Hey it’s me, your trans friend!
Hey team! If you saw a meme on facebook telling you to reach out to your trans friend, and I’m your only trans friend, can you spread it out throughout the year so my phone battery will last longer? xoxo
In all seriousness though, I literally woke up this morning, looked at my phone at like 7:30, and saw that trans folks were being re-banned from serving in the military. Clearly, this is bigoted bullshit meant to distract us from the burning dumpster fire that is this president’s short, treasonous term. Aaaaaand, as soon as I woke up, literally before I got out of bed, I was being bombarded by folks for comment, talking points, “what do you think about,” “what is your opinion on,” blah blah blah.
Y’all, I’m suuuuper happy to be the model minority a lot of the time. That’s why I talk to school groups, educate teachers, testify at the legislature, I just did a panel after a movie screening at the SIE, yadda yadda. And also, I don’t speak for all trans people, and also, if you can find it on google, probably go find it on google.
Thanks to everyone who reached out to tell me they were thinking of me. Also, my life as a trans person is really, really minimally aggrieved. I work in progressive politics, my friends and partners and parents are all great, my boss made sure I got PTO to travel to Florida for surgery, my insurance enables me to pay under $100 for a year’s worth of testosterone, the former Lt. Governor of Colorado and current Denver School Board Member Barbara O’Brien yelled at literally one of the only people who has ever been rude to me and kicked them out of the conference they were at… I’m generally coasting. Let’s be clear — it’s entirely possible that I’m the most privileged trans person in the state of Colorado. I can only speak for my experiences, and I have never attempted to or been interested in joining the military.
I want to talk about other things. Texas is considering a bill to restrict public restroom use for trans people RIGHT NOW. Trans women — and particularly trans women of color — are targeted for violence, mostly by the men in their lives. In March the Supreme Court declined to hear the case deciding whether trans students have a right to use the right bathroom in school, wiping the lower court ruling protecting Gavin Grimm’s rights off the books and enabling school districts all over the country to bully students who literally just need to pee during the school day. The repeal of the ACA will again render being trans a preexisting condition, allowing insurance companies to stop covering surgeries (oh also, even though it’s illegal, my insurance still tries not to cover me every year, and I have to remind them of the illegality every year), hormones, and other lifesaving healthcare to trans folks.
Also — I’m maybe the most annoyed with you, my progressive friends, who spent the day asking me for very specific talking points with which to vanquish internet trolls. I have a very high tolerance for educating folks — being trans generally doesn’t feel like very much emotional labor to me. But this morning, at 7:46 am, a question from some democratic delegate I met in 2014! “Hey Jack — I need some advice. How should transgender people be treated in the military? As far as physical fitness. Should they be held to the standard of their birth gender or their transgender? Should then a transwoman be held to the female standard? A man transitioning to a woman? [sic]”
Later in the day, I get this — “hey do you have responses for people who say this is that men will abuse it to get higher scores under the female pt chart? I highly doubt someone would change their lifestyle for a test score [sic]” and later “Hey man have you heard about this memo that was sent out to prepare women to shower with transwomen? As if to warn women that there would penis in their showers Do you think a man would abuse the policy to get naked showers with women? [sic]” and then also “When a soldier declares as trans do they have to prove it with a prescription for hormones? How does that work? Do they just take their word for it? [sic]” and also “Hey Jack. Sorry to bug you again. What is your opinion on the tax payer funded for re-assignment surgery? [sic]”
Y’allllllllllllll. I have responses to all of these things. And none of these questions are about like, how we can support trans folks. Your concern about physical fitness is couched in misogyny and the assumption that like, all trans people are women. Trans men are *actually* women, so not fit enough to serve, trans men are *actually* weak sissies, so definitely not strong enough to serve, so how can trans people be soldiers OMG. Regarding taxpayer funded healthcare for service members — you enlist, you write a blank check to US Government for an amount of up to and including your life, and the government should pay for your fucking healthcare. Trans healthcare is healthcare. In 2014, the DOD spent $84.24 million on erectile dysfunction drugs. If we cover healthcare for current and former service members, we have to cover all of it — and it’s none of our business what kind of medical care anyone’s doctor says they need.
Naturally, I’ve been thinking about the military a lot today. It feels heavy and complicated to me that “equality” means inclusion into deeply problematic institutions. Trans people should be able to be in the military just like anybody else, and I have myriad struggles with the American military industrial complex and allllllll that that entails. When someone asked me earlier if I thought that men would pretend to be trans women so they could sneak into the women’s showers, I responded that, clearly, there are already plenty of men in the military who have no problem raping their fellow service members. Why bother pretending to be trans when you can betray your oath with impunity anyway?
There are many kinds of service — and I do believe that politics is a public service — but I have never felt called to enlist. When I got my new social security card, I registered for the draft. Teters (and McNameras, and Henckels) have fought and died in American wars going back to the Revolution, both sides of the Civil War, both World Wars. Aaron Burr and I share a grandfather. The German Valley, in the Allegheny mountains of West Virginia is so named for my great-great-whatever grandfather, John Justus Henckel, Sr., who built Henckel’s Fort in 1761 and commanded it during the Revolution. It was the only patriot outpost in Pendleton County during the war, hosted the Virginia Militia, and there’s some stone marker that talks about how the fort was used for “protection against the Indians.” Gross. Also, my name is John now, too.
One more thing. I’m glad y’all are out there fighting the internet trolls or whatever, but I’d encourage you to do the labor of researching your sassy talking points on your own, and not just reach out to me asking fucked up hypothetical questions so you can plagiarize the answers I give you to your own credit for your valiant allyship. And if I tell you how that’s harmful, and your response is “Also try not to alienate allies,” then my head just might explode. If having a trans person tell you, on a day that you seem to think is probably hard for trans people because you’re reaching out, that having to supply you with many facts and figures and feelings for you to, I assume, copy and paste in response to other people is tiring to them, and that “alienates” you as an ally, then you aren’t an ally. If your self-identified allyship to trans people is not inalienable, then you are the worrrrrrrrrrrst.
If you want to be a good ally, go donate to Inside/Out Youth Services in Colorado Springs, home to Focus on the Family, and the major American military contractors — Aerospace Corporation, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Raytheon, and Science Applications International Corporation. They provide lifesaving services to LGBT kids — a significant chunk of the kids are trans — in Colorado Springs. Peace.