Trans Rights and American Values

[pabloni21]

"Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" - Patrick Henry

"There's something deep inside of me/there's someone I forgot to be" - George Michael

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These are the times that try men's souls. They are also the times that try women's souls. And enbies' souls. And, well, you get the idea. As it stands, the queer community faces an ongoing war. This war, so far, has not been waged in the streets, but in courtrooms, legislatures, governor's mansions, and, of course, the grand Courts of Public Opinion.

We face challenges to our ability to access to life-saving medical treatment in the form of gender-affirming care, countless bans and limits on our ability to do things as simple as use the bathroom, and an utterly exhausting debate on our place in society. I've got many queer friends (pretty much all teenagers my age or younger), and while I don't mean to traumadump, the amount of suicidal ideation and general poor mental health caused by queerphobia is not only a tragedy but a damning indictment of society.

Frankly, I don't understand.

I could pull up plenty of evidence on how trans people are valid, gender-affirming care works, etc etc. But that's not my point. My point is how come a nation that prides itself on freedom has been so hostile to folks like me?

I am an American. Like pretty much all of you (other than our lovely non-Americans) it's been drilled into my head my entire waking life - that this nation was founded on the promise of freedom, of a new land where "We the People" are masters of our own fate.

And yet, somehow, there are people who claim that the queer community is somehow a danger to society, or we're deviants, blah blah blah whatever. I'm not here to sum that up. If you wanna see it, go to the Freedom Caucus. What I will say, though, is that there is no way queerness lies in opposition to America. Especially not as the textbooks posit the myth.

Queerness, at its core, is... not easily definable. It is indeed a blanket term for anyone not cis/het/allo - an alternative for LGBTQIA+, essentially. But there's something else about it. It's almost... defiant, in a way. At least, that's what it is for me. The term itself has morphed over the years - at first, it simply meant "strange," then it became derogatory, and now it has been reclaimed by many of the same people who bore it as a mark of shame. Queer people mirror this in some ways - we struggle with our identities, deal with jackasses galore, and do our best to keep moving towards that light at the end of the tunnel, to a point in our lives where we can look at ourselves and be happy and proud.

What's not American about that?

Really. Try and tell me. What isn't Americam about... the pursuit of happiness? What's not American about fighting through such adversity and breaking the chains of time? You can't seriously tell me that this country, with its origins in the liberal Enlightenment, born in the fires of actual revolution, that has hundreds of famous people with hundreds of famous quotes about the importance of the freedom to live your life, that this country is supposed to have a problem with the gays or the transes.

To be queer is to define oneself. These words are written in the Queer Nation Manifesto, first released at a gay rights march in 1990. And to define oneself, I would argue, is quintessentially American. This country has long prided itself on opportunity. Millions of people across centuries have come here in search of opportunity. The opportunity to make a living; the opportunity to live without fear; the opportunity to define oneself. Across the decades, this country has expanded its freedoms in the search of a more perfect union. I wager that that cannot be accomplished without equality for us too. To sever the bond between queerness and America, when it has already taken so long to make that bond public, would serve to reduce the professed ideals of this country to a mockery; even more of a farce than many of us probably already think it it to be.

I feel if I said too much more I would end up running in circles, so I shall leave it here.

I know who I am. I am transgender; so too am I an American. The torches that burn in my heart are twofold; I share one with my queer siblings, and one with the Statue of Liberty. Both flames burn in the name of freedom. Both light the path to defining myself.