Welcome to #TransTuesday! ONCE AGAIN I am compelled to write about a topic I didn’t plan to, because the society we live in is forcing my hand. Transgender people are never not under attack these days, even when good things happen. Today we’re talking about: TRANS RIGHTS.
This is, perhaps not surprisingly, going to branch out of my previous post about TRANS POLITICS, which you can find here.
I also want to let you know there’s going to be a bunch of links in here, because I want you to have the info you need. If you’re not already familiar with them, please do read them!
The only rights trans people are asking for, of course, are the ones that are supposed to be guaranteed to us by simply existing as citizens of the United States. Equality. It’s not that hard a concept. We just want to go about our lives like everyone else.
But as the long history of prejudice in our country has shown us time and time again, bigots gonna bigot. And so we have to put laws in place saying your right to be a bigot ends when it infringes upon the rights of the person you level your hate at.
This resulted in the Equality Act passing the United States House of Representatives recently, which hopefully you’re aware of.
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/24/969591569/house-to-vote-on-equality-act-heres-what-the-law-would-do
The Equality Act, of course, is a good thing. Anyone who actually believes in equal rights will tell you that. You can’t be against it if you’re not a bigot (and if you’re against it and think you’re not a bigot, I have some sad news for you).
I’m not going to get into the details of the bill itself here, though the main objection being it will infringe upon “religious liberty” is such horseshit cover for the terrible things bigots want to do, and it’s certainly not the first time that’s been used as some kind of justification.
Yeah… no. If your religion tells you that you need to be bigoted towards anyone, and that they do not deserve equal rights, we do not, in fact, have to respect that or honor it. Nor should we? Seems like a no-brainer.
Anyway, what I want to talk about is some of the response to it… which you may have been aware of. If not, well, Georgia Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene wanted to spread a little hate around.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-equality-act-anti-trans-message-sign/#app
There are, of course, a million problems with Rep. Greene, but this is the one we’re talking about today. And if you want to see exactly what she did for yourself, here you go.
A sign outside of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgie’s office that reads “there are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE ‘Trust The Science!'”
I don’t even know where to start with this thing. First of all, gender is a social construct. There can be (and are) as many as we say there are. There’s no rulebook listing the exact number of genders humans can have with a hard limit we can’t go over or we’ll be smited.
The fact that “trust the science” is in quotes is just… even GRAMMATICALLY it’s awful. Who is she quoting? It’s so ludicrous I don’t even know how to talk about it, especially because the actual science… says there are not just two genders.
I suspect she’s conflating biological sex and gender though, because she doesn’t seem to know enough about the topic to understand there’s a difference. And of course, even there she’s 100% dead wrong… according to the actual science.
I have some very good resources on that for you in my post about TERFs.
There’s no reason you’d put up a sign like Rep. Greene did if your heart wasn’t full of hate. There’s no reason to deny us equal rights and protection under the law. It harms no one else, and we are (this may surprise you) legal citizens just like everyone else.
But honestly Rep. Greene’s not even the worst part, because what you have to realize that all of society, by virtue of it being established and run by cisgender white (mostly Christian) men, was set up by default to treat anyone outside that group as an “other”.
It takes so long to break a society of that programming. And if you don’t believe it’s true, think about the historic nature of the Equality Act and what it means for LGBTQIA+ people… and then read this thread.
https://twitter.com/AriDrennen/status/1365077750231437315?s=20
All of these news outlets found it worthwhile to talk to bigots about their feelings on what it meant for people who are NOT THEM to maybe sometime soon get equal rights, and none of them bothered to ask a single LGBTQIA+ person what it meant to them!
It’s fucking LUDICROUS, and it’s exhausting to be this hated by the society you live in (as every other minority group well knows). None of this, NONE OF THIS, is about cis straight people! It has NOTHING to do with you.
https://twitter.com/NicoleAMaines/status/1365152407764627456?s=20
And it’s not like all we have to worry about are federal laws, because many states are out there trying to bury us as quickly as possible.
Minnesota has a bill that will charge trans girls 13 and older with a misdemeanor if they play sports with girls, or are found in a girls’ bathroom/locker room. https://www.them.us/story/anti-trans-bill-would-penalize-trans-girls-playing-sports-using-locker-room
Alabama wants to make trans youth healthcare a FELONY.
https://www.aclualabama.org/en/legislation/hb1-sb10-2021-anti-trans-youth
Kansas also wants to make trans youth healthcare a FELONY.
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/u-s-world/kansas-bill-would-criminalize-services-for-transgender-children
If you don’t understand or remember how important and literally life-saving healthcare for TRANS KIDS can be, read up.
And I will also remind you the “but SPORTS!” argument is complete and utter bullshit.
And if you think that’s bad (and it is!), do you know about the “trans panic” defense? It’s legal (in a LOT of states) to someone to claim they panicked upon learning someone was transgender, and this is a legal defense for attacking us with violence.
https://lgbtbar.org/programs/advocacy/gay-trans-panic-defense/
Look at this map. In every gray state (aka HALF THE GODDAMNED COUNTRY) someone could murder me and use “I discovered she was trans” as part of their legal defense. Even orange states aren’t safe, they’ve only introduced legislation to ban it… which may not pass.
https://lgbtbar.org/programs/advocacy/gay-trans-panic-defense/gay-trans-panic-defense-legislation/
Can you imagine this, cis folks? Can you? Half the country being so hostile to you that if you step foot in that state someone might kill you because they hate you for being cisgender, and courts in that state would say “yeah that makes sense.” And trans people live in those states!
Every minority group (EVERY MINORITY GROUP) knows what it’s like to have their rights debated by a group of people who are NOT part of that minority, and to have to count on them to say yes, in fact, we are equal human beings.
White men had to give white women the right to vote. White men had to give black men the right to vote. And on and on. There’s not a single openly transgender elected official on the national level in there to represent our interests in these things. There are barely any openly LGBTQIA+ ones at ALL.
It’s still not always safe for them to be open and out, given their positions, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need (and deserve) to have them and their voices in the discussion. So what do we do? It boils down to this:
It’s on you, cisgender people. Especially you cisgender men. ESPECIALLY you cisgender white men. You cannot stay silent on this. We need you. Silence is complicity.
https://twitter.com/wordofgreen/status/1364827962357374979?s=20
If this sickens you, if it disgusts you, if it angers you (and if you have any sense of justice, it does), you have got to SPEAK UP. Don’t let your elected representatives spread hate and bigotry in your name.
Write them, call them, tell them unequivocally what they’re doing is wrong. That all citizens, no, actually… all HUMANS deserve equal fucking rights. It’s not a difficult concept! We should not have to say these things to adults.
This is why something so stupid as a tweet from a cookie can mean so much to so many people. IT’S STILL SO RARE FOR ANYONE TO SAY THIS PUBLICLY, much less a national company. And it’s the VERY BASE LEVEL.
But y’know, Yoda was right. Fear leads to anger leads to hate leads to suffering, and scared people can do awful, horrible things. Please don’t be complicit or silent. We need you.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com