It’s now considered impolite to call transgender people names in public, but we’re still treated like subhuman beasts.
Recently, as I was descending a long flight of stone stairs, an older colleague behind me stumbled, slipped, and began to fall. I heard the scrape of his shoe losing traction behind me, the awkward heavy step as he began his plunge, and I acted without thinking. I couldn’t see what was happening, but I twisted, braced my feet, opened my arms, and caught him an embrace. I stood him upright, then quickly let him go and took a hasty step back.
“I’m sorry,” I said hurriedly.
“Why?” he asked. “You probably just saved me from being seriously hurt or killed.”
I said nothing, but in truth I knew the answer. In the back of my mind, I can never forget that I am a monster to not just half the population, but to the people in charge of the legislative and executive branches of government and most churches. In 49 states, the fact that I can be killed for touching a cisgender person simply because I am transgender is a valid, viable, and effective legal defense.
In times past, those afflicted with leprosy were supposed to cry out wherever they went, “Leper! Outcast! Unclean!” Transgender women are expected to do the same, for the good of all the real humans out there, of course. In bathrooms, in school, on Match.com, in sports, we are expected to announce ourselves like bearers of a terrible plague or face the wrath of those fortunate enough not to be monsters for “tricking” them.
Those who see us as monsters do not care whether we act like monsters or not. They will thank us sincerely for our service and all those tours in the sandbox one moment, then condemn us even more fiercely the next when they learn we are transgender. It does not matter whether I go to church, pay my taxes, treat people the way they would want to be treated, and love my children and raise them well — I am a monster and will always be one.
There is nothing more dangerous and terrifying than us. We are the thing that lives under the bed and devours children in the night. According to the pope, our existence pronounces a doom upon humanity and is an existential threat to be eradicated, for the good of all the real and good humans. This is why the Southern Baptist Convention tells parents it is better to let their children die than to become a monster like me, despite the fact that we have existed in other cultures, side by side with billions of people, for millennia. This does not dissuade them; “natural law,” God, and their convictions are on their side.
They hate the young monsters the most, however. Because they don’t look like monsters. They don’t sound like monsters are supposed to sound. They don’t act like monsters are supposed to act. They live in mortal fear that naïve and foolish humans will think that these young transgender kids aren’t really monsters and might accept them into human society.
The real humans use their churches to mobilize armies to strike down the horrors that look, sound, and act exactly like innocent 7-year-old children. They are a righteous brigade bent on banishing a mighty and dangerous foe. It is their goal to drive all of us, young and old, into our troll holes, never to emerge into the sunlit world again.
They cannot be diverted from their implacable mission. They freely admit that nothing on heaven or earth can dissuade them from obliterating this transgender scourge. Nothing in science or religion will convince them that there is an ounce of humanity or worth in the life of such monsters. They are convinced that we exist only to be driven out or destroyed.
They are convinced that monsters are all liars as well, who will do anything to persuade people not to slay them. We are those who invoke science and point out the good things they have done; people who have families, live quietly and peacefully among the real humans for decades, and believe that all sentient life is equally valuable. What else would you expect, coming from beings of such pure evil? To the real, good humans these are obvious untruths designed to prey on the two human weaknesses of empathy and pity.
They are too smart for these tricks, of course. They have slain other monsters in the past and claim to now regret it. But this time, this time for certain, history will bear out the nobility of their deeds, for God and the fate of humanity are on their side.
No one seems to ask what it is we monsters fear, however.
It isn’t some creeping horror under our beds. It’s not something hiding in our closet; those were aerated and thrown wide open long ago. We don’t have to turn out the lights to imagine what scares us. It’s all around us, every day, all the time in our waking world. Our stuff of nightmares is in the news, in our schools, where we work, in the churches, and in our government.
We fear the real, “good” humans who outnumber us 200 to one. They have untold wealth, numbers, and power to throw at us. By their own admission, nothing in this universe can dissuade them from hunting down and eradicating all of us. They hate us simply for being monsters. They will never see us as another type of human. Nothing we can do or say will deter them or convince them of the validity of our lives and experiences. They are without pity or remorse, will never stop, and will never question the morality of what they have done until it is too late.
They are truly the stuff of nightmares.
When monsters look more human than the human monsters, all monsters are human.
Thank you to Brynn Tannehill for generously allowing us to reprint this article.
BRYNN TANNEHILL graduated from the Naval Academy in 1997 before serving as a campaign analyst while deployed overseas. She later worked as a senior defense research scientist in private industry; she left the drilling reserves and began transitioning in 2010. Since then, she has written for OutServe, The New Civil Rights Movement, Salon, Everyday Feminism, The Good Men Project, Bilerico, and The Huffington Post.
5 Comments
Monster Lives Matter
All Monsters Are Human:
Thank you, Brynn! Your beautiful words in your article are backed up by your personal story i.e. I had planned to go Navy, until my big brother went to Viet Nam and warned me off. I have still served in protecting folks in small ways while armed and uniformed, albeit only in brief stints. Thank you for your service!
