embarrassing. Embarrassing for me, that is. Normally, I’m the too cynical, too loud mom, who curses too much. But on the first day of school my internal chant of “You are not going to cry” starts before we are even into the car. There is no precedent to excuse this. Nothing particularly horrible has ever happened on a first day of school. It just turns me into emo-mom extraordinaire.

And this year was worse. Not only was it my oldest son’s first day of middle school, but I wasn’t going to be there. I had back surgery a couple of weeks ago (I’m going to be fine), and I am not yet supposed to do things as exciting as leaving the house for major emotional events. This was the first year I was going to miss. It sucked. For me. My son was totally cool about it and absolutely blase about my inner turmoil.

All day I waited. And I worried. And scenes of bullies in John Hughes movies kept scrolling through my head, and I just knew there was some barely pubescent little hellion who would be totally deserving of my wrath before the day was out. It didn’t matter how carefully we had picked his school as somewhere that would embrace and celebrate who my kid is, the awful scenes of bathroom swirlies and kids being bashed against lockers kept rolling. And by 3pm, I was mess.

Instead, that afternoon my kid burst into the house, all smiles and said, “I made a transgender friend today! She has other gay friends!” He was bouncing. My oldest son is gay, and the idea of having other gay kids in his classroom for the first time (there were no other out gay kids in his elementary school) was what made him really look forward to middle school.

My son went on to tell me that his new friend’s parents want her to be a boy and not a girl. “So I told her my parent’s will like her a lot.”

I leaned over and kissed his forehead and both of his cheeks. “I am sure we will, baby.”

“Mom!” he swatted my hands away. “Just stop.”

(I am going to stop here and take a moment. I don’t have a trans kid. My gay kid is about as gender conforming as you can get. I have no experience having a transgender or gender nonconforming child. But if you are a parent with transgender or genderqueer kid, it’s time to get with the program. Your kid needs you to love who they are, and not who you think they should be.)

I really wish I had been a fly on the wall at the school that day, but instead I just tried to get the story out of my son of how this conversation had transpired. I just couldn’t imagine some 11-year-old transgender girl announcing her gender identity to my kid out of the blue.

So from the details I can piece together from my 11-year-old (who thinks his mother is ridiculous) here’s what happened:

My son was lost and couldn’t find his next class, so he found someone who looked like they were lost too.

He walked up to this other student and said, “Hey guy, what’s up?”

The other student said, “I’m not a guy. I’m a girl.”

“Oh,” said my kid. “Hey girl, what’s up? Are you transgender?” The girl looked at him for a minute and then nodded. “That’s cool,” he continued. “I’m not transgender, but I’m gay.”

“That’s cool,” she said back. “I have some gay friends who go here too.” My son was very excited to hear this. It turns out they were both lost and looking for the same classroom.

Then they walked past the bathrooms, and the girl explained she needed to go, but wanted to go into the girls’ room because that was her real bathroom. My son said he would stand outside the door while she was inside and wait until she was done, and then they could find their class together.

After that was completed, they continued through the halls and she asked him how his parents felt about him being gay. He just shrugged. “It’s fine. We know a lot of gay people. A lot.” She told him about her parents, and things went from there.

They found their classroom, and afterwards promised they would find each other the next day.

And now I feel like my kid really is in some 80s movie, but the 2016 version. Because come on!? For real? I am 40 years old, and the idea of two lgbt kids just happening to randomly find each other both looking for the same class just seems too perfect a set up, too unreal. If I watched a movie or a TV show where a conversation like that happened, I would probably roll my eyes at the too-perfectness, the fakeness, of it all.

But it did happen, and it made my kid’s first day of middle school awesome.

So, maybe it is time to put emo-mom away for awhile, and just let his life happen. Because we are in a new age, a new world, a new reality. Will there be assholes and homophobes? Yes, always. But there will also be two LGBTQ kids who find each other randomly walking down the hall. And that is pretty fantastic.

