How do I support my trans friends with all of the current legislation being put in place?
So this is a really good question.
There is a Twitter account, let me see if I can find quickly what that Twitter account is, that does a weekly basically call-to-action of if you want to support trans folks this week, here is what you can do.
And I think it’s Transformations Project.
Yes.
So it’s the Transformations Project.
On Twitter it’s @the_tfp for Transformations Project and they put out legislative updates about any ant-trans bills that are happening as well as information on what you can do to help support transpeople in the States that are being affected.
So, they will let you know if there are people you need to call or email.
They will let you know how – what you can do there.
The other thing I would say about supporting trans folks right now is that to be real, what is happening right now is genocide.
If you look at the characteristics of genocide, there are 10 stages.
We are currently in stages 6 and 7 especially here in the South where there are a lot of very terrible bills targeting transpeople.
What is happening is an ongoing genocide.
That is not an exaggeration.
That is not a hyperbole.
That is fact.
And in fact, if you talk to people who are experts in things like World War II and the Holocaust, they will tell you that this is exactly how that stuff started.
The picture that you see often about Nazis burning books is the burning of the sexuality institute that was doing trans surgeries.
They kidnapped and murdered many transpeople who have been housed there for surgical procedures.
They destroyed all of the literature that that institute had collected over years about trans healthcare, transpeople stories, transpeople’s experiences.
So in Nazi Germany, they started with disabled people and transpeople.
It is not a coincidence that what is happening right now is a complete elimination of any support for or restrictions around limiting the spread of COVID and targeting of transgender people.
Fascism works by targeting populations that are easy scapegoats and eroding people’s ability to recognize that that is violence because it’s violence against people they don’t care about.
And by the time it’s violence against people that they care about, it’s already so far gone that it’s hard for people to push back.
If you live in a state that is passing these kinds of anti-trans bills, find groups who are protesting.
Talk to your representatives.
Go show up at the State House and try to talk to people.
Be loud.
Be aggressive.
Be in my face about it.
Find who is running against the shitty transphobes in your area and support their campaigns.
Send them money, volunteer for them, whatever you can do.
Almost every state has a group of multiple groups that are designed to help directly support transpeople.
So in states where there are outlying trans care, there are ad hoc groups being formed to help make sure the people can get access to things like hormones.
There are groups that make sure that trans kids have support if they are dealing with stuff at school.
There are organizations that are helping people move out of trans hostile states, particularly if they have trans children.
Find those organizations.
Support them.
Give them your time.
Give them your money.
If you know transpeople, support them.
This doesn’t mean text them and saying like, “Well, shits are real hard. If you need to talk, let me know.”
Because like that’s nice, but what I need right now is not someone to talk to about the ongoing genocide of people like me.
What I need is for someone to buy me dinner or do my dishes or fold my laundry.
What I need is for someone to come over and body double me so I can get through some of the shitty admin work for my own company that I keep putting off because it’s not fun.
Find ways for the transpeople around that are like actual meaningful support.
Give them food.
Give them money.
Give them help with chores.
Whatever it is that they need to make their life easier, just find ways to make their life easier because right now, life is real fucking hard for most of us.
I’m in Atlanta.
Atlanta for the south is actually pretty all right because I don’t look like a cishet person and I’ve run into no issues so far.
I’ve lived here for 5 months, haven’t run into any significant issues.
I get misgendered a ton like all of the time but other than that, nobody has tried to start any shit with me.
However, they sure as fuck are making it clear on the legislative level that this state is hostile to my existence.
So having someone come over and just fold my laundry would mean so much more to me than having someone text and ask how I’m doing and if I want to talk about things.
I have a therapist I talk in therapy every week.
I have trans friends.
We talk about stuff all the time.
I don’t need another person to talk to.
I need someone to help me get through my to-do list.
I need someone to get me a delicious meal so that I don’t have to choose what to freaking eat or go grocery shopping.
That’s what I need.
So every transperson might have a different response to this.
Some transpeople may absolutely want you to reach out and give them someone to talk to.
I personally don’t want that because if you are going to talk to people about trans issues, don’t talk to me, talk to the people in your world who are transphobic.
If you have family members who are transphobic, talk to them.
If you know people at work who are transphobic, talk to them.
Do some actual direct work at changing people’s minds because none of those people will listen to me.
They would not hear my opinion because I’m obviously biased because I want to survive and be able to be who I am in the world.
So if you know people who are transphobic or people who are flirting with transphobia, talk to them.
Talk to them about it.
Help pull them out.
You can help pull them out of it.
Let them know that that’s not actually something you agree with.
That that’s not something that’s OK. Do that work.
I think that when people ask these questions, a lot of times what they want is a very simple answer of like, go to this link and donate $20.
And like if supporting trans people is easy for you, you’re probably not doing it enough because we need way more support.
We need so much more support.
It is spectacularly – it’s shocking and also completely not at all surprising how little even people on the left are talking about this ongoing genocide of transpeople, particularly on a national level.
Folks are doing nothing.
They are waiting for the fucking referee to show up I guess and give the fascists a red card.
I don’t know.
But just do things.
Go talk to people.
Have those hard conversations.
Make that dinner at home awkward as fuck.
Dive into that because we need you to do that.
You doing the thing that is easy is not going to help us.
You need to do the thing that is hard.
Us living is hard.
Us existing is hard.
Us being ourselves is hard.
Every day is hard.
So you can talk to your family.
You can talk to the bigot at work.
You can do that.
Do that work.
You can a transperson dinner.
You can take care of their laundry.
You can do their dishes.
You can clean their house.
Do the stuff that is hard because that’s meaningful.
