Trans Rights Whats In It For You
[Music]
[Music]
on a snowy day
when i was 10 years old i got the itch
to go sledding
so my father took me to the hardware
store i picked out a sled
and i was in line with it and he went
over to look at
hammers or something and um
just to give you an idea of how i looked
back then
here’s how i looked um just imagine that
person but all bundled up for winter
so this older guy walks by me and bumps
into me
and he goes oh i’m sorry little girl
and i’m not paying attention right so
i’m just confused
but my father just wheels on the guy
and and he starts yelling at him he’s a
boy how can you think that he’s a girl
and and i really thought in that moment
that i was gonna watch my father
beat this guy because he thought i might
be a girl
so that was really scary and it was one
of a thousand little moments
that you know told me that i had to push
these feelings
that i was different right had to push
those feelings down
and it and it delayed my transition
for another quarter century at my lowest
point
this is how i looked um so
that fear that trans people feel that
fear of transitioning
it’s rooted in reality at time of
recording
there is no federal law that protects
trans and non-binary people
from discrimination so we’re a
vulnerable population
trans folks are worried about getting
and keeping a job
the rate of unemployment for trans
people is one third higher than the
national rate
we are worried about being able to own a
home
or even keeping basic shelter over our
heads
the rate of housing and security for
trans folks is twice the national rate
and our home ownership rate is half of
the national rate
and finally we fear not just rejection
but we fear violence
in 2020 37 trans people in the united
states were murdered in hate crimes
the vast majority of them were black
trans women
who have to try to survive at the
intersection
of transphobia and white supremacy
which makes them aggressively targeted
by perpetrators of hate crimes
so what i do for a living is i’m a
trainer
for the equitas health institute you can
see me
doing my thing out in the field there
and among the many things
organizations hire us to do we’re often
hired
because organizations want to do a
better job serving the trans community
so i’ll share these statistics with them
right
and they’re they’re often shocked
sometimes horrified
and they want to do better they do but
sometimes i also get a vibe of
that’s a shame we should treat trans
people better
but do we really have to change all
these things about
how we operate to cater to this small
minority
what’s in it for us and today i want to
talk about
how creating a world where trans people
have full citizenship
where we can use a bathroom without you
know being afraid of
getting accosted or assaulted where our
names and our pronouns are respected
that’s also a world where everyone will
enjoy
gender liberation
so when we’re born we’re put into one of
two boxes
the boy box or the girl box and
you know we don’t have a choice in that
right we’re we’re babies we’re infants
but which box were put in has a
tremendous
impact on the entire trajectory of our
lives
it impacts how we’re supposed to act how
we’re supposed to look
who we’re supposed to love what emotions
are
acceptable for us to express and what
emotions that were expected
to repress right
and for trans folks one of the big
reasons why we face
the bias and discrimination and
prejudice that we do
is we are living examples that not
everybody
fits in one of those two boxes not
everybody
is in the box that they should be in
based on where they were put at birth
or both but the boxes don’t just
negatively
impact trans people i think about
a lot about during the
current global public health emergency
one of the things that’s happened to
women in the united states is that women
are four times as likely as men
to have lost their jobs or to have left
the workforce
you know during this this global crisis
and the reason for that is that the
gendered norm that it should be women
who take the primary responsibility
of caring for children of teaching
children
during this emergency that norm has
aggressively reasserted itself
what about men well in the u.s men
six million men in the u.s suffer from
depression
but they are much less likely than the
rest of
the public to seek help for mental
health concerns
why because men are not supposed to ask
for help
because of the box
i tried to survive in that box i
did but but finally in my mid-30s i
transitioned
and i transitioned because my fear
of what would happen to me if i came out
got eclipsed
by my fear of future regret of how it
would feel if i never
even went over and saw what it was like
in the other box
so this is a picture of me from a few
years ago
oh hey thanks instagram filters that’s a
good one um
so i transitioned and it was the best
decision of my life
it really was uh the fog of what julia
serrano
once called gender sadness lifted for me
but i wasn’t done learning or evolving
or growing one thing that i learned
after years of transitioning and after a
lot of therapy
was that i didn’t want to stay in one
box permanently
this box was much better the new box was
much better
but i didn’t necessarily want to stay in
that box permanently all the time
so i started to explore a greater range
of gender expression
as you can see in this picture recently
i’ve really jumped in to that
exploration
and i mentioned this simply because
instead of for example my decision to
transition which
though it was a good decision was made
out of fear
my decision to expand the boundaries of
my gender expression
i made that decision out of hope that
i now can think about the future
in a hopeful way rather than just
worrying about avoiding the worst
possible outcome
so the fight for trans liberation is
in many ways just essentially making
sure the doors of those boxes
are at least unlocked for people and
the way that that is connected to gender
liberation generally
is is this so many of us
haven’t even asked these questions trans
and non-binary folks are kind of forced
to confront these questions but most
people aren’t
so some of you may be very very
comfortable
in the box that you originally put in
you may feel connected to it
it fits for you that’s great that’s your
authenticity
and that’s awesome but i do want
everyone to think about this
particularly if maybe you’re just
meh about the box you’re in
think about think about whether
that box has kept you from living your
most
authentic life as it kept you
from jobs or hobbies that you think
don’t fit
with the box that you were put in as it
kept you
from looking the way that you want to
look or associating with people
the way you want to if the answers to
any of those questions end up yes
you know this is not just
a effort a struggle for trans folks
it’s an effort that will benefit
everyone
we can create this better world or you
don’t have to fear stepping outside the
boundaries of the box that you were put
in
we can create a world where trans folks
have full citizenship
equal rights we can live in dignity we
can live
openly and not be afraid of
that bringing harm to us
that world is the one that i hope that
we can build
together thank you
you