It’s My One Year HRT Anniversary & I’m Scared
Photo by Katie Rainbow 🏳️🌈 on Unsplash
I have been on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for a year, and it has made me so incredibly happy. I look at the curves of my new body in the mirror every morning, and it fills me with joy. I am the person I have wanted to be for a long time now. I think of the sad, depressed person I was before this journey, and I don’t want to go back.
It seems, though, that many unhinged people have other plans. All over the country, regressive, anti-queer laws have been passed. You’ve probably heard about them: the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida, the anti-trans athlete and puberty blocker bans, and, of course, the disturbing grooming rhetoric likening queer people to actual pedophiles.
This discourse has me incredibly nervous about the state of queer rights in America. I want to explain why I am terrified and what I think you can do about it, so please read to the end to get some fantastic action-oriented resources.
But first, the reason why I am scared.
There have been a lot of bigoted laws passed recently. According to an NBC analysis of ACLU data, there have been 670 anti-LGBTQ bills filed since 2018, most of them targeted toward transgender people. 2022 has been the worst year in recent history, with 238 filed in it alone. These laws range from bans on gender-affirming healthcare to constraining school curriculums from teaching LGBTQ+ issues to passing religious exemptions that allow organizations and businesses to discriminate against queer people.
The damage from these laws is incalculable. In 2021, a survey from the Trevor Project found that over half of trans and nonbinary youths had “seriously considered suicide in the past year.” This problem has not gone away with trans advocates continuing to sound the alarm. “Trans youth, in particular, are being hounded in public and driven to deaths of despair at an alarming rate,” Admiral Rachel Levine recently told NPR.
However, these laws aren’t only significant for what they mean individually for trans youths but for what they represent overall: a reactionary push against the radical idea that queer people are human beings. In the states, 2021 was considered one of the deadliest years for trans people, and 2022 isn't looking any better.
This type of demonization, if left unchecked, can only lead in one direction. When an entire political faction of society starts using rhetoric that likens a class of people to monsters, the solutions can get terrifying very quickly. You do not give healthcare and proper housing to those you consider subhuman. At best, you relegate them to a neglected underclass, and at worst, well, I won’t be around in that situation.
I am afraid, and it would be one thing if these laws were a mere anachronism — the dying breath of a wicked generation trying to give us the middle finger before they kick the bucket — but we are seeing this regression everywhere. Abortion looks like it's being rolled back. Voting rights are cratering. Wealth inequality has only become even more pronounced, with some arguing that it's worse today than right before the French Revolution. It’s hard to believe that queer people only face a momentary setback when everything seems to be in free fall.
How are we supposed to look at this information and feel anything but terrified?
When I bring up this anxiety, the standard retort is that this is only a momentary hiccup, with the pendulum inevitably swinging towards progress. Leaders like President Obama often say things like this, in the process, misinterpreting the famous MLK Jr line: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” to justify this perspective.
After all, younger generations are queerer and more accepting of alternative economic systems than Gen X or Boomers combined. For some, it's easy to think that we are on the cusp of something greater. Perhaps this is only the darkness before the storm. Maybe we will look back in thirty years, and we will have appropriately responded to this moment with the sacrifice and compassion it deserves (God, I f@cking hope so).
This future is possible, and I don’t want to make it seem like all hope is lost (it's not), but this optimism becomes a problem when used as a shield to ignore all the scary stuff we are talking about. We are not going to osmosis our way to a better tomorrow. There is no moral arc to the universe: nothing to assure that progress will inevitably arise from this pain.
In all my studies of history, I have seen no cohesive narrative that ties it all together. Progressive empires have fractured and given way to brutally oppressive ones, and nothing about it has made any sense. Where was the moral arc of the universe when the Indian Tribes of the Americas were decimated by genocide, or Black Africans were denied their humanity and brought over here in chains? There was no linear progression, just randomness, and destruction.