Primarily due to experiences around age 10, with puberty, in Helena, Montana (1964), my earliest love/sex imprints were on my adopted cousins David and Debbie (she was a horse woman at age 14 to my age 10-now horses are forever associated with loving Debbie; he was a little league pitcher, to my first base player). I lost my heart to them… Since our Summer of Love, I have been looking for that combined feeling of wholeness. Long story shortened, my whole life has been to be oriented to loving two people at once, preferably in one person, since being a part of a marriage with a man and a woman became so complicated…hence ,discovering that I am a TransOriented Man ,through Janet Mock and her Huffington Post interview-fairly recently. The label of being Bisexual, just didn’t really work for me, although in a way accurate i.e. I just loved Mikey, my younger Athabaskan neighbor, without question or judgement. It was natural to want to be with him-later, as a young man, he was stunningly beautiful/handsome. In the 1970’s, what seemed to be my orientation ,was to Transvestites, Cross Dressers, or, more excitingly, to Drag Queens. They were beautiful, and seemed more courageous than I was at the time. I had had gay experiences, while sometimes being identified as a redneck, macho, or patriarchal.
In the mid 1970’s, in Fort Worth, Texas, after a night on the town with a Bi-Girl friend in some country western bar, dancing the night away, meeting a Drag Queen up on the stage for a big kiss, then more intimately at our friends home that night/morning, I had an epiphany where my Christian orientation (had wanted to be an Irish American Catholic Priest from about age 6) kicked in: in the arms of my new friend, I distinctly heard the phrase “Upon this rock, I build my church.” So what? I broke down and cried. Why? Because I had just known, in a biblical way, a person who, as you write, was a young monster-an abomination, which would make me an abomination, or not? God made me the way I am, and never has abandoned me. The rock of faith in God or rather God’s faith in me, has never been shaken, just stirred. The Real Humans, as you put it-great phrase-hate me too. Maybe not as much, and yet, when I was out for a stroll in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1990, with a Trans friend, we were assaulted -first with words, then drink cups; I squared off for a fight if they had stopped their car-to the death if necessary. At the same time, I was puzzled, as I am used to being accepted, in even the most macho groups, since I was a Union Laborer at age 19 (including being a Union Steward twice), Harley riding biker, horse riding-hay baling-cow pusher -born in Dillon, Montana Beaverhead County–Dad was born there too. We had had a ranch. From age 19 on, usually owning property, and so on. It tickled me that I could not imagine why they were attacking me —because I was not alone? Because at my back was a girl friend they found offensive. All for one, one for all; for better or for worse. We stood together.
I am here on Susan’s site, since life has forced me to face, as Caitlyn Jenner did, the prospect of death before coming out completely. My death was weeks away in February 2009, due to cancer (Non Hodgkin Lymphoma B Cell), then minutes away due to congestive heart failure in July 2009, then later, hours away, due to a form of blood poisoning in April 2012. So what?
I have been married most all my life, to a series of folks who had a part of the puzzle that is my heart. Now I need to become more whole, by understanding how to best relate to those whose challenge has been to come out-to transition-with admirable commitment. Susan’s is a place where I can practice getting my head and heart healed. Going to Transgender dating sites taught me that I need to be more whole myself, before dating, which will always be a precursor to marriage. I need to be more complete as a human. Not a Real Human as you use it, rather in the sense of my native American brothers and sisters ,where often their family/tribal name meant human.
I live in a small Alaskan community that is post card beautiful, with a home and history; at the same time, I was wounded multiple times by society here in general, as well as in particulars, including by church people. Church people tend to be my enemy… I long for the days when i could go to a Metropolitan Community Church in Anchorage, with a trans girl on my arm, and be accepted, approved of, cherished, safe. On the surface, I may sing along with the song: Whiskey for my men; beer for my horses”, where using a Winchester rifle to end discussion with evil doers, just makes sense, while at the same time cherishing a Trans Girl, or now, age appropriately, a Trans Woman, as the love of my life.
I plan to use some of your phraseology when talking with folks here; thank you Brynn, great, healing article. Useful for me to read more than once. In the name of the God of us all, however named, or unnamed by you, bless you and keep you. You are now a part of my life, a part of keeping me whole for another day.
Scot.
Enjoyed this article. Lucid, reasoned and sadly true.
One day it will change.
An exceptional article, if not a long-overdue manifesto.
Some are prepared to protest with our bodies. Never think beautiful Chelsea Manning walks alone.
“Those who fight monsters become monsters.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StCDWenKKFw
For myself, I was always and will always be a morfadyke.
Hello, Brynn. Thank you for the article. It hurts me to read it and I know it hurt you to write it. I am praying that we remain very strong and resilient.
When I was growing up, Martin Luther King was about to deliver his Dream speech. And then he was gone, and Baltimore burned for days. Angela Davis said then that we’d take two steps forward and one back, and that we would have to fight the white man every step we took, with his money and his empire-building and his lust for conquest.
Something in us keeps us going. We know who we are. Perhaps we should be stronger, more thoughtful, more confident, more aware of the impact we are having. I have always told young trans people that we must be good role models for the children of the future. I still believe that.
It is none of my business what “they” are saying about me. I will continue to obstinately refuse to acknowledge our present “president” as my own. I won’t even look at him. He reminds me of our job ahead, not just us, but all people who believe in freedom. We have our life’s work cut out for us. It’s like a calling . . . we were needed right now!