The Power of Defiance in the Age of Trans Bans

We can’t keep begging our political system for the ‘right’ to exist

Photo by Kadir Celep on Unsplash

Bans on healthcare for trans youth are passing throughout the country. So are bans on trans participation in youth sports, and the acknowledgment of queer people’s existence in classrooms. Until now, I haven’t had the will to write about any of it. Hell, for weeks I could barely bring myself to read very much about these statutes.

In a social-media-driven, advertiser-funded political world where bearing witness is treated as a moral obligation, failing to post (or consume enough posts) about pressing issues can feel like an abdication of duty. Shouldn’t I be making myself more and more worried, despite how psychologically overwhelming that might be? It sometimes feels like my own terror has made me “useless” in the fight to protect trans children.

Tweet by user NoraReed: “people always do this thing where they’re like ‘YOU DON’T GET TO LOG OFF. YOU DON”T GET TO LOOK AWAY FROM THIS’ like you can purge the sin of privilege by wearing the hair shirt of witness even if that puts you in a position where you’re too tired to do anything real.”

If it were a few years ago, I would be rattling the conventional political alarm bells: calling my state representatives, calling on behalf of concerned voters who can’t use the phone, signing petitions, disseminating information, penning passionate essays, and begging desperately for others to do the same. That used to be how I coped with threats to queer people’s existence. In the early days of the Trump administration, I told myself I was a tenacious cockroach that refused to be obliterated, no matter how many attacks were mounted against me from all sides. I wanted so badly to believe I was making a difference.

For an entire year after Trump was elected, I broadcasted myself calling lawmakers on Facebook Live, for an hour, every single day. There were always new horrors to call about: cuts to Affordable Care Act healthcare coverage for trans people, the removal of anti-discrimination protections for queer youth, deportations of Black and brown immigrants, attacks on reproductive healthcare, and much more. I attended organizing meetings. I spoke out. I hit the pavement and knocked on doors. I tried to persuade people to get more involved.