Source link

Alexandra Billings: Dear Bette Midler: I Can’t Take My Transness Off And Neither Can Caitlyn Jenner

April Marshall — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 12:35:57 +0000

In an open letter to Bette Midler, Alexandra Billings speaks out in response to tweets from Ms. Midler regarding the cancellation of Caitlyn Jenner’s “I Am Cait”. Comments that have been called out as transphobic and insensitive.

Dear Bette Midler,

You are glorious and magnificent, and I am hoping you are busy sewing up mermaid tails and adding more sparkles to your ever growing Harlettes’ tattered hemlines. I want to thank you for your work as a singer, an actor and an advocate for a clean earth and a bright future. Recently, I read a tweet of yours concerning Caitlyn Jenner and it seemed to me you might have been a bit confused on some things. So, I grabbed my e-cig, made some tea, sat myself on the porch at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night and alongside my two kitties, I wrote you a lengthy missive. Since then, the HRC has gotten a hold of you and you have deleted the offensive tweet and apologized.

To them.

Only.

So it seems to me that the original letter I wrote, along with some updated tweaks, is still regrettably necessary, and to be honest, I would very much like to see if perhaps I can clear a few things up.

To be clear… Caitlyn Jenner is not a drag queen. She cannot change into what she was because what she was, was actually a lie. So… she never really was Bruce Jenner. Being Trans isn’t a fad, or a choice or a decision. It isn’t something we can change or discard. Being Trans is how we were born and where we come from and it is our history and our great privilege. Being Trans is steeped in revolution and sweat and rides on the backs of a bloody and battered tribe, free to finally live a life usually drowning in shame and regret. Being Trans is a right and we are Americans, just like you, and what we are, as what you are, cannot be undone.

So when you ask a question publicly, even half kidding as I know you were, that suggests that since Cailtyn’s show has been cancelled, she might:

“…Go back to being Bruce.”

… You are undoing what took us years to do and has cost us lives to finalize.

I cannot take my Transness off, Ms. Midler, and it has taken me 54 years of survival through centuries of violence and suicides, to finally make friends with my past. And I will not be the butt of your jokes simply because you cannot take the time to write from a place of truth, instead of a place of fear.

The danger of what you tweeted is your influence on public opinion and your blatant disregard for the Trans experience and a glaring lack of compassion towards a people you do not know. I am asking with as much openness as I can, to rethink what you put out in to the universe. I am forever with you in your love of nature and beauty, and in your constant quest of camp and art for art’s sake, but I will not support you in your ignorance of my brothers and sisters as we still lay at the mercy of an under educated government bureaucracy and a misguided and sometimes lethal populous.

Our Trans youth don’t live very long, Bette. And when they die, they do it with guns and ropes and pills and leaping off the edges of buildings. Giving their tormentors misinformation that already incites a sense of righteous indignation in them by suggesting they are merely in costume, is not only irresponsible, it is terribly cruel.

The LGBT community adores you. We have given you our souls in the common understanding that both of us come from both adversity and triumph. We see that in you. We recognize you. We know each other very deeply. And now, a community who has recently been in the forefront of a new revolutionary cracking needs to rely on our allies for kindness in print and education in actions.

What I am is not a choice. It is a gift.

Please know Bette that your deleting of the tweet and subsequent apology is deeply appreciated and received. However, I believe there is a difference between an apology and an amend. One requires regret and the other requires ownership. Think of it this way, if you had written that Michelle Obama was a highly intelligent and very successful woman for a black person, and the NAACP called you on it, would you apologize to them alone? Or would you take time to speak to the African-American community at large, as well as Mrs. Obama personally, and hopefully look into what would make you react this way in the first place. Joke or not. Racism and transphobia run hand in hand. Both thrive on ignorance of community. It seems to me you might have some more diligence due. Look inward, Ms. Midler that has always been where your truest self lies.

I am saying this to you both for me and for the ones who can no longer speak:

“Kindness in the center of a spirit is easily accessed through the reflection of one’s own deeds. For it does not matter that you understand us. It only matters that you honor us.”

Treat us as we have treated you, Bette. That’s all we want, really.

