“Then they came for me—
And there was no one left
To speak for me.”
-Pastor Martin Niemöller, “First They Came”
Dear Now Habersham Editors and, more specifically, the trans and queer community of Habersham County and the nation at large,
Hello. As of writing this, I am 22 years old, and I am a transgender woman. In the words of a song I love, “There’s something wrong in the village.” (“The Village, Wrabel”). I’m not entirely sure how to begin this or even really what to say. Things in this country have simply gotten bad.
Do you know what it’s like to have a core part of your identity as a person be the subject of a culture war? For something you know without a doubt to be the truth of yourself, be the target of bills erasing you from public life? To have an entire political party, the one in power, believe that you and people like you are either pedophiles or deluded, mentally ill dupes who have no place in polite society?
I know that most of your readers won’t know what it’s like. They can’t know. How would they?
They don’t know what it’s like to be scared to go outside because someone might assault you for being different. For being “wrong.” For being an abomination in the eyes of God. They likely don’t know what it’s like to watch as half the nation cheers their erasure. They don’t know what it’s like for discrimination against them to be legal. And they certainly don’t understand us. If they did, they wouldn’t support the actions being taken against us.
I doubt I’ll change their minds, but I’d like to offer my experience to them, if they are willing to listen.
For much of my life, I didn’t know I was trans. I didn’t have the language for it—didn’t know it was even a possibility. But I always, always knew something was wrong. Boys don’t spend their lives wishing they had been born a girl. I hated myself because of it, and I thought God hated me because of it, too. Eventually, I did learn about trans people; I realized it was a possibility, and yet…
I stayed in the closet out of fear. I told no one. I was afraid my family would throw me to the curb if I told them, was afraid my friends would abandon me if I came out. I tried praying it away, became even more religious, and yet it stayed. So I waited, all the while watching my body change and grow even further from the person I was inside. Eventually, once I was old enough to go to the doctor alone and make my own medical decisions, I decided it was time to transition. I’d avoided the subject for so long I didn’t know what to do. So, I researched. I realized, with growing horror, that if I did, I likely wouldn’t be able to have kids. I always wanted to be a mother one day. Wished desperately that I could do it the way I wanted. Yeah, sounds crazy, wishing for the pain of childbirth, but I did. The doctors at the clinic also told me that if I did, eventually, I would have to stay on hormones forever, or the lack of sex hormones would invariably kill me.
It was a lot. I had to see a psychiatrist and get a note to even start on HRT.
But I did it. I threw everything away and started transitioning in secret. I hid it until I couldn’t hide it from my family anymore, and thank God they were accepting. To this day, I still use the bathroom I’m assigned to, and if I can’t pass as a man, I wait until I get home, all out of fear.
Why?
It’s just a fad. You’ll regret it, etc., etc., whatever you wanna say. I’d like to answer your question with one of my own. Would you throw away your fertility, your day-to-day safety, your acceptance in society, your family, your friends; would you willingly make yourself a hated minority, make it so you can’t even go to town for groceries without getting ugly looks, make it so that the editors of the local newspaper have to keep you anonymous out of fear of people hurting you…. for something you weren’t absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, sure of?
No. You wouldn’t.
So, to my cisgender audience, I am begging you, please, have compassion and empathy. I am tired, so tired, of living in fear in the community I’ve lived in my entire life. I beg you to listen to us, to trans and queer people, rather than pundits and talk show hosts who want to keep you angry. We are hurting. We’re an entire demographic of people as common as redheads, not monsters! We aren’t forcibly indoctrinating your kids to be something they aren’t! We aren’t just crossdressers putting on a guise to rape and murder innocents! The people telling you we are, they’re lying to you! They misrepresent data, find rare edge cases, make us out to be something we aren’t! Please! I don’t want to die or be imprisoned for being like this!
To my queer and trans community… hold each other close. These days, we’re all we have. Opinion pieces like this aren’t going to change minds. Stand strong. I know it’s hard, but stand strong and don’t let their hatred and fear erase us. We have always been here, and we always will be. You are loved. Do not be ashamed. The greatest thing you can do in this moment is live. Live in spite of the tide, no matter how much it turns against us. Please, don’t give up hope. God will be the judge of their vitriol, and it will not judge favorably.
“Wren” (Author verified, but name withheld due to safety concerns)
Habersham County resident
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