Welcome to #TransTuesday! This was difficult to write. It makes me uncomfortable, and it will likely make you uncomfortable. But I can’t NOT talk about it, it’s been on my mind since Roe fell. Clear your mind, because we’re talking TRANS RAGE aka STOP FORGETTING ABOUT US.
Cis folks, maybe more than ever I NEED YOU TO RETWEET AND SHARE THIS. Your followers are the ones who need to see it. And add your own note, tell them why they should read it. They’ll listen to you. Please.
I wasn’t sure if I should talk about this. I wasn’t sure if I COULD talk about this. Trans people have to be… careful with the things we say, as so many willfully misinterpret our words to serve their own ends, or get really defensive and refuse to listen.
https://x.com/TillyBridges/status/1541500407863599104
https://www.facebook.com/tillysbridges/posts/pfbid02yXpDmTR4KXXUHunHbVAdN9FHsWACai2XjrzFbfXKHfz5QbenjhH25zd5ZGs6iT4l
It’s especially difficult for me because not only do I try to always be a positive person, I AM a positive person. I’m eternally optimistic and hopeful and the glass is never ever ever half empty. Susan will confirm, but trust I ain’t lyin’ to you.
I don’t like to be negative, and I have the slowest burning fuse of anyone you’ve ever met. It takes MOUNTAINS of shit to get me worked up, but injustice works me up faster than anything else, and once I get there I’m incandescent with fury. Guess where I am now!
But last weekend my lovely friends Barbra Dillon and Bryant Dillon held a zoom for folks to talk about our feelings about Roe, and to work together to find ways forward and actions we can take to help.
As far as I know, I was the only trans person in attendance. So I brought this up, alone, to all the cis people present. And though I love the Dillons dearly and trust they’d not invite any bigots, you still never know how people are going to react.
Other people I consider friends (some of them good friends!) were there, but also several others I’d never spoken to before. And they held space for me, and listened, and understood. And that gave me the guts to talk about it now, so I want to thank them all for that. Here we go.
The overturning of Roe is horrific. It’s awful. It’s violence. It’s abhorrent. And we need to be working on ways to fix the problem. Already there have been protests, and mass outcry, and that’s GOOD. That is how it should be. We need it all. And more.
Companies are stepping in to say they’ll pay for their employees to travel to states where abortion care is legal. On the one hand it’s good they’re doing something, but on the other it further tethers employees to jobs for the human right of healthcare, which is ungood.
And how many of those same companies donated to anti-choice politicians? It’s RAINBOW CAPITALISM all over again, only somehow more sinister, if you can believe it.
So where does the rage come in? Well let me fucking tell you. It comes from people upon people upon people saying LGBTQ rights will be next, and that if men needed abortions this would never have happened, AND BOTH OF THOSE THINGS ARE COMPLETELY WRONG.
Trans rights have been under attack for years. WE’RE NOT NEXT, WE WERE FIRST. Trans men and non-binary people can get pregnant! Trans men are MEN and some of them CAN get pregnant and just think for one damned second before you speak would you please.
I have been yelling and screaming for years (YEARS) about what’s happening to trans people in this country, and begging cis people to do something. Again, there are not enough trans people by population percentage to do these things on our own. See the trans tuesday on TRANS POLITICS.
Every trans person I know has been asking cis people to step up, to help us. There is a literal GENOCIDE going on, and that’s not fucking hyperbole.
https://twitter.com/MavenOfMayhem/status/1533642474710659072
PEOPLE WHO TEACH ABOUT GENOCIDES SAY THIS IS A GENOCIDE AGAINST TRANS PEOPLE.
https://x.com/SpectralMother/status/1534220621365780481
Will you listen to them?
https://x.com/mswyrr/status/1534174739907760129
It’s gotten so bad some trans people are detransitioning, and not because they discovered they’re not trans but because THEY’RE SCARED FOR THEIR LIVES.
https://x.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1541532845709082626
I’ve told you how just existing in the world that cis people have made is a CONSTANT FIGHT for us, even if we don’t WANT to fight, because we’re left with no other choice.