Sincerely, and with all the sequins I can find,

Alexandra Billings

Lifelong Fan and Transgender Activist

Source link

Answering Our Critics

April Marshall — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 16:46:33 +0000

TOL is a growing site, and being the type of site that we are- we get a lot of shares and a lot of comments both here and on social media. I also get emails as well. I actually do read all of these- even if I don’t respond. Some of the feedback I see has been fairly negative, and being a young site, I thought I would take the opportunity to give some insight and answer some of our critics.

“Why don’t you use images of trans people?”

First of all, I think it’s presumptuous to assume whether someone is cis or transgender based simply on a photo. However in many cases we do not use images of trans people. The reason is simple, there isn’t a lot of stock photography of trans or gender-variant people. And I don’t want to just go search for images of trans people and use them willy-nilly. I wouldn’t want to “out” anyone. I do look for official news images or stock photography. But I often use whatever I can find. Sometimes that is an image of a trans person- sometimes it is not.

If you are willing to send in images that could be used for stock- please feel free.

“This article could be for anyone- why are you just trying to exploit trans people?”

I will let you in on a secret- getting traffic to a site is hard, just in general. When you run a niche site and you are trying to get targeted traffic it is even harder. That is where SEO (search engine optimization) comes in. In order to make sure that our content gets to the people that need it, we have to use certain keywords to hit our demographic. If we don’t say “wig tips for transgender women” and instead use “wig tips you can use” then we can’t guarantee it will get to the right audience. After all, think about how you search. If you are trans and looking for certain information then you probably put “transgender” in the search somewhere. This isn’t trying to exploit- it’s just trying to direct users to the site. That’s just how social media and search engines work.

“That’s ableist.” “That’s racist.” “That’s not inclusive.”

Here is something you probably never think about. Writers usually write from what they know. I’m a mtf trans woman in her late 30’s who makes a good living, has a house, has a girlfriend, suffers from depression/anxiety/ptsd, not religious, and has an incredible support circle. I’m also in good health, no disabilities, and white. And I am the main writer here. So, no- I am not as familiar with the experiences of people in other demographics. On our article about 25 things to do to help with dysphoria, I saw comments about it being ableist. Many of the things in that list are not exclusive to able-bodied people at all. But being a piece written from my experience, it includes things that have helped ME. And the hope is that they can help you. I’ve never had to consider things to do if blind, bed-ridden, deaf, etc. I can’t apologize for that. Because I can’t write from every perspective. Also, I saw a comment that meditation was ableist because those with mental illness shouldn’t do it. Which is ridiculously dumb. Meditation an help anyone. It helps to focus the mind and allow you to strengthen it.

That’s also why there are more mtf articles. Because that’s what I can speak to more. I wish I had some trans male writers that could contribute and talk about things I don’t know. The best I can do is try and be inclusive as much as I can.

“#&#&(*((#(#(#(!!!!!!OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!”

Yeah, some people get mad. I can’t help that. But what good does it do to get enraged because you disagree with an opinion? Get mad at news reports that shine a light on bad things. But don’t go into a blind rage because someone lives differently than you. Your way isn’t the only way.

That’s not the way to do it- what you should do it ::insert terrible idea here::”

I one posted about covering beard shadow. And actually had someone chiding anyone who doesn’t do permanent hair removal. As though that’s possible for everyone by situation or cost. Then they went on to suggest that everyone pluck out every hair on their face with tweezers. Yeah, please don’t suggest self-mutilation to readers. That’s OCD type behavior. Again, don’t slam people for doing things differently than you. You don’t know their situation or circumstances.

“Ads? Money grubbing sellout!”

Yes. We have ads. We have kept them minimal in order to not interfere with the experience of reading the page and not breaking the layout. The site is small, and the money made by the site is also very small. I started this page because I had trouble finding information that was good, up to date, concise, and wasn’t turned into a fetishized fantasy version of being trans. Also I wanted it to be something that catered to trans people. Not crossdressers, drag queens, sissies, etc. And I didn’t want it to turn into a pick up site. I wanted to perform a service. However, running a site costs money. And
it takes A LOT of my time. I spend hours a day on the site writing articles, doing security checks, moderating comments, and running social media. So, being able to make a few bucks for my time is nice. And, I’d like to be able to make enough to start paying writers. I’m certainly not getting rich on this. But hey, turning into buzzfeed would be nice

Well, that’s it. That’s the biggest complaints I see and get. I know it probably won’t change anything. But I wanted to try and explain a few things, and get some stuff off of my chest. Try to keep in mind, even if I don’t do exactly as you think I should- I am trying to contribute to the community. Ask yourself what you have done to contribute.

