“We Deserve A Whole Month:” Our Message to You on Trans Day of Visibility

Hello to my transgender and nonbinary family, and happy Trans Day of Visibility!

National Women’s Law Center has some important messages to share today:

  1. Most importantly, we love trans people. We love nonbinary people, gender nonconforming people, intersex people, and people questioning their identity. We love you and your families, chosen and otherwise.
  2. To every state governor with an anti-trans bill sitting on their desk: these proposed laws are unconstitutional and wrong. We demand you veto laws that harm trans people, especially trans kids who need support and love instead of a government telling them they’re wrong for being themselves. It is disgusting for anyone to claim harming trans children could help “protect women and girls.” Those people should be ashamed.
  3. To everyone who’s seeing bad news about hundreds of attacks on trans and nonbinary people and wants to help: great, go here to learn more and get started! The movement for trans rights doesn’t just need action from people living in Texas or Florida–every person can do something today.
    1. If you’re from Missouri: contact your state senator about stopping SB 781, an anti-trans athletics ban, and share this video of a dad explaining all the harm the bill would cause
    2. If you’re from Oklahoma: contact Governor Stitt about vetoing SB2, an anti-trans athletics ban, and contact your legislators here about other bad pending bills
    3. If you’re from Tennessee: SB2153 would stop transgender women from playing on the correct college sports teams–contact your lawmakers here about opposing anti-trans bills like SB2153
    4. If you’re from Alabama: contact your state lawmakers about stopping SB184, an anti-trans healthcare ban
    5. If you visit the Trans Week website and your state doesn’t have any anti-trans laws pending, that means you can focus on getting federal law protections for trans people! Call your senators today and tell them to pass the Equality Act.
  4. Trans Day of Visibility deserves its own full month given just how much we have to fit in: our joy, rage, grief and memory. As my colleagues have put it better than I can, trans visibility without resources and action only hurts us. Pretending representation alone equals justice only leaves us vulnerable and targeted for bigotry.
  5. Over this past year, NWLC has fought for trans rights in states and in Congress. We’ve asked the White House to follow through on commitments to LGBTQI+ students and supported State Department plans to implement X gender markers on passports. We’ve advocated alongside trans women seeking accurate IDs in federal court. NWLC knows there can be no gender justice without trans liberation, as our complementing fights are fundamentally about autonomy, the ability to determine our own futures.

I hope as we wrap up the celebration and reflection of this week, we can all feel galvanized to act. The only thing that gives me as much energy as the excellent company of my movement accomplices is the growing tally of dead bigoted bills left in our wake.