What now?

The initial shock of Tuesday's election results has lessened somewhat, and the pall of uncertainty hangs over our future.

What remains is for us, personally, to determine how to move forward. I've been in touch with others in the local transgender community over the past few days and many are crumpled emotionally. Understandably so. While nobody can predict what is to come, the rhetoric leading up to the election by Trump and others is terrifying.

But we can't let it be paralyzing.

Let's start with some facts.

Every single trans person is a fighter. Whether you have been out for decades or your egg is newly cracked, at some point you made a life-altering decision that upended your world. You likely became estranged from at least a few people previously close to you. Your decision may have cost you a job, or a friendship. But you had the intestinal fortitude to make it, because you knew you had to. You knew you had to transition to save your sanity, to live a truer life, to pursue happiness as your authentic self. And you also knew the risks that came with your transition. Yet, you did it.

Call upon that same resolve now. Draw up that survival instinct that allows you to face each day knowing that unforeseen insult and bias likely await you. If not, the alternative is to hide in your room, isolate yourself from humanity, cover your head and hope it all goes away. But that's not a life. And it's certainly not the life you dreamed of when you started your transition.

I have to temper my remarks here. My natural tendency is to push back when I'm pushed. I like to think I'm being pugnacious. Others see it as being obnoxious. Whatever. The bottom line is that whenever I get angry, or am faced with an unpleasant reality, I turn that into action. Anger into action. Nobody's pushover.

And that is what I suggest for YOU and for our community as a whole. Take that fury inside you and actualize it. Venting on social media or to your peer group, is wasted energy. Nothing changes because you have strung together a bunch of insults and invective directed at the people who voted Trump into office. I get the cathartic effect of such venting, but be done with it and start planning a truly effective response.

As I've suggested repeatedly over the past few days, get involved with local and national politics. There are multiple ways to do so, seek them out. For instance: Today there is that meeting hosted by the Transgender Unity Coalition at the Vertex Coffee house, 307 N. River Street, in Ypsilanti. It begins at 10:30 and is scheduled to run until noon. If you can, go there and listen to what their plans are to get Michigan House Bills 5300-5303, passed. Those bills directly benefit the trans community in Michigan by making name and gender marker change easier in this state.

I'm happy to report that post-election, a fire has rekindled nationally among trans rights groups.

A coalition of over 80 trans and gay rights organizations has signed and released a letter stating their joint efforts to combat any attempts to restrict our rights federally.

The list of cooperating organizations includes some here in Michigan. A quick perusal of the signers shows Equality Michigan among them. Check out their site, call them and see what you can do to help.

Equality Michigan

I choose to look at this election as a wake-up call to the transgender community. The visibility we now enjoy is a double-edged sword. We are no longer able to live under the radar of cis Americans. We are part of the national conversation. Thankfully, though, a Human Rights Campaign poll taken post-election, had some relatively positive results:

“'opposing surgeries for trans people and trans kids’ participation in sports as issues motivating them to vote.”

"A 60% majority support a federal law that would make it illegal to deny services to LGBTQ people and would ban discrimination in employment and housing; this majority includes 57% of the non-college voters that played such an outsized role in Trump’s election. An even stronger 73% majority (60% among Republicans) argue the government should not interfere with the health care transgender people receive."

I wish the poll had shown that 100% of Americans supported our rights, but that's too much to ask, I guess.

The point is that you have to get involved. Bitching and moaning and seeking revenge on those who voted the Republicans into office, accomplishes NOTHING. Calling your local representative in Lansing to press them to vote for Bills 5300-5303, does accomplish something.

Be angry, but be active.

--- Anni 🏳️‍⚧️