And hey, don’t like what you see? We are always looking for writers.

Kenna Henderson: That’s Me? Yikes! – On Transgender Aging

April Marshall — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 20:50:17 +0000

The mirror is not my friend. Neither is the camera.

I have never liked the way I look, as male, as female or as anything in between. People say it’s what’s inside that makes a person beautiful. That’s nonsense, of course.

There’s no doubt that I’m too self-critical. More often than not, people don’t run away screaming, so I guess they see nothing so grotesque as to give them bad dreams. Dogs will often bark, but that’s what dogs do — so it’s hard to tell.

A large number of transgender people — especially male-to-female types, it appears — like taking pictures of themselves. And they are happy to post them in as many places online as possible for others to see and hopefully admire. There are some very impressive fashion layouts, sorted by style, color, season and even “sexiness.” Even disregarding for the moment my advanced age, I simply could not do that under any circumstances. I wasn’t raised female, so I don’t instinctively know the right way to stand, sit, lie down or… well, anything. What I might think looks “sexy” would likely be a position that no natal woman in recorded history ever assumed.

Many of us older transgender individuals had to hide for much of our lives. So when we take our first steps out of the closet we tend to reinforce each other. Our hearts are in the right place, because we know what the other person is going through. We don’t use the compliment “beautiful” in the strict sense of the word. It refers more to the degree to which the recipient has made an effort to reach the goal. In our little world, everyone gets a ribbon.

A year or so ago, I was asked to do an interview. As part of the promotion process, they wanted me to send a biography and six photos.

The bio was no problem. I’m the resident expert on myself, and I can certainly pad a resume when called upon to do so.

But pictures? I had a few odd snapshots (and I use the word “odd” advisedly). They were a few years old, but I’m certainly not improving with age. It was going to be radio, so what would they know anyway? I could easily have sent publicity stills of Catherine Zeta-Jones (and briefly considered doing so).

I set about trying to take some new shots of myself, with almost no success. One out of 25 would appear to be okay until I looked more closely and saw something I didn’t like — typically my face. But I somehow got a couple that weren’t too bad.

As I was running out of time, I made a concerted effort to suppress my gag reflex and pulled two more from the archives. But that was as far as I was willing to go. Being an author, I seized the right to include my book cover as part of the package. And that gave me five, which was more than enough in my estimation.

The spackle and duct tape I must employ to make my face street-worthy helps a little (“helps” in this case meaning “hides”). But I’d hate to meet myself in a dark alley.

“It can’t be that bad,” you must be thinking. “Sure it can,” I respond.

Mirrors and cameras never lie, even when perhaps they should.

—

This post is part of HuffPost’s Journey Beyond the Binary blog series, an editorial effort to bring diverse trans and gender non-conforming voices to the HuffPost Blog during and after Pride month. As the LGBTQIA community celebrates great strides forward this June, it’s important to acknowledge the struggles still pertinent to trans and gender variant members of the community. Please email any pitches to beyondbinary@huffingtonpost.com

Source link

Open Letter To Stacey Dash

Daliah Husu — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 21:14:22 +0000

In Response to Stacey Dash’s Recent ET Exclusive Interview on Transgender People

June 6, 2016

Dear Miss Dash,

When I was young, I remember watching the movie CLUELESS and seeing you on the big screen for the first time. I was mesmerized by your beauty and I thought, I wish I could be like that girl some day! I watched that movie over and over, and I always thought you were one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. More recently, I watched your ET Exclusive Interview and my childhood view of Stacey Dash changed…and not for the better.

