Transgender Survival Today (And Even Triumph!)

And why do we care what's on our passports?

Yesterday a friend (and reader of Hanna's Ascent) asked me if I could (and would) say something about how and when I knew I was transgender. That is a good starting point for arriving at a useful answer to a question that some of us now grapple with daily: what can we do to defend ourselves?

My answer to the “when” was easy: four. The “how” is of course the nub. At that time the story of Christine Jorgensen was not yet known in the U.S., let alone on a Colorado ranch twenty-two miles removed from the nearest town. We didn't so much as see a newspaper regularly; I don't think I'd heard the word “television.” The idea of social contagion, of which the current transmisic regime is so enamored, is a rather bitter joke indeed.

So how did I know? I just knew.

On the day I first saw a girl, and was old enough to know that this human being was different from my parents and brother, I knew. Of course I had no words for that knowledge; they would take another sixteen years to arrive. But I can remember very clearly the sense of “that's me.” Not: “I was born in the wrong body.” Not: “My private parts are wrong.” Not: “I want different toys and clothing.” Just an inchoate feeling (“a sense of something far more deeply interfused” – thank you, William): that's me.

And it never went away.

Self-identification sounds so cavalier to the uninitiated, as if one can just decide one morning: I think I'll have scrambled eggs, and – oh, yes, tell the DMV I want an “F” on my driver's license. So many people think it's about clothing or makeup (yeah, J.K., if the shoe fits, wear it). In reality one's whole self simply “knows.” It doesn't “identify” (what an abysmal misuse of language that word is here): it “knows.” It's one's Being.

This is why those legal documents are not just important: they're vital (as in: life depends on them). An attack on that identity is an attack on the essence of self. Frankly, it's really not all that surprising when young people end their lives rather than accept having an identity forced on them that every psychic antibody they have rejects. What's surprising is that some don't.

Though I am not a young person anymore, my feeling is similar. I will never, ever accept a government that attempts to label me with a destructive lie. Yuri Zhivago refused to leave Russia, despite knowing it would probably cost him his life, because that was so tightly enmeshed with his sense of self. But nationality is a distant satellite compared to the nucleus of gender identity.

So, faced with an increasingly dictatorial government that wants to forbid that identity and ultimately “eradicate” us, what can and must we do? We will not win by numbers. Even the entire LGBTQ+ community is barely 10% of the population. Frequently fluctuating poll numbers aside: what we know is that many Americans are allies, many are bitter opponents, and many are in between. Those in between can be influenced.

But there is little time, because the current Federal cabinet is filled with fanatical transmisics. Marco Rubio's State Department has already eliminated the right of trans people to get an honest new passport, or to replace a lost one. Over at HHS, where the power to punish even private hospitals for dispensing life-saving healthcare resides, RFK Jr. has expressed the view that certain pesticides can be at the root of “gender confusion” (as he calls it). It isn't only essential healthcare for minors that's at risk.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from any effort toward resistance to the absence of empathy that we face today. But I doubt that calling or writing one's representatives will move those lines very much. The branch in the best position to oppose the mutinous executive is the judiciary. There is politicization there too, but many recent decisions are very encouraging. There are two problems – and they have solutions.

One is enforcement: if the Justice Department ignores the law, what power does a judge have? But with enough decisions, it becomes ever harder for them to be ignored. And note how much resistance we're seeing in the ranks of the enforcers – the more of those resignations, the weaker the remainder is, and the stronger the outside forces.

Second: pace. Judges normally follow calendars set by filing order, and their subsequent pace follows traditional practices. Indeed, Trump used this to avoid prosecution before the election. SCOTUS has a large fraction of the blame for that, but trial judges could have used their discretion much more aggressively. I don't want bias: the law will reassert itself if allowed. But it must happen soon. Pressure from the public on judges to take this into account could be the difference between survival and failure.

This isn't a call to write letters to judges. But the voices of organizations like the ACLU, GLAAD, and many others can help, and we can help them.