Today is Trans Day of Visibility. If I could pass along any message for today, it would be Transgender Is Normal. On my social media, as well as in real life, I have many transgender friends. We are all people, faces, hearts, parents, friends, loved ones, humans. One person I know works as a bus driver, one person is a barista, another a truck driver, a musician, an artist, a graphic designer, a writer, a counselor, an electrician, a cashier. We are everywhere, we can be anyone. We are a normal variation of the human experience, like the ranging colors of skin that can’t be chosen or changed, so is gender. Gender identity is valid, is normal, and is relative to one’s own experience.
While conversing with an elder person yesterday, they began to explain to me that being born with a penis meant one was a male, and being born with a vagina meant one was a female. I calmly explained that in life we may have been given two options on paper, but in reality, it’s not exactly the case. There have been articles I’ve read concerning assigned female children reaching the age of puberty to find their bodies developing a penis and having testicles descend. There are instances of intersex individuals, which fall under three classifications: physical, chemical, chromosomal. The current statistic is equating the chance of being born intersex to being born with red hair. Meaning, there are as many intersex people as there are people with red hair. Which, for me I can think of eight people with red hair, so it’s more common than you might think. Recently, I had an interesting conversation with a fellow transgender activist, about using storytelling as a form of activism. It seems many folks I encounter still miss the point. My activism is directly speaking to people about being transgender. When attempting to speak to one person yesterday. I began with the usual “Hi, there. My name is James. My wife and I are transgender activists.” From there I generally go on to explain a short dialogue about our story, our outreach, our blog, even at times sharing statistics about transgender suicidality, poverty levels, and victim rates. However, this time the outcome wasn’t pleasant, I was barely given a chance to speak. She believed I was trying to underhandedly get something from her. She kept bringing the conversation back to how I must want something from her. She accused me of having an “agenda”. Which is completely true, there is an agenda. We want to use our story to encourage others to be accepting of differences, to spread awareness of intersectional issues, and to inspire folks to do outreach/activism in their own unique ways. Story-telling is absolutely activism and is a form of direct action. This confronts people’s ideas of normal, their beliefs on who transgender people are. We are normal people. We’ve been told we are wrong for who we are, we are not. We want to be heard, seen, validated, accepted, and loved as ourselves. Essentially, spreading love is the agenda. Activism comes in various forms. There’s no right way to be an activist, however there is a wrong way. Hurting others, expressing violence, destroying property, these are wrong. Using adult language however, is freedom of speech and expression. Using destructive, dangerous tactics to get a point across is completely outrageous and unacceptable, in my opinion. I wish others felt the same way. However, for a long time it was difficult for me to live this way. Especially, after much pain in life, many disappointing events and even people, and after being a disappointment myself. Once able to move past these negative events, I found more effective coping skills which helped me process negative occurrences. I came to a better understanding of how important communication is, which helped to build better relationships. Being able to accept the memories from the past, enabled me to be empowered to tell our story and to not be ashamed. Real people having real conversations is the best way I know to bring awareness. I like bringing intersectionality into everyday tasks, like grocery shopping, a trip to the gas station, a quick run over to the dollar store, picking up an item at the toy store, visiting the candy shop. I’m there engaging hearts and minds, delivering the message of acceptance of diversity and love of all humans. Today is Trans Day of Visibility, but really everyday is for me.
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Authors:James and Katherine are a transgender couple raising two kids. They were southerners when coming to understand themselves as trans. Ultimately it lead to a nearly three year road trip to find home. Now they are re-housed and still focused on outreach in the transgender community! Archives
October 2020
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