We are in a moment of dangerous backlash against the transgender community. At least 417 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures this year—a new record. The majority target trans young people, banning access to gender-affirming care, discussion of LGBTQ lives in schools, and participation in extracurricular programs like sports. Bills in states like Texas also aim to take trans kids away from affirming parents. This is a clear and concerted effort to strip away layers of support—parents, classmates, teachers, coaches, neighbors, friends—so trans young people feel isolated and lose hope. The stakes could not be higher.
 
While this is nothing new—the rhetoric and language we’re seeing now is recycled from the ’60s and ’70s—there is still something unprecedented about this moment. After Obergefell [the 2015 landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage], opponents needed a new bogey person. That’s when we saw the 2016 North Carolina bill [banning trans people from using bathroom that match their gender identity]. But it didn’t quite stick. Attacking adults who were just trying to live their lives seemed too blatantly cruel, so they turned their focus to trans young people. 
 
Anti-trans policies rely on disinformation and misinformation around trans people’s needs and outcomes when they’re embraced, and they’re almost always the result of “concern trolling.” Politicians seek to protect trans young people from themselves and from the “dangerous” consequences of sharing themselves with the world and living authentically. But the declaration of a trans identity isn’t like deciding what you want for dinner. It is a visceral identity—it’s like knowing that you love your parents or that you are experiencing a chronic pain. When there’s not a clear image of trans people—or when that image is purely an image of discrimination, hardship, and sadness—it becomes easy for that concern trolling to ring true for people.
 
Yet, when there are examples of trans people who are joyful and happy and loved, it is such an [impactful] visual representation of what happens when trans people are allowed to live authentically and are embraced by their communities. Trans joy is not only necessary, it’s radical and transformative. It is the greatest and clearest argument against the policies that we’re seeing proliferate around the country right now.
 
Nadine Smith of Equality Florida has said that it is [amid] the biggest challenges that social justice movements take their most significant steps forward. She likens it to a slingshot: We’re pulled back, then we’re propelled forward. It was in the flames of riots at the Stonewall Inn that our modern movement was born. It was in the depths of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that new strategies and tactics were implemented and organizations were created. It was the marriage equality bans in 2004 and 2006 that sparked conversations around dinner tables and in classrooms and offices. 
 
Once they pick the bogey person, they start the clock on the effectiveness of the politics of hate. That is not, in any way, to diminish the real and tangible harm that these bills have in real time. We cannot rest on our laurels. We must keep moving forward, but as we push back, we must draw comfort, strength, and energy from knowing that we are in that slingshot. 
 
One of the challenges in this moment is that it’s difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. For the last 40 or 50 years, there was, if not a sense of inevitability, a sense of momentum—of knowing, if we did the work, it would work out. Now it feels like we might be past the point of these problems being solvable. But there were moments in history when people couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. In the depths of the Great Depression, people couldn’t imagine that the country would recover, that they’d find a job and some kind of economic security. As John Lewis was beaten by law enforcement on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, he couldn’t know that he’d get to the other side—let alone get the Voting Rights Act passed. Previous generations have been in this moment before; they couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, yet they persisted. They found the light. And we can too.
 
It is much more difficult to hate someone whose story you know. The politics of fear materialize because there is still a knowledge gap around transgender people. And in the absence of relationships with people or popular culture portrayals that are nuanced and humanizing, fear mongering and scare tactics can take hold. Sharing stories is a powerful opportunity to change not just people’s hearts and minds but their politics.
 
When confronted with something new, our instinct is to look to others for cues as to how we should respond. Rejection creates an excuse; acceptance creates a standard. Don’t oppose these policies because you pity trans people. Oppose these policies because trans joy is wonderful, because trans people enrich our society.
 
Everyone deals with an insecurity, something that society has told them they should be ashamed of, that they should hide, that is worthy of ridicule. Trans people who are out publicly have not only accepted that fact but are visibly walking forward from a place of pride in it. Bullies see that power—that individual agency and ability to conquer our own fears and insecurities—and they’re jealous. I am powerful just by being, and I carry that power with me from the safest places to the scariest places. 

Drawn from McBride's March 31 lecture at AU on Transgender Day of Visibility.

Transgender Rights at a Glance:

• Legislation that takes aim at LGBTQ rights is at an all-time high—up 132% from 2022. 
•  47% of anti-LGBTQ legislation introduced in 2022 focused on the transgender and nonbinary community. 
•  At least 11 states have passed laws restricting gender-affirming care for children. Three states have targeted people up to ages 21 and 26.
•  Of the 2 million transgender people in the US, nearly 3 percent are 24 or younger. 
• 64% of Americans favor laws that protect transgender people from discrimination in employment, housing, and public spaces.
• Among Americans under age 30, half have a transgender friend or family member.