Fighting Erasure in a Social Climate Determined to Say “You Don’t Exist”
By Elysian Alder | Assistant Editor
I am none of these things: a monster, a predator, a plague, a groomer, a pedophile, a villain, a snowflake, an attention-seeker, a liar, a danger to children, an eyesore. I am none of the other dehumanizing and stigmatizing labels that staunch conservatives are insistent on placing on me and my community. I am a lot of other things, though: a writer, a Pisces, a friend, a sibling, a nature-lover, a QA specialist, a student— and, according to TikTok, a “geriatric Gen-Zer.” This year, it’s difficult to reflect on all of the other things that I am because one part of my identity has been on trial since the beginning of 2023. I am queer, I am transgender, and I am spending this Transgender Day of Visibility with mixed emotions about everything that my community has had to endure just to be able to exist.
To provide some context: International Transgender Day of Visibility (sometimes referred to as TDOV) was founded by transgender activist and licensed psychotherapist Rachel Crandall-Crocker (she/her). A transgender woman herself, Crandall-Crocker created the event on March 31, 2009 to celebrate trans existence and bring the community closer. Since its inception, TDOV has become a way for the trans community and our allies to raise awareness for the challenges, discrimination, and inequities faced by transgender people while continuing to recognize and celebrate our successes and contributions. Prior to the inception of TDOV, the only annual event centralized around the transgender community was Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), observed on November 20th since its establishment in 1999. TDOR was founded to honor and memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia and to draw necessary attention to the rampant and endless violence directed towards trans people as a result of anti-trans bigotry. TDOR and TDOV both speak to the same sentiments as far as the transgender community goes: we exist, we are proud, and we will not be silenced.
Trans people have always existed. While the terminology has evolved since the founding of Rome in 625 BC, recent excavations of burial sites that date back to the Roman era have unearthed potential evidence of gender non-conforming (or potentially trans) individuals. Archaic chronicles, depictions and texts that have been similarly discovered provide the same evidence. There are even theories that suggest that the French saint, Joan of Arc, was transgender. Leslie Feinberg (she/zie, her/hir), revolutionary transgender author and activist, covers that and more transgender history far better than I ever could in hir book, Transgender Warriors. Hundreds of diverse cultures around the world have their own belief in genders beyond the binary, and some of them even revere these individuals as sacred.
None of the transgender people that I know want to be revered. I know I don’t. For the most part, we just want to be left alone. We want our rights, we want our respect, and we want to be acknowledged as human beings just like anyone else. This day of celebration should not be swallowed up by the harrowing number of bills and legislation that have been passed around the House of Representatives and statehouses throughout the United States that attack our community.
Many LGBTQ+ and trans individuals and advocacy groups have been tracking this nightmarish legal and political hellscape. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in particular has found that a staggering “340 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in statehouses across the country,” with 150 of those specifically restricting and targeting the rights of transgender people— the most of their kind ever seen in a single year. Some sources have reported a number as high as 492 total anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed in this legislative session alone. And if the quantity wasn’t bad enough, the content of these bills is grim, too. Over 90 are aimed at banning transgender youths under the age of 18 from accessing any gender-affirming care; others endeavor to classify parental approval of gender-affirming care as “child abuse.” Some attempt to ban books from schools if they mention or discuss gender fluidity or identity; others allow teachers to misgender a student even if the student expresses a pronoun preference. While Massachusetts is considered one of the most protective states for transgender individuals, it’s vital to be cognizant of the threats the transgender community faces nationwide. Advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the HRC, and GLAAD estimate that of the bills proposed in 47 states, around 36 of them have already passed in states like Arkansas, Idaho, and Utah. Even New Hampshire, our neighboring state, has had similar bills introduced and engrossed, bringing these threats uncomfortably close to home.
When I stumble upon facts like these, all I can think about is the 2021 poll that was done by the Trevor Project that found that “85% of trans and non-binary youth say that seeing debates around anti-trans bills has negatively impacted their mental health.” All I can think about is how these constant, public attacks to the identities of already confused and struggling youths must feel. Just imagining the blows this must be dealing to the affected youth today is wildly upsetting.
I didn’t start my transition until I was 24 years old. My experience is nothing like that of younger generations discovering their trans identities in the current social climate. The closest experience I have that can compare to the weight of today’s environment is being one of the only sort-of-openly queer people in my high school at a time when same-sex legislation was still in-progress. I remember holding my breath whenever a topic tip-toed near LGBTQ+ issues because it meant I’d only have a split-second to discern whether it was okay to be who I was in whatever space I was in. I remember being torn between keeping the television on during gay rights debates to stay informed, or turning it off to preserve my mental well-being. I remember feeling like people would have accepted me more if I just stifled “that” part of my identity. I remember the alienation.
I remember hearing it said that if “those people prayed the gay away,” we would “finally be free” of the gay agenda, just like I remember my father asking one of my only gay friends if he’d “looked into the therapy that’s out there for problems like his.” My father had only heard of conversion therapy from a few brief news clips he’d happened to spend a cursory moment on. He didn’t actually know what it meant, he was just touting what he’d heard without actually dissecting it. But that’s a perfect example of what makes the things that conservatives are saying about transgender people so dangerous— people like Michael Knowles, conservative commentator at The Daily Wire, using casually genocidal, call-to-action language like, “eradicating transgenderism from public life” at conservative political conventions and then garnering media attention thereafter poses the same threat of exposing otherwise unaware individuals to malicious rhetoric by encouraging bigotry and potentially inciting further violence to the transgender community.
Language like that demonizes us, just like the language used in at least 26 of the other bills proposed does. Bills that aim to censor LGBTQ+ expression coupled with “eradicating transgenderism” for the greater good imply that our communities and everything that comes from them are not fit for society. They suggest that we are the threat and not the threatened, despite all evidence of the contrary. Transgender Day of Visibility should be a celebration of the love and acceptance shown both by people within the community and allies outside of it. It’s bittersweet that the biggest thing that I can think of to celebrate this year is the tremendous bravery and strength shown by transgender individuals who have shown up on the stand in courtrooms, participated in die-ins in the state houses of the legislative sessions, and who have worked tirelessly to prove that we are not monsters, predators, plagues, groomers, pedophiles, villains, snowflakes, attention-seekers, liars, dangers to children, eyesores, or any of the other labels that baseless bigots have decided to place on us. We are transgender— but most importantly, we are human.
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