Laura A. Jacobs, LCSW-R

Laura A. Jacobs: ① Train, Downtown

About a third of my clients are trans or nonbinary youth and adolescents who had only witnessed the advancements of the 2000s–2010s. They believed progress would be linear and ongoing, and how were they to know otherwise? To them, the results of November 8, 2016, suggested their lives would be unlivable; most had only recently come out and were still addressing acne, dating, and the beginnings of independence while simultaneously questioning their genders and already anxious about decisions that would have lifelong impact. Almost all were now panicked that they would need to flee due to increasing violence and the incoming administration’s transparent intent to assault transgender and gender nonbinary people in all ways possible. They could only interpret increased oppression as an inevitable turn toward fascism and compulsory heteronormativity. Many expected to be dead.

I had the same fears, and was shaken by the intergenerational post-traumatic stress that I’d be herded to a camp and murdered by my own government as were so many of my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations. I reminded clients that I faced the same situation they did, and revealed more of my internal life than I might have otherwise. Likely I needed them, too. Simultaneously, I attempted to portray a determination I didn’t always feel in session and when speaking at conferences and in the media, again both “traumatized community member” and “confident expert.” Occasionally I dissociated with clients, and twice I asked that they restrain their outrage at current events when I was already overwhelmed. Some moments I’ve had less to give.

Jamison Green, Ph.D.

Jamison Green: Recognizing the Existential

I didn’t realize how much transphobia I’d internalized [in the 1970s]; it had seeped in so deeply that I felt compelled to distance myself in a defensive ‘I’m-not-as-bad-as-THOSE-people’ diversion to sidetrack my mother’s wrath somewhere, anywhere else. I was immediately filled with shame, which they probably interpreted as a shame of being homosexual. No. I discovered I was ashamed of being transsexual, and that I was ashamed of being ashamed…

Transphobia is opportunistic and aggressive.

It’s a powerful, insidious force, especially for those of us trans ourselves. It creeps into our psyches through tiny crevices. It lurks in the questions we ask about who or what we are and why we might feel different from other people. It grows stronger when we feel the tiniest shame; even when that shame is about something else, it can release a landslide of doubt that crumbles our self-confidences from every direction. Any toehold it can find inside our spirits has to be confronted, stared down, deconstructed, disintegrated, and swept away. There are no shortcuts. We must understand it first, learn to recognize it for what it is, and learn how and when to challenge it, which situations require what level of response, and to keep ourselves strong and on even footing when we do confront it, especially when other people are involved. Through this introspection and wise, not desperate engagement, we will prevail; otherwise, by ignoring it we’ve merely thrown a tarp over it. Transphobia will regroup in hiding until it’s strong enough to assault us again.

Dana Delgardo, FNP

Dana delgardo: A Trans Man in the Military

One day, everything changed. In 2017, just a few months after the Obama rewrite of policy and following the shift in federal administration, I was asked to reprocess my ETP [military paperwork around gender change]. I could not make sense of it because my gender marker, the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System database (DEERs) listing, and my military ID, all reflected my gender as male. The only explanation I received was that the process now had to be done through Air Force headquarters, where prior the Medical Multidisciplinary Team (MMDT) headquarters in San Antonio, Texas validated one’s gender dysphoria and facilitated the in-service transition. I was first told I was grandfathered in and that all I needed was a letter to that effect. I tried multiple avenues at the Pentagon but was then informed by the person in charge, the same person who had asked me a year before to help them understand and implement the process, that I had to repeat everything through regular channels like everyone else. I didn’t know if this was a paperwork snafu or my fear of a return to military transphobia coming true.

My entire medical and psychological history was questioned. It felt like I was being harassed and discriminated against because of who I was yet again. It felt like reopening an old wound. The process reflected ignorance, stigma, bias, lack of training, and how transphobia persists. The Senior Master Sergeant’s first question was, “Did you have all the surgeries?” I was mortified.

Pooya Mohseni

pooya Mohseni: Them, Me, You

What saved me? Therapy and community. I owe so much to my counselors at The Hetrick Martin Institute, a not-for-profit organization that provides social services to LGBTQIA+ youth, and to Safe Space, another not-for-profit delivering mental health services; I went there when I first moved to NYC in 1997. Also to those at my own university, FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology. The staff and others at all three places allowed me to open myself, gradually, and to slowly exorcise my demons. They let me show myself to me through hours of talking about what had happened, hours of crying “Why?” and “Why me?”, and still more hours acknowledging that, deep inside, I believed it when people said that I was to blame and had brought those things on myself. Not society. Not antiquated ideas about gender and sexuality but that my own difference was the thing that needed to be hidden and left abandoned.

But that’s garbage. I was not at fault for the shortcomings of others and neither are you. Don’t forget self-discipline and accountability, but don’t confuse them with a society coercing you to be someone other than who you are.

Dee Dee Watters

dee dee watters: Trans Rights Are Human Rights!

Then I had the pleasure of meeting the remarkable Monica Roberts, who became my sister and one of my best friends.

