What Trans Visibility Gave Me

[Jessica_Rose]

What Trans Visibility Gave Me

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/what-trans-visibility-gave-me/ar-AA1cYnm2?ocid=windirect&cvid=4f8f54281df243708f34e35d9ba1bf39&ei=72

Story by McKenzie Wark (July 2023)

I sometimes think there are only two kinds of trans people: Those who can hide that they are trans to avoid persecution and those who just have to come out in order to live at all.

It's hard to communicate to people who don't feel the visceral need that drives most trans people to modify our bodies, our appearance, our speech, and comportment. The sex of the body is the music of the body—and it can be hard to be in your body when everything about it is felt as intolerable noise.

What the "tipping point" obscured is that we have always existed, and always will. We're just one of the many variations on what it means to be human. Trying to eradicate us impoverishes the whole of humanity. We know things about what it means to truly be in our bodies in a way that nobody else does.

I wouldn't say I'm "proud" of being trans. That would be like being proud of being tall. It's just a fact of the flesh. I had to learn not to be ashamed of it, but maybe the step up from shame isn't pride, exactly... I want for my people is the right to be ordinary. To be just one of the variations of human.

[Lori Dee]

I was both. At first, I hid who I was to avoid persecution, but I had no idea that I might be trans. Through therapy, I discovered that I am. That left me with two choices. Continue to hide in plain sight, or become who I am openly. That was not an easy decision and therapy helped me understand the process and how to handle some of the obstacles before me. So I transitioned from group 1 to group 2.