I’ve told you about the importance of CIS ALLYSHIP.
And about how you’re not an ally if you’re an ally in name only, in PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP.
I’ve talked multiple times about all the things trans people do to make CIS people comfortable. The things we do for YOU so you will LEAVE US ALONE, like BOYMODE/GIRLMODE.
Years of asking, of begging, of pleading with you to help. I know many of you individually have helped, and spoken up, and stood up for us (though if you’re feeling guilty now because maybe you haven’t, think about that). This is not about that.
But where is the collective public outcry? Where are the mass protests, the strikes, the wave of people speaking out and decrying this genocide for what it is? You (collectively) DO NOT SHOW UP FOR US.
Despite the fact that I’ve explained time and again how the fight for trans rights IS THE EXACT SAME AS THE FIGHT FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS. IT IS THE FIGHT FOR BODILY AUTONOMY. WE ARE ON THE SAME SIDE.
Yet despite facing the largest amounts of violence in history, both physical and legislative, despite being hounded everywhere we go by men who fetishize us and TERFs who are threatened by us, we have to deal with choads like this who BLAME TRANS WOMEN for Roe falling.
And it’s not just internet randos, oh no. I’m not going to link to them because I will NOT spread their hate and lies, but there are entire websites and groups of bigoted TERFs organizing around the principle that trans women are at fault for Roe falling.
As if human rights were a pie, and because trans people were ~briefly allowed to exist in some places (but not all!)~ cis women had to lose some of their human rights. IT’S UNACCEPTABLE, UNINTELLIGENT, IGNORANT BULLSHIT.
But we trans ladies get blamed for the sexual violence cis men commit, despite there being no evidence of that whatsoever, so why not also blame us for the other horrible, hateful things THAT CIS MEN ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR? Sure, add it to the pile. Why not.
Trans people, as a group, are tirelessly supportive of abortion rights. Not only do they personally apply to a whole lot of us, even we trans women know IT. IS. THE. SAME. FIGHT. You should have control over your own body. So should we. WE ALL SHOULD.
https://twitter.com/GBBranstetter/status/1541044723883950080
But so often, so little is done for US. Trans rights are being obliterated all across the country, and we scream about it and point it out and tell you and ask you to help, and the general cisgender population has met all of this with a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So much so it’s sadly what we’ve come to expect.
https://twitter.com/NicoleAMaines/status/1541503589763260417
We’ve been your canaries in the coal mine, telling you what was happening, warning you this was coming and that they would not stop with us. Even though it shouldn’t matter, because OUR RIGHTS ARE WORTH FIGHTING FOR ALL ON THEIR OWN. WE’RE HUMAN BEINGS.
But it’s not until half the population of cis people are affected directly that the collective group takes action. And the feeling that causes, when simply trying to live my life as a trans woman is made SO hard, prompts things like this:
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1529589430587211778
Why are we not worth fighting for? Why will you not listen? Why do you not care until it affects you personally? Why do you forget we exist? Don’t say “if men could get pregnant this would never happen” BECAUSE THAT ERASES TRANS MEN.
Imagine how it feels to have your entire type of human ERASED as if you’re not there, as if you don’t matter, as if your life and rights aren’t JUST as important as cis people’s. IMAGINE IT.
Shit, even my own healthcare provider, who’s covered ALL of my transition care, does not have systems in place to acknowledge the existence of trans people! See the trans tuesday on DISCRIMINATORY BUREAUCRACY.
Stop forgetting about us! Remember that we exist, and that we MATTER. Cis ladies and cis men who believe in abortion rights, WE ARE ON YOUR SIDE. IT IS THE SAME FIGHT.
You CANNOT be neutral, that is AIDING THE OPPRESSOR. If you won’t stand up and tell them it’s wrong, YOU. ARE. PART. OF. THE. PROBLEM. Your silence is allowing it to happen.
Please please please remember OUR right to bodily autonomy is also under attack. We’re standing up for you, but OUR LIVES ARE ON THE LINE AND WE NEED YOU TO STAND UP FOR US TOO.
We cannot do it alone. We need you. WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com