You Can't Take Back What God Made

No one can.

(image credit: Erik McGregor // LightRocket via Getty Images)

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I had planned to spend today away from all things news and politics, which, I will admit, was probably a naïve goal.

In the past few hours, I have received numerous messages from friends, colleagues, and strangers about Trump’s inauguration address directly pledging to essentially regulate and legislate trans and non-binary people out of existence.

I have only a few thoughts to share, and after I hit send on this, I’m going to spend the rest of today with people I love.

I am, of course, scared for trans and non-binary people generally, but especially youth and communities of color and religious minorities and migrants and those without access to adequate and affordable health care and every other vulnerable person in this country who is being forced to navigate those aspects of their struggle in this world and alongside that: the federal government aggressively targeting them for being trans.

I know tens of millions of non-trans people share that fear for the safety and wellbeing of trans people, and I’m thankful for non-trans people who recognize the cruelty and senselessness on display.

That much is obvious, but what’s less obvious is the central tragedy spurring these actions of hatred: the belief among Trump’s supporters that recognition of gender identity is somehow playing a significant role in their own struggles.

I genuinely feel bad for them. I really do.

Trump has zeroed-in on their discomfort with the existence of trans people—borne out of propaganda and not personally knowing any trans people—and weaponized it into a policy vision that is solely intended as a useful distraction and will do nothing to alleviate their everyday struggles.

Removing trans people—and any recognition of trans people—will not improve wages or benefits or costs of housing or childcare or food prices or gas prices or health care or stem the growing and cruel and embarrassing chasm between the wealthiest elite and working class families in the richest nation on earth.

Removing trans kids from public schools will not improve the quality of education for any child in this country or make the American Dream more accessible for any family.

Removing the rare trans girl or young woman from sports teams will do absolutely nothing to improve the growth of women’s sports, and when such a ban is implemented, Trump and the Republican Party will go right back to intentionally and shamelessly ignoring the misogynistic biases and lack of funding that have long hampered the growth of women’s sports, which have always been the actual war on women’s sports.

Removing trans people from our military will only weaken our national security, erasing billions in personnel development and expertise, significantly harming our military’s recruitment and retention efforts, and ultimately making our country less prepared against credible threats. It will make our country far less safe.

Erroneously declaring there are only two biological sexes will not erase the existence of the nearly six million Americans who were born intersex and whom, by scientific definition, do not fit neatly into that false binary.

Removing any recognition of trans people in the federal government—to include passports and government IDs and other documentation—will, of course, do absolutely nothing to help anyone who isn’t trans and probably make life more complicated for everyone.

Banning trans identities in libraries and popular media and every other forum will not prevent your child from being trans anymore than it would make them trans because being trans has never been a choice. The only choice a trans person makes is whether or not to come out.

Banning gender-affirming care for youth, medical care that’s been endorsed by every major medical authority in our country, will only exacerbate the suffering of our nation’s children.

When the dust has settled, when all these actions have been taken, after the courts have weighed in, even assuming they’re all successfully implemented, the tragic irony is that Trump’s supporters will discover that not only do trans and non-binary people still exist but so, too, will the ongoing, everyday struggles of non-trans people.

Once the discomfort over trans and non-binary people has been directly addressed through the full gamut of the resources of the federal government and every lever under Trump’s control has been pulled, his supporters will not only find their problems in life have not improved but trans folks are still very much around.

Their stubborn discomfort over trans people will never go away because trans people will never go away.

Trans and non-binary people exist all over the world and always have. In every nationality, every race, every ethnicity, every country, every culture, every religion, over thousands of years of recorded human history, all around the globe, you will find trans and non-binary people.

We have always been here, and we always will be. We are naturally occurring.

And it will be a crushing realization for a lot of non-trans people in this country when, after Trump has done all he says he will, their struggles are still present and targeting trans people both failed to remove their discomfort with our existence and alleviate their growing rage and desperation with trying to exist in a country that makes it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for working class families to survive.

So, yes, as strange as it may sound to many, I genuinely feel bad for these people. They have been sold a senseless narrative that revolves around a cruel solution to a non-existent problem that's used to assign blame for their struggles by someone who could not care less about their welfare.

I find that tragic.

Meanwhile, once again, trans people aren’t going anywhere.

I spent all of childhood and most of adulthood in deep anxiety, depression, anger, and denial over my gender identity. For many years, I prayed God would somehow heal me—would somehow cleanse me—of being who I am.

It took a long time to recognize being trans is a gift from God and that I am lovingly made in God's image, and for all the obstacles, I am never closer to God than in my full authenticity.

Trump can take that up with Her.

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