Liberals Are Killing Trans Kids.

As the Republican Party marches forward in a full-on legislative assault of transgender rights with healthcare bans, “crossdressing” laws charge trans people as sex offenders for existing while in public, bills that out trans minors to their (likely) transphobic families, and orders to remove transitioning children from their parents, one hopes that the Democratic party would have an adequate response.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Democrats have repeatedly proven themselves spineless. Despite recently having control of the house, senate, and executive branch, the Democratic Party did little more than give lip service to trans issues, with the Biden Administration eventually capitulating and signing onto segregated trans youth from sports participation. Meanwhile, both trans minors and adults across the country are losing legal access to gender-affirming care, and Democrats have done nothing to secure national protections. In a race to the bottom, liberals seem happy to find a middle ground between our mass criminalization and second class citizenry.

Mainstream liberal queer advocacy groups are also quick to undermine the plight of trans youth, with even the most well intentioned framing the issue as being between “children, parents, and their doctors”.

This should give us pause.

Inherent in this statement is the idea that if either the parents or the doctor decided that a child should not be allowed to transition, they would be justified in doing so. But why? Why are we so quick to deny children agency?

We know that many parents would rather see their child on the street than transition. Roughly 37% of transgender and non-binary youth experience homelessness. In the state of Wyoming, 1 in 4 trans youth experience conversion therapy. This violence committed against trans children is done by both parents and medical professionals. So why do we settle for their judgment as the final answer?

As tragic as the current legislative assault on trans rights is, the simple truth is that most young trans people already have our childhoods stolen from us. Not just from the state’s ban of access to public spaces and transition care, but also the property relationship between children and parents it legitimizes. Under current US law, parents de-facto have complete control and discretion over the bodies of their children. In practice, this means that most harm is permitted, so long as the scars inflicted do not leave physical marks too visible and obvious. Patriarchal norms are such that divorce courts are actually more likely to give custody to fathers who are accused of sexually abusing their children.

Minors in our society are merely property of their parents- until they reach an arbitrary date and time, they are denied autonomy. Up until the day one turns 18, if the parent decides it so, it shall be. That children should have no say in their daily affairs has been naturalized to the point that we don’t even allow adolescents to exist freely in public, with many malls across the country requiring an adult chaperone for teenagers. In many places, children will literally have the cops called on them just for walking to school. Underpinning all of this literal paternalism is a set of ridiculous assumptions about what children are capable of- and this of course extends to the way we treat transgender children. We assume parents either a) have a secret internal insight to their children’s “true” underlying “gender essence’’, or b) should have the ability to overrule every aspect of a child’s self-conception, no matter how damaging. Though this structure supposedly exists to protect minors from people, particularly adults, who might otherwise seek to harm them, it merely gives discretion to one of the groups of people most likely to abuse children- their own family members.

Conversion therapy, often the nuclear option for parents who weren’t able to beat or berate the gay out of their child, is pretty unequivocally devastating. Modern research that supports their use is far and few between- it’s not a secret that it results in numerous future problems from suicidality to substance abuse. Despite this now becoming the overwhelming academic consensus, even in the same regressive and conservative institutions responsible for previously pioneering and legitimizing these techniques, politicians enthusiastically advocate for its widespread adoption. Not once are trans youth considered capable of contributing to this conversation. On account of our supposed mental illness and underdeveloped brains, we are considered too delusional to provide any meaningful input into how our own lives should look.

In reality, the internal relationship trans people have with gender is far too complex and immaterial- no amount of brain development is enough to intellectualize yourself into or out of a gender. Gender is a patriarchal social vortex- something that both pulls you to be and act in certain ways while simultaneously squishing you underneath its foot as contradictions arise. Trans people feel the full weight of the foot because we challenge the vortex most belligerently. Trans children cannot be “recruited” into being trans any more than they can be converted into being cis. None of the pro-trans social forces are even close to strong enough to break the chains of the vortex of someone who can’t even feel them there.

Even if you hate trans-feminist theorizations of gender and don’t believe in the numerous research articles demonstrating the effectiveness of trans health care, you should at least be able to, on a human level, understand what trans children go. As such, I’d like to detail some of my own experiences as a former trans child who had been forced to detransition- not just share statistics.