Monica was big on politics and lit a fire under me about advocacy work. She truly assisted me in understanding the importance of things being on paper and the reasons why my being seen and heard was necessary in politics. She told me that when we don’t use our voices, we allow the bigots to say we don’t exist! If we’re not telling our stories, then who would? Some cis white person? Monica reminded me that if I spoke up for myself, I was doing it for all of us!

Mashuq Mushtaq Deen

Mashuq Mushtaq deen: Liminal Spaces

I believe there is a great and painful gift wrapped up in this experience: We do not choose our families and we do not always agree with them, but we love them, and for the most part, we cannot really choose that either. It happens before we are rational beings, before children know they are separate from their parents; before parents fathom that their children will leave them. Maybe some of us will hate our families, but really, that’s just another facet of our love.

And so, what a place to practice love! (Love being a verb, and not a noun.) However my family treated me, however much their silence and their exile hurt me, I was close enough to see other things: that they were good people, if not always to me, then to others. That they came from a different culture and time. That they sacrificed their own comfort to help their family in India, to quietly donate their money to charity. That they were shy people, still uncertain, uncomfortable to take up space in this country that had been their home for decades. That they were sometimes treated unfairly because they were Brown, and that they sometimes talked about other people in unfair ways because of race or economics. That they were capable of changing these ways of being, that they were capable of shifting their views on politics, on inequality, and eventually, on me.

Chris Mosier

Chris mosier: Running, Away and To

At the gym, I felt too nervous to use the men’s locker room but was already experiencing harassment in the women’s. I tried to arrive already in workout clothes, but it wasn’t always possible. While playing in a just-for-fun dodgeball league in New York City, I asked the clerk if there was a private area where I could change. They told me there were only two options, the men’s and the women’s, and that I “just needed to choose one.” Both felt unsafe, and I weighed my options as my teammates and friends passed me by in the lobby. I was ultimately told that I could change at the McDonalds down the street. They asked me to leave, and I was utterly humiliated and vulnerable at having to explain to my team why there was no safe place for me. I was overcome with sadness and rage.

Finn Gratton, LMFT

finn gratton: A Trans Autistic Vision

Oh, we compromise or are compromised, just like everyone else, and, like everyone else, lose the thrumming pulse of here and now, get lost from ourselves, from life moving through us. Yet at the same time, we can’t help it, we keep sticking out, we keep not doing it “right.” A hand jumps, an eye twitches, a hum erupts. Life keeps moving through us. From our infancies we have been unintentional rebels against the colonization of our bodies, and we have paid for that rebellion since before we knew we were doing anything wrong. Some of us learned, through stick and carrot, to withhold, to draw away from life, while always knowing that the guard would slip, and with that slip, a piece of our personal wilderness would break over the bow. It would break and we would pay. We would pay in the coinage of rejection, of punishment and of shame. And that wild holy water of life that betrayed us would bless us too, bless us with remembrance of who we are, and what life truly is.

Jack Thompson

jack thompson: Enough

[Leather] is sexy; it’s so and pliable, yet tough. It can be a kiss or a punch. It can accentuate certain body features and draw attention away from others, leading the eye from heavy hips toward a surgically sculpted chest (speaking of expensive gear!). It is literally a second skin. Leather culture, and BDSM more broadly, also provide venues to experiment with masculinity, femininity, other genders, and the spaces between coyness and strength, toughness and submission, dominance and vulnerability—to experience both gender and sexual euphoria in safe and controlled environments where we get to write the rules about our bodies.

Cecilia Gentili

cecilia gentili: Tango Between Two Worlds

The dictatorship [in Argentina] ended in 1983, when I was only twelve years old. Before then, all the “rainbow” identities were hidden. I was shocked with what felt like new discoveries, like “Oh, there’s gay people out there!” or “Wow! You can write about oppression?! I never knew!!” I am the product of that shift from full dictatorship to freedom. I am grateful to know the difference between both extremes when I am reading the paper or working for trans and trans sex worker justice. It shaped me to say, “I don’t want this shit! Never again! I don’t want to live in war! I don’t want my family members to disappear! I don’t want to experience any more loss!” This is easy to scream and shout now, it’s obvious, but back then, I needed to hide.

The experiences with my mother and my mother country have shaped my voice as an activist. In the U.S. LGBTQIA+ world, people say, “Be yourself. Be authentic. Come out and experience freedom,” right? There’s a lot of pressure on me and on our leaders to always be positive and empowering in such a specific way. Well, I respect that narrative, but mine is a little bit different. Reader, whoever you are, maybe because I was born where and when I was, I believe that being yourself is very important. But I prefer you to be alive and in the closet [rather] than to be out and dead. This way, you can still fight and enjoy some of life. I say this to trans people, trans women of color, and to trans women of color who are undocumented or sex workers or both, people like me: Do what you can to achieve whatever level of empowerment you can get, but also be safe.

