By Gwendolyn Ann Smith
It is the eve of the Winter Solstice as I write this, and this is no better way to allude to where things are right now for the transgender community as a whole. For while we have gained an incredible amount of visibility in the last year or two with the likes of Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox and so many others, we've also seen the highest numbers of reported anti-transgender murder, a high number of trans suicides and increasingly difficult political battles.
Next year will not be much easier, as we still have the darkest days to go.
I've talked before about the importance of the HERO initiative in Houston, Texas, and how its loss — after its foes successfully labeled it a "bathroom bill" and claimed it would allow sexual predators in women's rooms — it worth noting. We are now seeing bathroom battles creeping up across the country, each one taking their cues from the HERO loss.
Amongst those, the current attempt in California will include a $4,000 bounty on transgender people's heads, declaring open season for the bathroom police. Mine and other's privacy will be violated, ironically, in the name of privacy.
We can try to play it cool, and assume such a proposal will go the way of some others this last year — but it is California that gave us both Proposition 22 and Proposition 8, the pair of which limited same-sex marriage in the state. Also, again, this is a post-HERO world, where trans — and others' — rights have been successfully lost at the ballot box.
All of this, of course, is coming in an election year where the right needs an issue to help drive their people to the presidential election, and LBGT rights issues have worked well for them in the past. It's the perfect set up for a long and ugly year of potty politics in your polling place.
It's enough to make one lose hope.
The thing is, as one who has been an out transgender activist for greater than two decades, this is a long game. Yes, things look dark now, but dawn is around the corner — if we want it.
We can be complacent, we can continue to bicker and fight amongst ourselves, we can tear each other down and keep alienating our allies, or we can fight back.
Now, more than many other times in our recent history, is the time to push back. With our visibility in the public square at current, it is more important than ever to use that leverage to help all of us get ahead. Take what visibility we have now, and push for yet more. Get more stories told, get more of our needs out in the open and strike while the iron is hot.
What's more, now is the time to reach out to those most disadvantaged in our community, and make their stories and needs known. I've always felt that human rights should be afforded to all, and with that in mind we all need to build meaningful coalitions amongst the whole of the transgender community. We need to create a harmony of voices, where everyone who identifies as transgender has a place in the choir.
It goes larger than just us, of course. We need to continue to explore our intersections, and look at how race, class, sex and any number of other such things affect us. We have much to learn and much to give, and now is the time to do so.
I'm not going to lie. This is going to be a monumental fight, and like HERO, there will be battles lost. Yet we need to fight on, and continue to build a place in this society for us and for those who will follow beyond us.
Nearly 40 years ago, in the wake of the Stonewall Rebellion and many wins for the gay and lesbian community, a pushback occurred. Spurred on by anti-gay activist and former Miss America Anita Bryant, gay rights begin to take a hit. Bryant herself was heavily involved in the 1977 "Save Our Children" campaign that ended up repealing gay rights in several cities and counties over the course of the next two years.
Think of the loss in Houston as our "Save The Children" moment, and replace the outdated notion of "gays recruit" with all the current nonsense about predators in restrooms. Now look at where the LGBT community is as a whole.
When I first started out in the transgender community, the very notion that transgender people could sell hit records like Laura Jane Grace, or could be on hit television shows like Laverne Cox, Jazz Jennings or Caitlyn Jenner, or could simply have meaningful employment and a roof over their heads while being out and proud of one's self, was practically unheard of.
We've come an amazingly far way in the last 20 years. There were still, for example, laws on the books prohibiting wearing cross-gendered attire; about the best we could hope for was a strong transgender character that still made a film's hero vomit at the site of her.
So while we may not win tomorrow, we will win. At the same time, we cannot expect others to win it for us. We need to stand tall, and we need to foster our allies while we raise our own voices.
So, at the darkest time of our year, let us keep hope. Let's let that hope keep us warm through the cold nights of today. Share our hope with others, and let it grow.
We can win — if we want it.
