Good morning!
As you know, my name is Gwen Smith and founded the Remembering our Dead project, which led to the Transgender Day of Remembrance, I served on the City and County of San Francisco’s Transgender Civil Rights Implementation Task Force, and, yes, I have written for the Bay Area Reporter for the last quarter century.
I want to offer a little nourishment out of my experiences over all these years, to go along with your breakfast.
The world I’ve come out of is not the one we live in today — but there are quite a few echoes.
Back then, transgender issues were largely unknown and unspoken in the great scheme of things. Today, many are pushing back on transgender people, wanting us back in the closet we opened all those years ago.
Through the City Task Force in the early 2000s, we lobbied for single-stall restrooms to be badged for all genders, an echo of fights we see today over trans restroom use.
We also fought for transgender city employees to have insurance coverage that could not deny them over their trans status, an echo of this administration’s attempts to thwart trans care nationwide.
We all had to work hard to educate on transgender rights and transgender needs, even as the right pushed back against us, and as others said that our issues were not politically important enough at the time to gain traction. Other issues were viewed as more important and vital, and transgender issues would simply have to wait.
Rather, we decided to lead, and because of this we’ve had the pleasure of watching transgender rights go from hard-won local battles to a thing treated very seriously at the White House and beyond.
In 2014, TIME magazine spoke to the tipping point for transgender people, as we saw trans rights at levels not seen before.
Little did we know then that this tipping point would also be the moment we would see trans rights begin to ebb.
I think it is human nature, in such times, to try to cling to safety. No one wants to stick their neck out into harm’s way. This makes perfect, logical sense.
As we live in very precarious time indeed, however we still see the echos of where we came from, and a blueprint for where we can go.
The “common wisdom” is that transgender people pressed too hard to our rights, and this led to an inevitable backlash. I would argue that the group who talked about transgender issues the most was not the trans community, not the larger LGBTQ movement, and not democratic politicians. It was the right — and our silence only served to aid them.
We let the right get ahead on this issue and shape the narrative. Further, very few bothered to really attempt to counter it.
This past week, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Skirmetti decision which has the potential to affect transgender care monumentally, I have read pundit after pundit repeat that we all pressed too hard on trans rights, even as we all lived through a presidential election where the democratic frontrunner and the majority of the party as a whole avoided discussing transgender issues at all turns.
There are many who would seek to divide us, to start removing themselves from the larger movement in the name of safety. Perhaps they feel that this will help save their rights at the cost of seemingly more radical voices.
I’d go so far as to state that there are many on the right who would welcome such, even as they betray anyone who willing to divide our community.
The thing is this: you don’t win by conceding ground. You win by fighting back. Our silence truly does lead to complicity — and it is now that we can and must be loud, demanding, and proud.
You can see this in the victory of New York Democratic Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani was painted as a trans rights radical by the New York Post the day before the election. Meanwhile Mamdani spoke on with Laverne Cox about trans rights that same day on Instagram.
The same night in New Hampshire, Billie Butler, a transgender candidate for the state house did not back down from vicious attacks over her transgender nature, and took home a victory.
The thing I want to stress is this. People want boldness and leadership. If we let the right continue to lead on this and other issues, we lose. Now is not the time to shrink back, but to stand up.
My kitchen table exists too, and the rights of all Americans are an important topic there.
Thank you. Be joyous, be resistant, and be well. Happy pride.