I didn’t live through the bisexual wars of the 1990s to roll over for this anti-trans bullshit now. Anyone who was alive in the 20th century has seen this all before: the scapegoating, the concern-mongering, the push to take away people’s rights “for the children.” LGBTQ+ people have been medicalized, psychologized, denied civil rights, denied basic human rights, and been attacked physically and socially for decades. We are not going back and we are not going to let them do this again to the first generation of kids who have been made safe enough to come out as LGBTQ+ before adulthood.
Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of “where are the queer elders” and too often the answer is: they’re dead. The AIDS epidemic killed tens of thousands of queer people, mostly but not only gay men. Hundreds of trans women are murdered each year, and that’s just those we know of. LGBTQ+ people are still beaten, harassed into the closet, kicked out of their homes. Bullied online to the point of suicide. They will kill us and kill us and kill us. Well, enough is fucking enough.
When I was in my 20s and 30s, I marched with Queer Nation, organized with ACT UP, and taught queer history and theory in my college courses. Over the last decade, as a parent, I’ve pushed our school to expand LGBTQ+ programming and resources and increase the visibility of LGBTQ+ families. I thought we were through it, that we had achieved some level of equity in terms of rights to marriage, housing, parenthood. There are workplace protections and nondiscrimination laws and health equity provisions. Ensuring all those rights for trans people specifically and trans kids especially seemed like the next doorway we were stepping through. Then, in the past few years, all that 20th century bullshit has come rushing back, aimed at trans people and trans kids specifically.
If you’re LGBTQ+ and over 40, congratulations, you are a queer elder. Your job, and all of ours, is to simply refuse to put up with it. To say as loud as we can that enough is fucking enough. To make it absolutely clear that people coming for trans people, and trans kids especially, will have to go through you. Not in a metaphorical way, but in a true, concrete, bodies in the streets kind of way. Through us, who are standing up for kids at school and library meetings. Through us, who are blocking hateful protestors at bookstores and theaters. Through us, who are refusing to allow neighbors, coworkers, and medical professionals to talk shit about our kids. Our personal actual kids, and also OUR KIDS, the kids that we, the LGBTQ+ elders who didn’t fucking die and are still here, have a deep responsibility to protect and defend. To be the people we needed when we were young, the adults too many of us didn’t have to rely on. To make space where kids can be whoever they are. Fully, beautifully, safely.
In the month since the election, there has been an upsurge of nonsense suggesting that taking away trans people’s rights would be good way to win future elections. That’s a load of crap. People’s rights aren’t an electoral plank, for one. It’s not up to politicians to decide whether trans people have all the same rights as cis people. They do. It’s only up to politicians to decide if they will be on the side of fascists who enjoy denying people’s human rights and bodily autonomy. It’s up to us to tell them that trans rights are non-negotiable and not up for debate. That rolling over on trans rights is a losing electoral issue, now and forever. That we will not vote for them and we will remind them that this is why.
Join us in telling your Members of Congress that LGBTQ+ people are NEVER going back. Find your members, and let them know that you are an LGBTQ+ person (or not), that far too many Democrats have proposed retreating from trans rights since the election, and that’s simply unacceptable. Julia Serano, who conceived this action, has more language and ways to contact your state representatives on her blog. You don’t have to be suave or practiced, just convinced that throwing our trans family under the bus is absolutely not the way.
The best thing you can do for trans kids is to speak up for them. Be visible in letting them know that you support them. Being a trans teen is scary right now, with daily articles in the paper questioning your existence and advocating for the denial of your rights. Every shirt, hat, flag, sticker, pin, and word of encouragement makes a difference. These creeps want us to believe we’re alone, to be scared to be visible, to voluntarily retreat from fighting for our rights. We need to do the opposite.
If you want to directly financially support trans kids, a few groups doing good work are: SMYAL, Trans Youth Emergency Project, and GenOUT Youth Chorus. If you are looking for support for yourself or your family, PFLAG and The Trevor Project are good places to start.