After I came out to my parents, they didn’t take it well. Think lots of yelling, getting grounded, and then eventually institutionalized until I agreed to detransition. Before they decided “enough was enough” and sent me to conversion camp, being the nerdy kid I was, I sent lots and lots and lots of research articles to them- I foolishly thought with the avalanche of evidence that exists supporting the existence of people like me, that they could come to accept me. I was wrong.

Already indoctrinated by “gender-critical” facebook parenting groups, they were convinced of a conspiracy that the medical establishment was pushing hormones onto trans youth to create “lifetime medical patients” who rely on… get this, quite cheap, generic, widely available hormones. But in the real world, the sad reality is that, historically, doctors have been fucking horrible to trans people, since, forever, finding whatever reason they can not to subject us to abuse for our degeneracy and stop us from transitioning. Things have gotten better, but they’re still quite awful, as evidenced by the number of trans kids, my younger self included, who still experienced conversion therapy.

At 15, my parents sent me to a Troubled Teen Industry facility- these are abusive child prisons for children with disabilities and mental/behavioral health issues. That being said, the credit shouldn’t go solely to them- my doctors and social workers were key accomplices. They chose not to believe me when I told them I was trans, and instead thought I needed to get straightened up. Yes, the usage of that phrase was intentional. If it weren’t for them, the referral never would’ve happened in the first place, and none of it would’ve been covered by my parent’s insurance. And they were more than happy to diagnose me with “transvestic disorder”, yes, even in the year 2018, because I had the nerve to both be a trans woman and bisexual. In their eyes, who and what I was was sick- I need correction.

I’ll let you picture the facility: Think outdoors, with negligent staff, widely available weapons and drugs, and constant fighting. We lacked adequate sanitation (no running water, no bathrooms), and staff would routinely enable abusive behavior. Some of them did more than enable, and took advantage of the little oversight to sexually assault patients.

I was also the only trans girl on the strictly gender-segregated boy’s side of the facility. Harassment- verbal, physical, and sometimes even escalating to sexual, was a constant. I could not escape the comments on my body- my excessive femininity, or, alternatively, lack thereof. I either looked like a girl, and that was creepy, or looked like a boy, and that was gross. Some boys were “curious” enough to grab at my chest to “prove” I was really a boy.

After a failed suicide attempt and 5 months behind my back, the facility was looking to offload the liability I’d become and started my release process. This was predicated on the agreement I socially detransition. So, that’s what I did- I cut my hair and agreed to follow new rules by my parents- most principal of which was that I cut off all communication with friends that supported me. I agreed, and was forcibly transferred to another, more conservative school, then when I was still obviously trans, my parents kicked me out a month before I turned 18, leaving me to fend for myself.

Thankfully, I was able to couch-surf my way out of homelessness, for the most part. Most trans youth in my situation aren’t that lucky, If they even make it that far.

Reader: I’m not going to mince my words. If you support what’s happening here- fuck you. If you’re an “ally with hesitations” I need you to understand that real people are hurt by your fence-sitting bullshit. These systems are the reason 40% of us attempt suicide. I don’t need you to understand the ins and outs of queer theory, I just need you to treat trans people and youth with the dignity we deserve.

Protect trans kids.

1. Advocate avenues for children to escape abusive families that aren’t “more abusive group home” or “more abusive foster care”. Better yet, step up by stepping up to create housing support networks in your community. If you know a queer kid, don’t let them go homeless.
2. Stop trying to find a middle ground between those who support trans people and those who want us dead. There is no “third way”, I don’t care how much of an ally you call yourself.
3. Raise the social consequences for transphobia. Show your transphobic friends and family members that you won’t put up with their reactionary bullshit. If they don’t cease, break it off. Your silence normalizes these reactionary attitudes and allows them to fester unchallenged.
4. If fascists in your area are targeting queer people, be it at the next drag show or pride parade, you should grab your friends and be prepared to confront them. We can’t do it alone, and we can’t allow them to normalize this.
5. Show up to school board meetings. Raise hell. If you’re not there, Moms for Liberty and other Christofascists will be. Be prepared to escalate. If they take an inch, you should take a mile.

5a. Don’t be afraid of civil disobedience. If trans women can risk going to men’s prisons when fighting for their rights, so can you. But don’t be a martyr. Prepare.

Trans people are less than a percent of the population. Cis people (queers and non-queers alike) need to step the fuck up yesterday. Please. Please.