In your interview, you pointed out that people think you are still Dionne, the fashionable and eloquent young black diva you portrayed in CLUELESS. In a better world you would be her, but unfortunately for us, you are not. Thanks to Wikipedia and to your ET Exclusive Interview, we know you were born in the Bronx and that you are black and Mexican—things you should be proud of—and far from being the Beverly Hills fashion queen we gawked at on the big screen. Yet, it appears to me that you have lost your sense of pride and identity in being a double minority. Please let me remind you.

As a half black and half white Dominican trans woman, I am offended and appalled by your ignorant remarks and your attacks on transgender people (the minority you speak of in your ET Exclusive Interview) and the many supporters of the equal rights and anti-bullying movements, such as Lady Gaga and Caitlyn Jenner. As a black and Mexican woman, you should know what it is like to be a minority in this country, or did you forget that approximately 160 years ago blacks were still slaves in this nation? The Black community and anyone of color should be grateful that there were men and women fighting for our freedom and our equality. They fought for people like you and me, Stacey Dash.

You mentioned “tyranny by the minority” when you referred to Caitlyn Jenner identifying as a woman and wanting to use the women’s restroom. But what you were really saying is that you don’t want transgender women in the same bathroom as you and your children. Well, (huff…here we go again!) 160 years back, when slavery was close to being abolished, the white masters might have said the same words you quoted in your ET Exclusive Interview:

“Why do I have to suffer, because you can’t decide what you want to be that day?”

Let me break it down for you, my dear Stacey…Transgender people DO NOT choose to be transgender in a day. We suffer through lifetimes living as the sex we never identified as (our born sex). The “choice” comes if and when we choose to be happy…or not. But I still don’t think you get it. I’ll try again. We choose to go through a physical transition in order to unify our bodies with our minds and be who we feel we are on the inside. The choice I made as a male-to-female transgender person was to become the woman I’ve always felt I was, but I never chose to feel this way. That’s as simple as I can put it. It’s now your CHOICE to understand it or not.

Let’s talk about your politics. You play the victim when you say that Hollywood dropped you because of your political views. As the “Hollywood outcast” you claim to be, you should then understand how it feels to be on the sidelines. But it appears to me that you are delivering to the transgender community the same deadly dose of hatred that Hollywood has given you. Allow me to quote you after Nischelle Turner from ET explained to you that being transgender is not a choice, but rather who we are. You stated:

“OK, then go in the bushes. I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m not gonna put my child’s life at risk because you want to change a law so that you can be comfortable with your beliefs—which means I have to change my beliefs and my rights? No!”

Your ignorance on the issue makes me feel pity for you…and anger. You sound like every other bigot and hatemonger out there that is looking to point a finger at the current scapegoat. Newsflash, Stacey! We are not interested in your child! We want equality in the eyes of the law, and we demand protection under the same law. If you’re concerned about child molesters coming into the women’s restroom, why haven’t you made a big stink about it years ago? Why now?

I’ll tell you why…

I believe that you are GUILTY of the same charges you accuse Lady Gaga of when you called her Anti-Bullying Campaign a farce. You are dramatizing the current events as a way to draw attention to your new, controversial book. Hurray! You learned to use one of Hollywood’s most despicable ploys to your advantage. Wait, didn’t you say that Hollywood had a liberal agenda? Clearly, you have an agenda of your own? So who is the real hypocrite now?

Oh, I almost forgot…

”What’s next for Stacey Dash?” asked Nischelle Turner.

“Umm…the White House,” Stacey responded.

“Come on, Stacey! The only house you’ll be visiting is White House|Black Market—the same place you bought that nasty little top you wore on your ET Exclusive Interview.”

Sincerely,

Daliah Husu
Author of “I Am Woman: Surviving the Past, the Present, & the Future”

daliahhusu.com
contact@daliahhusu.com

Is It Really The Transgender Tipping Point In America?

Daliah Husu — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 15:37:09 +0000

Or Are Trans People The New Scapegoats In This Equal Rights Movement?

Are times really changing for the LGBT community? More specifically, is it really the tipping point for transgender folks? It appears that there is an increase in media attention covering transgender issues across America. But why? And what is causing this sudden interest with a community that has been living in the dark and has been oppressed for so long? As a trans woman and activist, I have formed my own opinions based on the current state of affairs that we are currently facing.

