My Name Is Iden | Be visible, vocal — or be erased
- Published: February 6, 2025
A trans woman responds to the president:
I used to call my friends “f-gs.” Even after I learned where the term came from, I still thought it was funny. It was the ’90s. I was a straight teenage boy — so I thought — and burning people alive for being queer didn’t seem real to me.
I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I wasn’t going to follow through on the threat that is implicit in that word. Obviously. I was just having fun and my friends were, you know, being f-gs.
I did not know what it meant to be queer. I had no exposure to that world or people living with the reality of those identities. It never occurred to me that, by participating in those homophobic teenage antics, I was contributing to a culture of hate and fear. I didn’t know that I was hurting people because I didn’t understand that there were people to be hurt.
Then I made some new friends, some gay friends, and I got it. They didn’t have to tell me to stop using that word or explain anything. They just had to be themselves. In doing that, they put a face and an emotional connection to an issue I had never thought of: queer rights. I understood that these were real people, and that I had been hurting them.
Thirty years later and here I am: an out pansexual, transgender person — a bona fide, card-carrying f-g — listening to the president of the United States tell the world that taking away my rights and erasing my identity is now national policy. Donald Trump said that. He said it and the crowd applauded.
I am writing today because I am scared. I am scared. But not of the president. Donald Trump does not scare me. It is the crowds who follow him that I fear.
Donald Trump did not invent hate. He did not invent fear. He did not invent ignorance, homophobia or misogyny. Donald Trump is a con man. He does not invent anything. He merely sees an angle and plays it. Donald Trump is not the cause of these problems. He is the result of them.
77,284,118 votes were cast for President Trump this past November. The Council on Foreign Relations tells me that is the second highest number of votes in U.S. history. I am just one queer. One, tiny, scared little f-g. What can I do? What can any of us trans/ enby/genderqueer folks do to keep ourselves from being hurt when that many people voted to hurt us?
We can do what my friends did 30 years ago. We can stand up and tell the world who we are. That is the only way that I see to change that many minds — and changing minds is exactly what we must do.
No election will fix this for us. It is no longer an option to put our heads down and wait out the next four years. There will always be some sly carnival barker waiting to exploit people’s ignorance. Only by removing the ignorance can we safeguard against that, and the only way I know to do that is through personal interaction. It is easy to hurt people who do not seem real to you. It is easy to clap for a man calling for federally sanctioned discrimination against people who are faceless. It is not such an easy thing to do when that man is threatening to hurt your neighbor, or your spouse, or your co-worker, or your child.
He is going to do that — President Trump is not some naive teenager. He knows exactly what he is saying, and he has a mob of 77,284,118 people emboldening him. He will follow through on the threat implicit in his statement, because that is his angle. President Trump will hurt us if we do not stand up now and put a face on the faceless. We do that by being visible. By being visible we take away that mob, one mind at a time.
That is a radical and courageous thing to do. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I know that. I know what I am asking. I already said that I am scared. But 30 years ago, I met some people who were radical and courageous. They changed my mind, just by being themselves. Millions of queer people before me have risked everything to get us where we are today.
Now it’s my turn. It is our turn. I believe in coming out. There is power in being yourself. I have seen it. We cannot be silent. We cannot be hidden. No election can save us. No leader can save us. This isn’t a problem of leaders — it is a problem of 77,284,118 ill-informed, wrong-minded individuals, and only by standing up and playing our individual parts can we counter it.
I speak and write a lot. I don’t know for sure if what I say and do influences anyone. I hope it does, I believe it does — but I don’t know. I don’t know if I have changed anyone’s mind about transgender people since coming out, but I do know this: I smell smoke. I am as scared as anyone. I am not about to let them turn me or my friends to ashes, and I don’t see any better way to stop this.
I have chosen to fight, and this is my call to my fellow transfolks and to those who call themselves allies. This is our moment to do good in this world, and there may not be another. Find your courage. Find your strength and stand up;, wherever you are, stand up. Raise your voice. Tell the world who you are in whatever way you are able.
Be vocal. Be visible. Or be erased.
We are more than firewood. Don’t let them burn us.
*The author is an artist and writer. She lives in Yellow Springs with her wife and three children. You can follow her work at mynameisiden.com.
The Yellow Springs News encourages respectful discussion of this article.
You must login to post a comment.
Don't have a login? Register for a free YSNews.com account.
No comments yet for this article.