Now is not the time for blind hope — to cling to the false narrative that things will get better “just because.” Climate change is going to continue to strain our inequitable supply chain. Crops will fail, distrust of outsiders will likely increase, and people will look for someone to blame. Research has consistently shown a link between climate change and xenophobia (as well as other forms of bigotry). In the words of Elizabeth Yeampierre, co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance in how these issues are linked:
“The communities that are most impacted by Covid, or by pollution, it’s not surprising that they’re the ones that are going to be most impacted by extreme weather events. And it’s not surprising that they’re the ones that are targeted for racial violence. It’s all the same communities, all over the United States. And you can’t treat one part of the problem without the other, because it’s so systemic.”
Marginalized groups not only experience this injustice within their communities by being the ones physically closer to sources of pollution (e.g., being more likely to have industry and agriculture in their zip code) but by also being the ones more likely to have to relocate when their homes become unlivable. These climate refugees and internally displaced persons are then often treated with cruel indifference when they do move. Whether we are talking about Haitian people being expelled from the Bahamas or refugees of the California wildfires being criminalized via anti-homelessness statutes, the world's governments are not responding to our climate refugee crisis with open arms.
And why would they be? These are the same communities these governments have always hated.
Trans people are not isolated from this equation. Many of my trans siblings are already in this precarious position. Trans women earn 60% of the average US worker, and it's not much better for trans men and non-binary people. Many of us have to pay out of pocket for gender-affirming healthcare, which leads to us racking up a lot of medical debt. A risk factor that makes trans people’s lives more precarious overall and more susceptible to the environmental injustices we have already mentioned.
With more and more of us moving to escape the worst effects of climate change, I worry about how we will be treated. Trans people already face a lot of discrimination regarding obtaining employment and housing, with LGBTQIA+ youth very susceptible to homelessness.
Are we supposed to believe that trans people will be treated better when they have to relocate after losing everything they own?
As climate change becomes even more pronounced, people are not going to automatically decide to be friendlier to the marginalized communities of the world. Unless something changes, they will fall back on the same scapegoats they always have done throughout history because that's the easy thing to do. And as we are seeing, the trans community has become one of these favorite targets.
As I look ahead at the 2020s, I see a decade of unease for the trans community. I’m filled with dread over what will happen in the immediate future if we do not reverse this trend. I have just become the person I want to be, and now others want to take that sense of self away. I cannot escape the gnawing feeling that this happiness will cost me soon if reactionaries get their way. That I will suffer because I dared to be satisfied.
What do you do in the face of that future? What do any of us do?
I, for one, will keep fighting. I will continue donating, advocating, and battling for my fellow trans people because wailing in outrage porn is not enough. I may be scared, but I will not give up because even if the worst comes to pass, at least I can say I did all I could.
If you, like me, are angry and sad about all this existential dread, I beg you to do more than just read a 9-minute article that makes you angry and scared.
Fight side-by-side with me!
I have listed some resources down below to get started. If you care about this fight, you will get in those trenches and start doing something about it.
Some Helpful Resources
Trans Fundraisers
Did you know that many trans people have to self-finance their transitions? Part of this problem is the dystopian nature of US healthcare, which means many of us have to pay thousands of dollars (often out of pocket) to get life-saving healthcare.
Here are some links to help pay for that care. It might not be the best solution, but sometimes you just need to meet desperate people where they are.
Be Yourself: Gender Confirmation Surgery Fundraising
Trans Mutual Aid Funds
As we have already said, trans people need money, and not just for hormones and surgeries. The ongoing discrimination this community faces means we often encounter difficulties with housing and employment.
Mutual Aid and Emergency Funds
Trans Housing Coalition (THC)
Mutual Aid Fund
Trans Needle Exchange
Trans Women of Color Collective
Trans Journalists
We cannot trust the mainstream media to tell our side of the story truthfully. The recent BBC scandal where the news organization refused to retract a transphobic piece speaks to the prevalence of this mindset within many traditional media outlets.
Thankfully there are a lot of good trans reporters out there.
Imara Jones
Orion Rummler
Kate Sosin
Kam Burns
Jules Gill-Peterson
Trans Journalists Association
Trans Activists
Trans acceptance requires supporting people on the front lines. Please consider supporting these queer radicals fighting for a more accepting tomorrow.
They/Them Collective
Diamond Stylz
Miss Major
LaSaia Wade
Kylar W. Broadus, Esq.
Trans Artists
We need trans people to imagine, not just to fight. Please consider supporting these extraordinary people.