If we look back just forty-three years, we find that the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and declared that homosexuality was not a mental illness. Not so long ago, were the gays and lesbians fighting to be seen as equals in the eyes of American law, but they were fighting to be seen as sane and mentally capable individuals. What is astounding is that within that movement, the transgender community was never mentioned, nor was gender dysphoria addressed. As a result, the stigma and fear that once accompanied homosexuality during those times of ignorance is the same stigma and fear that is currently placed on gender identity and transgender individuals.

To begin understanding gender identity it is important to acknowledge that it is not a choice, just like sexual orientation, but rather a state of consciousness that a fraction of the population experiences. The choice in this matter is choosing to live authentically, as the person we know we are within. Until the general public and the religious opposition begin to understand this fundamental truth—which most likely won’t be tomorrow—general views and acceptance of trans people will not shift or come about at the rate we would like it to. The transgender community, therefore, must continue taking actions to bring forth change at a local and national level to guarantee its very own protection. As the new “equal rights movement” in America, the trans community needs to look back at history and understand it, so that we may get a glimpse of our future. Just as the Jews were once oppressed by the Nazis, and the African Americans were once slaves and second-class citizens, we must fight our battle head-on and win. It is inevitable.

We may not change every mind or religious belief out there, but history tells us that we will gain equal rights in the eyes of the law, that we will gain complete protection from discriminating employers, and that law enforcement and elected officials will uphold and obey the law of the land and protect every citizen of this nation. The “Transgender Tipping Point,” as Times Magazine called it in its June 9th, 2014 issue featuring transgender actress Laverne Cox on the cover, is in fact approaching if not here already, and the signs are evident.

Just last month, Sheriff Chuck Wright, from the South Carolina’s Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Department, spoke at a Republican’s women’s meeting and threatened to ‘whip’ any trans woman found in the women’s restroom. Not long after, Tracy Murphee, a Denton County, Texas cop, also threatened to beat transgender women that may be using the same restroom as his little girl. Various states have recently passed and are trying to pass more anti-LGBT legislation that blatantly discriminates against transgender people. It’s obvious that fear and ignorance are deeply rooted in our society and our government and that it is directed at trans men and women, whom many see as sexual predators and as mentally ill. What the masses are failing to admit is that the trans community is in fact the new focus for social injustices and that this community is being used as the new scapegoat for those who propagate their hateful religious agendas and bigotry. At this point in time, it is more socially acceptable to be gay, but it remains a disgrace and an abomination to be transgender. So how is all of this seemingly bad news a sign that things are changing for the better?

As with any equal rights movement, the opposition appears to get stronger as the movement makes great strides forward. The fearful and the ignorant will speak up against us, threaten our cause and even our lives. But they are inadvertently helping us gain more ground by showing the leaders at the top that it is time for change. Life has drastically changed in the past thirty to forty years for the queer community, and every injustice that a trans man or woman suffers at the hands of the oppressors—and often violent perpetrators—becomes one more notch on the scoreboard in favor of our cause. This in no way makes it admissible for any of us to become victims of violence or injustice. Simply put, we should not have to suffer or die in order to have equal rights. But this is the current reality we are facing as a community and as part of this largely divided and misguided society.

So where does this leave us now, and what must we do to move forward? For one, we must push harder than ever before. We must live in the face of opposition and not give into fear. Our stories need to be told and heard, and more of us need to flood the media outlets and share our journeys. Visibility in large numbers is the key to persuading our local and national leaders that we will not stand for it any longer. If we are to be known as “The United States of America,” tremendous changes will have to take place and local and state authorities will have to yield in front of our federal laws. This country has the potential to be great, and undoubtedly it is on its way there. But it is ultimately our responsibility to bring about those changes and a new day when our nation can proudly say, “United we stand!

Daliah Husu is the author of “I Am Woman: Surviving the Past, the Present, & the Future,” and she can be found on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and her personal website.

[amazonjs asin=”B01F9FW99K” locale=”US” title=”I Am Woman: Surviving the Past, the Present, & the Future by Daliah Husu (2016-03-23)”]