Thread by @JennyBoylan

Hey, trans peeps here is a short thread on this Day of Visibility-- a day when I know many of you are ailing, not only from isolation, but from the heinous cruelty that Republicans in Idaho have chosen to hurl at us on this day.

Read on for hope.

#TransDayOfVisibility

2/
If you didn't catch the news from Idaho, it's heinous. Here's a link to that story:
cnn.com/2020/03/31/us/…
It prevents trans folks from EVER changing their birth certs, and it prevents trans girls from competing on girls sports teams.

3/
It's only one of several actions conservatives are taking while our attention is fixated on the coronavirus crisis; others include efforts to declare abortion "non essential" in Ohio, Mississippi, and Texas.

4/
I know many of you are hurting right now, and I am hurting too. It seems as if this time of national crisis would, to normal people, be a time to bring people together, instead of tearing them apart by picking on the most marginalized and maligned people in the country.

5/ These bills are awful, and they'll have a special effect on young people. Young people whom psychologists and scientists have studied, and conclude that transition helps them. pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/137/3/…

6/ What can we say at this hour about this latest attack on innocent children, on making the lives of people who are suffering even harder than they already are?

I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. Very little about what these people try to do to us surprises me any more.

7/
Over the years I admit I have developed a thick skin when it comes to attacks on trans people. It's been inevitable that as we become more visible, more people try to crush us.

8/
I believe that these efforts have nothing to do with the sanctity of women's sports; if it did, people would understand that trans women on hormones HAVE FEW ADVANTAGES OVER CIS FEMALES.
businessinsider.com/what-critics-g…

9/
But these movements aren't really about sports, any more than the brouhaha in North Carolina was about the ladies rooms.

What it's about is that people don't understand trans people, and wish we did not exist. And so are attempting to make our lives more miserable.

10/
But we do exist.
I don't know why, to tell you the truth, and I don't actually care why people are trans. But it is a fact of nature, and as such it is something we should celebrate.

10/
We are as normal and natural as the blue potato or the duck-billed platypus or the Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

Our difference is a precious work of god--or nature, if you prefer-- and we want nothing more than the ability to live our lives in peace.

12/
At 61 I have seen these bastards come and I have seen them go. I have so many arrows sticking out of my ass I sometimes feel like a cactus.

13/
But what I know is that we will endure. We will keep fighting and we will keep celebrating our joyful lives and we will keep on being visible.

I'm sorry if people don't like the fact that I exist, but I really mean them no harm. What I really want for them is love.

14/
Which is what I wish for anybody else.

So we will refute these bastards every day. How will we refute them? Well, with the courts and with our advocacy orgs including @glaad and @HRC and others too.

But more than this, we will refute them with THE FACT OF OUR LIVES.

15/
We will keep showing up, and we will keep on being trans, and we will keep on living our joyful lives according to our lights.

It is a very long fight we are in. Today hurts. But the losses of a day do not define our lives.

16/
So, dear trans siblings: if weeping today helps, you should weep. If talking to friends and lovers helps, do that to.

But remember that the fight goes on. And that the best argument for our truth is the fact of our own lives.

17/
"I believe in the future we will suffer no more.
Maybe not in my lifetime, but in yours, I feel sure."

#TransDayOfVisibility
/thread