Marco Maria
Jul 27, 2017 · 5 min read

An Open Letter To CisGender Supporters of Transgender People,

Today Donald Trump announced that transgender people were no longer welcome in the military and the internet exploded. This post isn’t for the haters, as I don’t have the eternity it would take to try and convince inhumane people of my humanity. Instead, this post is for you, the CisGender Supporters, the social media posters, the friends of transgenders, if you will.

To be transgender in America in 2017, is to be alive in the midst of an attempted genocide aimed right at you. Some of you might think this is a bombastic statement, but when society conspires to:

  • deny people medical care for even basic conditions like broken arms
  • deprive people of housing
  • deny people the ability to work outright, or in a safe and free from harassment space
  • deny people access to the bathroom
  • ensure that any type of transportation while trans means the threat of carceral rape, especially flying
  • deny goods and services
  • convict and incarcerate transgender people at ridiculous rates
  • exclude transgender people from the fabric of social life

that’s a slow motion genocide. It is obvious that those that hate transgender people see only one solution, which if applied to a race we would call a genocidal stance. These people imagine a world without transgender people and feel that would be better — the goal is to wipe us off the face of the earth, through both slow and fast means.

So imagine now living in this context. Imagine that, as for many transgender people, you are the only one in your workplace, your family, of your friend group who’s being targeted for (this particular) genocide. Imagine coming to work and seeing the pained and worried looks on your coworkers faces as they stare at you and mention TRUMP, as if just mentioning his name should be enough to obviously communicate to YOU why they’re bringing it up. Imagine if that’s all they offered, was the pained looks, the Trump reference. Imagine how it might feel to have folks remind you of your otherness, the Otherness that is making you a target for genocide currently, all day long, while offering no sense of inclusion back. That’s the experience of far too many transgender people today, which is disappointing yes, but more importantly dangerous.

Trump’s tweets regarding transgender people in the military have probably already helped to kill many transgender people and they’ve only been up for 24 hours. Transgender people are at an enormous risk for death from suicide, and many of us will struggle with suicidality throughout our lives. It is my personal belief and experience that a great deal of this suffering could be alleviated by improving the social conditions for transgender people.

Transgender people are first and foremost human beings; any human being who sincerely feared for their life on a daily basis, was socially isolated or feared it should they reveal their personal history, and denied the basic dignity of human services and rights from their government would eventually manifest depression. Every time our rights are rolled back, there is the blow dealt from the actual repeal of the rights, the blow dealt from the surrounding discourse from haters, and then the blow dealt from those closest to us. I’ve seen many memes today about how strong transgender people are, and whie this is true, we are not supernaturally so. Many of us will not be “strong” enough to absorb all that, day-in and day-out, without some serious cracks. Unfortunately, cracking can often mean suicide or a suicide attempt, but the discussion of which also seems to push people away. It’s a catch-22 that’s resulting in a lot of pain and death.

So what all does this have to do with you, dear CisGender Supporter? Well, to put it bluntly, your support is sucking and you need to do better. Because today I scrolled through a generic million and one social media support messages, while virtually no one I know actually sent me a direct message, text, or call. To be even more blunt, when your transgender friends are trying to survive a genocide that’s conducted via inducing suicide via sociatal hate and exclusion, sharing a meme isn’t enough. Further, if today is the first day you posted anything about trans people, why? We are out here dying in the streets every.day, we need your support every.day.

If you have a transgender person in your life, and you would like them to stay alive, I implore you, CisGender Friend, to look deeply into your own life and see how you could offer more and do better. I can’t tell you how many well meaning friends I have on Facebook, many whom have supported my transition, whom I also routinely see posting transphobic jokes or comments, sometimes even aimed at Donald Trump himself. These type of interactions make me the saddest, because it reminds me that even amongst my friends I am subconsciously the butt of the joke, something freakish, or something other, and, often, never “really a guy”, which is to ultimately say, never really a person.

When I decided to come out as transgender, I knew that it meant going from the incredibly low social position of being a disabled brown lesbian latina to something even lower. It may sound dramatic, but in many ways to be an intersectional, poor, transgender brown person whom also happens to be disabled is closer to being an animal than being a Person, as most white American people imagine and experience Person-ness. My expensive gender confirmation surgery? Not paid for by taxpayers, but paid for by CareCredit and GoFundMe’s — strategies I knew about because I used them to get my dogs huge vet bills paid. It goes beyond the medical too — many of the basic luxuries taken for granted as things available to People in American Society are not available to transgender people. Bathrooms, access to goods and services (I’ve been denied service for things like food, seeing a doctor, and a tattoo), and basic medical care, are all things I cannot access consistently or safely.

So it is against this backdrop that your transgender friends are trying to survive, while dealing with the usual miasma of life’s troubles that pepper the bland mashed potato repetition of existence. I hope that you, dear CisGender Supporter, will look deeply into your heart and ask if what you’re doing is really up to the horrible challenge your transgender loved one is facing, and, most importantly, to figure out how you might do more to help. From making an effort to reach and include your transgender friends, to challenging casual transphobia in yourself and others EVERY.TIME.YOU.HEAR.IT., to cutting ties with your bigoted friends instead of quietly disagreeing while reaping the nepotistic benefits, there is more to be done. While Donald was sending out his dumb tweets, an effort in Montana passed a legal challenge that would allow people to sue transgender folks for using the bathroom. Yes really. That will kill more trans people too, just the news of it. Whatever you’re doing, do more, do it faster, do it with more heart.

Sincerely,

Your Transgender Friend