What would you be willing to give up? A good-paying job? Some friends? Some family members? Bodily strength? Your physical safety? Your input in important discussions? A strong libido? Control over emotions? Your place in society?
To some extent, I gave up just about all of these when I transitioned from male-to-female. I am not bitter about this; I chose to do this and I am happy to be living as female — what I consider to be “my truth.” I also really like the female me a lot more than the male one and am frankly, without sounding vain, pretty proud of who I am and what I’ve accomplished in the last 10 years of my life, particularly the last six. As I’ve written before, “I love being a girl!”
None of what I’ve written here is new; I’ve written about all this in other essays. What is different at this particular time is that we are weeks away from probably the most important election of our collective lives. This could, and I hope does, in fact, lead to removal of the most corrupt presidential administration in this nation’s history — and a heck of a lot of do-nothing sycophants in Congress in the process.
Above, I posed the following question: “What would you be willing to give up?” I think it is a good and very apt question, and not just for people in the transgender community, but for all of us at right now. That “all of us” in particular includes women, immigrants, members across the LGBTQ+ community, anyone who practices a faith other than Christianity (Christian nationalism in particular), people of color, people of minimal means — I could go on. Certainly, many of the items I listed at the top of this essay apply to large swaths of the U.S. population. We have already given up a lot in terms of our financial security, our healthcare, our education system, and our collective mental health; we can’t afford to give up anything more, nor should we have to. This administration is bleeding us dry and neither Trump nor anyone in his circle gives a damn.
Knowing this valley like I do, I suspect I’m preaching to the choir here, but being anything other than a straight, white, right-wing, American-born, so-called Christian has not been very easy since Jan. 20, 2025. Even if you haven’t been specifically targeted by this administration, you have likely been sickened by the ongoing news out of our government, from destruction of buildings in DC, attacks on our traditional allies and the rule of law, cuts to food and medical aid, huge tax breaks for the uber-wealthy, the rampant corruption— all either done or blindly allowed by a bunch of complicit senators, representatives, and other government lackeys. If we don’t get these criminal folks out of DC, we will be faced with asking ourselves what else we are willing to give up.
Massachusetts is, of course, among the bluest of the blue states and I write this as an independent voter (frankly, I may be currently listed as a Democrat since I voted for Democrats in the most recent primary, something at this juncture, I’m fine with). I expect that the “blue” makeup of our state and federal government office holders in the commonwealth will remain largely unchanged. That said, and I can’t believe I’m writing this as someone who wants stronger, viable party choices than just our two major U.S. political parties, but we really need to encourage friends and family in other states to vote “blue” this year as well. I am hopeful that we can all topple this regime if we work together.
Mariel E. Addis is a native of Florence. She left the area for 16 years but returned in 2013.