M. Dru Levasseur, Esq.

m. dru levasseur: Your Authenticity Is Your Power—Tales from a Trans Lawyer

This was my wake-up call. Like mainstream culture, the 1990s to 2000s LGBT community was (and often still is) a caste system based on race, class, gender, ability/disability, socioeconomics, and many other factors based on an assimilationist goal of hetero/cisnormativity and of fitting in with conventional society. Many gay leaders openly questioned why trans people were included in the movement, and some were unabashedly transphobic. Cisgender leadership prioritized the issues of white, wealthy gay and lesbian people in positions of power with the (unfulfilled) promise to come back for the rest later. This tension caught the public eye in 2007 when the community divided over a gay-only version of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) introduced by openly gay Congressman Barney Frank and supported by the Human Rights Campaign, the most influential LGBT organization of the time. The trans community’s response was a campaign of four hundred organizations supporting a trans-inclusive United ENDA, politicizing many of us in the community, spurring us into action.

I was also deeply moved while marching in the first Trans Day of Action in 2005. It was pivotal for me to feel the safety and power of numbers. We marched to call attention to the violence, discrimination, and institutionalization enacted on trans and gender-nonconforming people, and we connected this to the broader struggle for justice for all oppressed people. Led by trans leaders of color and protected by legal observers, we roared, “Whose streets? Our streets!” I was emboldened by the community building and action.

Colt St. Amand, Ph.D., M.D.

colt st. amand: Both/and

Two truths existed at once: the “both/and,” as I call it. We held the knowledge that our community was, and still is, at very high risk of being murdered or of dying by suicide. And I felt a deep pride in being a trans person and in connection with the others, honoring our presence on Earth. Both were true. I felt an internal “yikes” and a peace at the same time. Looking around at the TDOR’s [Trans Day of Remembrance] elders and yelders (young people who have identified as trans for longer than us, a term taught to me by my chosen sister Dee Dee Watters) allowed me to embrace how wondrous our gender diverse community, or as I like to call us, our gender family, was. So, as you graze these pages, know that you are in good company.

Lexie Bean

lexie bean: When I Didn’t Have the Words

I stopped speaking at the age of nine.

As a child, I was not out as someone transgender because I didn’t know that the term existed. I was not out as a survivor of sexual violence because I didn’t know those words were an option for me or for anyone else, either.

I can say it now: I am a trans survivor of childhood sexual abuse with cycles repeated well into my adulthood.

Asa Radix, M.D., Ph.D.

asa radix: A Call for Trans Providers andΠResearchers

Those quoting [this misinformation] allege that transgender youth care includes mandatory sterilization and forced surgeries, also that medical providers “make” kids trans so as to further our own radical political agenda. These simply do not happen.

Ask the American Academy of Pediatrics, the true leader in the field: Affirming care leads to optimal outcomes. It includes providing children and adolescents a safe environment in which they can freely explore their genders through use of alternate names, pronouns, and clothing, case management, and mental healthcare intended to help the youth gradually determine for themselves how they might want to live. This position is also supported by the vast majority of healthcare organizations and a far more significant body of rigorously conducted studies. The genuine science is clear.

Robyn Alice McCutcheon

Robyn alice mccutcheon: The Highs and Lows ofŒ Trans Œat ŒState

I contribute this as a transgender American who served her country as a commissioned foreign service officer (FSO) at the U.S. Department of State. For over 15 years I lived and worked in Washington, DC; Moscow; Bucharest; and throughout Central Asia. At the time I retired as an FS-02 mid-level FSO in 2019, I held the diplomatic title of first secretary, roughly the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel in the military.

"Foreign Service?” you ask.

The Foreign Service staffs our embassies, consulates, and other diplomatic missions, and is sometimes referred to as “America’s other army.” Foreign Service Officers are America’s diplomats.

To the transgender Americans who want to serve our country I say: Military service is not the only option, and as ambassador Bill Burns wrote, “Diplomacy is America’s foreign policy tool of first resort.” Interests in languages, cultures, and international relations are prerequisites, but being transgender is no obstacle, and the Foreign Service may be one of the most welcoming branches of the U.S. government.

Reverend Louis J. Mitchell

reverend louis j. mitchell: Dancing with a Limp

There were moments when the pain felt inescapable and insurmountable. Nights when I couldn’t get drunk enough or high enough to avoid my feelings. I tried to take my life more than once and wept when I was unsuccessful. I put myself in situations hoping that someone else would kill me, over and over and over again.

I am an alcoholic and an addict. I have done sex work. I have been a thief. I’ve lied and connived. I have done whatever I needed to do to survive. If you’ve ever made choices that were from both survival and a complete lack of concern about the consequences, you’ll understand what that was like. I felt courageous and I felt like shit.

In this journey – long, arduous, funny, dangerous, sad, thrilling, and mundane – I have landed in a place of unexpected wholeness and gratitude.

Dear reader, I believe that every one of us has something to give. I invite you to take time to find your superpower! We need you! We’ve been waiting for you, your singular, unique, beautiful, and amazing self. While we may or may not have similar stories, we are each distinct and bring our own value to life and this shared community.

I want to read your story. I want to know what’s challenged you and what has brought you joy. And hope. I want to hear about your losses and how you’ve managed to get through to today. I hope that my story is an encouragement to you. I’m certain yours would be for me.

And still, I dance! Despite and because of all that I’ve experienced.

This is an invitation to dance with me!