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July 31 - August 1, 2023
Equality is not a matter of “identity politics,” it is a human right, and an economic necessity for many of the most vulnerable in this nation, people whose lives, dignity, and security are on the line.
One in four transgender people in the report had been fired from their job because they were transgender. One in five had been homeless. And 41 percent had attempted suicide at some point in their lives. Nearly half had tried to end their lives, in many cases because the world was too hateful to bear.
Gender identities beyond the binary of men and women have existed and, in many cases, have been rightly celebrated throughout cultures.
“The best way I can describe it for myself,” I told them, “is a constant feeling of homesickness. An unwavering ache in the pit of my stomach that only goes away when I can be seen and affirmed in the gender I’ve always felt myself to be. And unlike homesickness with location, which eventually diminishes as you get used to the new home, this homesickness only grows with time and separation.”
The only reference point my parents had for transgender people were punch lines in comedies or dead bodies in dramas. They had no references for success, something that had provided them significant comfort
Most people are good, no doubt, but when we are faced with issues we haven’t yet thought about or interacted with, we often look to one another for how we should respond. Our behavior models for others the acceptable reaction; acceptance creates an expectation, while rejection provides an excuse.
Somehow society manages to treat women like both a delicate infant and a sexualized idol in the same moment.
There are few things more dangerous to a transgender woman than the risk of a straight man not totally comfortable in his sexuality or masculinity realizing he is attracted to her.
Transphobia tells these straight, cisgender men that being attracted to a transgender woman makes them gay (it does not). Society’s homophobia tells them that being gay is bad (it is not).
While trans people are twice as likely to live in poverty than the general population, trans people of color are three times as likely to live in poverty.
Having certain privileges does not mean that your life is easy or that you do not face challenges. It just means that you don’t experience specific kinds of obstacles or barriers faced by someone with a different identity or background. And our empathy should require us to acknowledge the plight of others in both its similarities to ours and in its differences.
When governments seek to oppress, they often replace names with impersonal numbers. When an individual seeks to bully or commit violence, they replace names with dehumanizing slurs or insults.
It’s impossible for our rights to remain abstract when a person is, quite literally, sitting across from you.
Principles are worth something only if you stick by them even when they feel inconvenient.
During the last century, our local, state, and federal governments have, often too slowly, sought to remove barriers and expand opportunity for communities once excluded.
A government cannot be “of the people, by the people, and for the people” if wide swaths of the people have no seat at the table, if large parts of the country feel like there is literally no one in their government who can understand what they are going through.
One survey found that among transgender people who had interacted with a police officer who thought or knew that they were transgender, 58 percent reported mistreatment. That might include officers unintentionally or intentionally disrespecting trans people’s identities by calling them by the wrong pronoun. It could include profiling of trans women as sex workers, a presumed offense many people call “walking while trans.”
A person’s safety or dignity should not depend on their state or zip code.
An illness should never mean the loss of an income, even temporarily, but in many cases it does.
That the most qualified candidate in modern history—a woman—had just lost to the most unqualified and unfit candidate in all of American history only added insult to injury.
Hillary’s loss perfectly encapsulated the nearly impossible double standard facing any marginalized person in politics or the workforce.
As a woman, she was required by our society and structures to work two, three, four times harder than any white man to get to the cusp of the presidency. To exert that degree of effort, to navigate a world designed against your success, requires a degree of commitment, intentionality, and determination that cannot ...
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The sexism in Hillary’s loss and the racism that laced Trump’s win were clear. But the biggest tragedy was the hate and discrimination that would be further thrust onto everyday people—Muslims, people with disabilities, immigrants, women, people of color, and LGBTQ people—throughout America.
In many ways, Donald Trump’s election further emboldened hateful elected officials at the state and local levels, just as many of us feared.
Throughout the LGBTQ movement, young voices have been the drivers of change.
When young people participate in politics, they can speak from a place of history. I don’t mean the history of the past, but rather the history that remains to be written. Young people will be the ones who write the history books of tomorrow.
