Let’s talk about Being Transgender – Part 3

 

Here we are again. Previously, I talked about some of the things transgender people experience on our journey. I also talked a little bit about some of the gender affirming care options transgender people have to help in their transitions. Now I want to talk about the struggle. I don’t necessarily mean the struggle within us but the struggle we face to simply live our own lives. Just a warning, I get really passionate about this part.

Over the past 4 years, the word transgender has come up a lot in politics. The community became a target for the right-wing extremists within the Republican party. These individuals have steadily increased their rhetoric and submitted hundreds of articles of legislation that targeted transgender individuals under the guise of protecting women and children.

Transgender people make up less than 1% of the population of the United States. This means we are a very small group. However, during the recent elections, transgender people were the second most talked about subject by Republican candidates. These candidates spent $215 million on anti-transgender advertising. For the past few years, transgender individuals have seen an increase in the rhetoric used against them.

Many members of the United States Congress, who happen to be Republican and massive Trump sycophants, continually stood on the steps of the Capitol building and proclaimed how trans people prey on children. They furthered this claim by adding in that we were also out to assault women. All the while story after story came out in all forms of media about heterosexual white men in positions of authority, and identify as both Christian and Republican, were arrest for sexual assault and child molestation. Yet for some reason, that rhetoric spread like fire.

Transgender individuals face attacks everyday simply because of our identity. There are the zealots who claim we are an abomination and go against God’s will. The funny thing is the same religious scripture that they weaponize against us doesn’t even mention transgender people in any way. In fact, it only mentions homosexuality in a total of 6 small passages. None of which mention hating people. Yet, we are called deviants and sickos.

In my own personal experience, I have been called a pedophile, a predator, a mediocre man, a dude in a dress, a heathen, a sexual deviant, mentally ill, delusional, a “fucking clown”, a liar, a denier, and have even been told to go kill myself to make the world a better and safer place. I wish I could tell you as I write this that my experience is unique. I can’t because it’s not. This is the reality every transgender person faces every day.

Countless people believe we are out to take things away from women and indoctrinate children. We are constantly dehumanized by right wing personalities who use terms like transgenderism or gender ideology. We are constantly demonized by people for crimes none of us have ever committed. The transgender community has a day we have memorials for those who were lost to anti trans violence. We call it the Trans Day of Remembrance. We honor those who couldn’t take the abuse and torture and decided that ending their lives by their own hand was a better solution than to live with the hate.

But suicide isn’t the only way we lost members of the community. Transgender people are more likely to be victims of violent crime, like murder, just because of their gender identity. There are several cases that involved transwomen being shot to death by someone, usually a man, and the defense is that the shooter panicked because they found out the victim was transgender. How in the fuck does that make sense? Someone is transgender and that scared you, so you think its okay to just shoot them? Sadly, people have had cases dismissed because of this defense.

Now that I have calmed down, let’s continue. It doesn’t just end with the attacks. It doesn’t just stop with the rhetoric. It doesn’t just end with Republicans. It goes beyond the red party. As I pointed out earlier, the GOP dumped millions into ads painting us as monsters and rapists. Over and over, we heard candidate after candidate mention how they would bad “radical transgender ideology”. We heard the worst things imaginable from this exact voter base. We heard stories from candidates about wanting to jail us, or put us in camps, or force us to detransition.

We heard over and over about all the things they were going to take away from us. So many of us turned to the progressives and the Democrats to be our champions. There we didn’t find what we hoped for. We didn’t find the allies we desperately needed. We found silence. Candidate after candidate dodged questions about transgender rights like a professional dodgeball player on ESPN 8. Not one spoke up for us. Even the one transgender individual who ran for US Congress and actually won didn’t mention her own community.

Now I get it, we are less than 1%. Why bother pandering to us just to lose other voters. The problem is you wouldn’t have. I talked to Democrat voters, and many are appalled by how the party seemingly abandoned us. Then Republicans won and the transgender community became scared. Attacks increased by embolden MAGA sycophants who bragged about the fact their side won. Many repeated the same terrifying statements about rounding up transgender people and forcing us to detransition so we “live in reality and live right”. It seemed like things couldn’t be worse. I mean 51% of Americans voted for a candidate who campaigned on our suffering.

Then it did. The transgender community came under attack from the side we looked to for help, Democrats. Our community was blamed for losing an election for the blue side. Prominent members and voters both shared this view. Add to the fire, the community itself has seen a self-serving division. Some choose to join in the hate on other exactly like then in the hopes that they might be spared from anything bad. While others, including myself, continue to rebel against the dying of the light, so to speak.

In the end, being transgender means different things to different people. To me, it means being who I truly am. To be my most authentic self. But it also means being a target for the unintelligent and bigoted. It means enduring hatred and violence while trying not to give in to rage. It means standing on our own because it seems no one else will stand for us. It means honoring the dead we could have saved and never should have lost. It means advocating for those who can’t speak up for themselves and showing those like us that they don’t need to be afraid.

I never set out to be a shield or an activist. But damn it, I am one because it’s what it is right, and it is bigger than just me.

-Robin Alura