What if we were something other than trans?
Treat us as you would anyone else — respectfully
Depending upon what you read, at this time in America, there are approximately 2 million out transgender people. As an out transgender myself and a lawyer, I have been privileged for over 30 years to take some transgender people through the Texas courts for legal change of name, legal correction of gender marker on identification documents (driver’s licenses mostly) and legal amendment of sex on their birth certificates. These former clients have ranged from as young as 5 years old all the way up to and through their 80s.
So far as I know, these former clients have striven to go forth to productive and happy lives. Striven is the operative verb because more often they have had to strive to survive.
They frequently deal with an array of obstacles — loss of career, underemployment or unemployment; eviction from family home or from their rental unit; denial of access to homeless shelters; divorce and loss of visitation with children; ostracism by other family members; loss of fellowship in their previous places of worship; denial of health services and insurance; involuntary discharge from or refusal to be admitted into military service; bullying and violence sometimes resulting in great injury or death.
Yes, death. Each November in cities around the world, transgenders and allies gather for the “Transgender Day of Remembrance” to honor those murdered for expressing their true gender identity through a gender expression that is socially opposite to the binary assigned to them at birth.
Why then would anyone choose to go through the difficulties involved in transition from one binary gender expression to the other? There is no thrill in volunteering to place oneself in front of such a potential social steamroller.
My when-to-transition came in 1972 at the age of 24. During the subsequent 46 years, I lost my military
career, my first wife and son, my engineering career, almost all of my blood family, several churches, and I would have been homeless had not my second wife stayed with me. Our house was vandalized many times over several years. Each day in the 1970s, I was subject to arrest because of a city of Houston anti-crossdressing ordinance (which was repealed in 1980).
Over the decades, much has changed in the law to protect trans people. At the end of 2016, transgender legal protections were comprehensive. Proudly I have been a player in effecting many of those legal protections.
Now, however, things are changing. In October, the New York Times published a leaked memo from the Trump administration stating that it will begin rolling back all transgender legal protections gained thus far. The stated objective is to legally deny that transgenders even exist, by generating federal agency rules, federal laws and federal court decisions that require us to remain identified by our genitals at birth or by our chromosomes.
The Trump administration memo ignores the long-held medical science that chronicles the many combinations of chromosomes other than XX or
“Being transgender is medical. Gender identity is in the brain. It is immutable.”
XY. It ignores the long-held medical science that chronicles infants who are born with duel, ambiguous or malformed genitals.
And the Trump administration memo ignores the long-held medical science that chronicles differences in the brain for people who possess a gender identity opposite to what is usually associated with genitals at birth or with XX or XY chromosomes; i.e. trans people.
Being transgender is medical. Gender identity is in the brain. It is immutable.
What if I and my 2 millionother out trans-Americans were instead treated as some other medical minority? What if we were just another less-than-1 percent of Americans, say, those with a rare heart anomaly, or a rare blood or nervous disorder, or some other unusual or nonmainstream medically validated situation?
Would we be so put upon?
Or would our families and places of worship and employers and others try instead to assist us, all the while accepting the medical science that validates our true gender identity and our subsequent gender expression transition?
It is time to stop making us specters of fear. It is time to push back against politicians who want to exploit our pain to further their own acquisition of power.
All that I and my 2 two million other out transAmericans want to do is live our lives in peace and acceptance, just like everyone else. Apparently that is too much to ask from the Trump administration.