It took until my 50s for me to find that I enjoy writing. This coincided with my male-to-female transition, when I realized that I had a heck of a lot to say, and there were a lot of injustices directed at the transgender community that I felt I had to fight with my words and real life experience.
I would be loathe not to write about the largest coordinated assault on the civil rights of transgender children and their supportive families occurring in a number of red states, and Texas, Florida and Idaho come particularly to mind.
I will be blunt and say that my coming out at age 41 was an unmitigated disaster, so much so, that I had to come out again at age 50 — luckily that one stuck. As one can imagine, transitioning to female at 50 was not easy, it certainly changed my life, and I am a much happier, more complete person for it. I wish I could have done this in my teens — in the 1970s and early 1980s — but that option was never really on the table for children or many adults for that matter.
I cannot express how happy and excited I am that young people who happen to recognize that they are transgender are being lovingly supported by their families and peers. These kids are getting the therapy and medical care they need to thrive and feel the same sense of self-fulfillment that it took me until age 50 to discover.
Yet, the ignorant, right-wing conservative, frequently so-called “Christian,” leaders in many states can’t leave well enough along and allow these trans kids and their families to live their lives free of government interference into what are clearly very personal family matters. Were I not transgender myself, I know I’d still be appalled — I feel the same way about the excessive female reproductive health restrictions being enacted by these same states, and I’m never going to get pregnant. These laws are cruel, and are akin to state bullying.
Punishing kids by forcing them to play school sports with kids of their sex and not their gender is downright mean, but calling out, and potentially criminally punishing parents of trans kids for allowing them to take puberty blockers or perhaps hormones is truly the evil stuff of Nazi Germany or Russia.
In their ignorance, many of these red state legislators seem to think trans kids are receiving gender surgeries — they are wrong. For individuals to receive surgery, they must be 18 or older. Mostly, parents are just allowing their school-aged trans sons and daughters to wear clothes and chose a name that matches their identifed gender.
Currently, there is a majority of Democrats in the House, and an even split in the Senate. I know based on his State of the Union address that President Biden is fully aware of the cruel actions being taken by power-hungry Republican governors and legislatures in many states. I would love to see the president use this valuable opportunity to create legislation with Congress to provide iron-clad protections for the LGBTQ+ community and to women’s reproductive health prior to this fall’s election.
Alternatively, I would like to see him use his presidential powers to protect these communities as he said he would. This is a crisis for many people.
For me, I think what makes this most urgent, is that I know that real human lives are on the line. Not being able to live as the gender you identify with can take a massive toll on mental health — I can fully attest to that. I’ve heard of too many people in the LGBTQ+ community flirting with the idea of, or succeeding, in ending their lives because of lack of family or societal support. To this news, maybe the red state legislators say “good!” I happen to say, “What a phenomenal loss to our planet.”
Mariel E. Addis lives in Florence.