I am transgender and I exist.
I was at a gathering of trans folks last night and one of the multiple stories of harm that I heard was about an employee of the federal government that lost their gender affirming care after many years of care and assurance that it would not disappear. If you call the Veterans Administration and ask for the Pride Clinic you are told that it no longer exists.
The current president is under the impression he is the Scientist and Doctor In Chief.
Many, maybe even most, Americans were taught as children that gender is a binary and a person is either born male or female. Like me, they were taught that sex and gender mean the same thing. Doctors, scientists and many others have expanded their knowledge and appropriately improved their vocabulary to describe what has been learned. Many Americans refuse to learn.
Refusing to learn does not make a person correct. Being stuck in a prior century’s knowledge and trying to force policies to stay there is mean or, said another way, “a dick move.”
stay there is mean or, said another way, “a dick move.”
WTF
There are statements that should not need to be made, statements that make our brains wonder, “What the hell is happening right now?”
The statement, “Black lives matter” comes to mind, although America has yet to know a time when that didn’t need to be said.
The statement I’m hearing from trans people is “I exist” and it stuns me. Why would that ever need to be said? What has happened in the world that any one person has to say aloud “I exist?” How could their existence be in question, be doubted? The depth of sadness that it invokes in me is debilitating, it freezes me in my tracks every time.
Then I cycle to mad and protective. Who! Tell me again who this person is so I can go set this right. They will never recreate this harm again after we share time face to face! No thoughtful, intelligent, mature person could possibly sustain such destructive thinking or messaging once they are engaged with the loving, compassionate gospel of every major religion and culture.
Respect
A maxim that I would expect every hypermasculine, patriarchal person to adhere to would be that of respecting each person’s autonomy. Most jerks are at least able to selfishly comprehend that they get their own level of freedom to be their I-don’t-have-to-give-a-fuck-about-anyone-else because everyone gets to be themselves too, necessarily. In this country, theoretically, not even the president is above the law, not even the president of the nation is above the law’s of the nation. Every single citizen is protected from being made to suffer at the whims of the the person with whom we temporarily allocate very specific governing authorities. There is no king. At least there didn’t use to be, until the current Supreme Court and this president. But, hey, made America will make different choices in the future.
In The Meantime
I am transgender and I exist.
