Trans Representation & Visibility

Celebrate trans joy, euphoria, thriving, resilience, life, and love

We all bring many identities to the table, and these unique intersections of identities and experiences give each of us unique perspectives on life. I believe those are worth honoring and sharing. Visibility of diverse identities helps us find ourselves, see reflections of ourselves, and see different worlds and perspectives.

Do you remember how old you were when you saw yourself in a book, movie, or TV? Or in a leadership position in government, business, or faith institutions? Think back to that moment when you thought, “Wow, they’re like me!” or “I’m like them!” or “That’s how I want to be when I grow up!”

• How old were you?

• Was the representation positive or negative?

• Were they a side character or the main character?

• Were they comic relief or the butt of the jokes?

• Did they make it to the end of the story?

For those of us who are not white, straight, able-bodied, neurotypical, middle-class cisgender men (or orphaned British boys), we have a harder time seeing ourselves represented, don’t we? And it’s not because we don’t exist.

We all have multiple identities, multiple ways of seeing ourselves. We are not one-dimensional. For some of our identities, we are the same as our parents, right? Race, ethnicity, usually class, religion, etc. Those are vertical identities. For vertical identities, we learn from our parents, grandparents, other relatives, and communities what it means to be X, how to be X. They teach us, consciously and unconsciously.

Then there are horizontal identities, ones we are born with, but do not necessarily share with our parents and grandparents. We have to learn about these identities from outside our families and even communities. This could be giftedness, disability, Deafness, or neurotype. Andrew Solomon writes about these in Far from the Tree, where he also writes about himself being gay as a horizontal identity. Being trans is similar; my parents aren’t trans; my kid is not trans.

Nor did my parents or school or church or community teach me that “trans” was a possibility. I had to find myself elsewhere. But where? When I was a kid in the 80s, the word transgender wasn’t even widely used yet. Trans people existed—they always have across all human history and cultures.¹

So trans people are everywhere. But where were they when I was growing up? Why didn’t I see them? The closest I had to anything genderbending was a vague awareness of Boy George. Trans people were there, but mostly invisible, hiding, protecting themselves from the stigma and transphobia that was rampant. And still is. When they were on the big screen, they were villains, weirdoes, comic relief, insane. Dangerous. Watch Laverne Cox’s Disclosure if you haven’t—she gets into that and brings in lots of trans actors to help tell that history.

Earlier, I asked you to think about how old you were when you saw yourself represented. For me, it was the summer I turned 38. I had heard the term nonbinary and people using they/them pronouns, indicating they are not men and not women—something else. The preteen child of a family friend had come out when they were 11, and that sparked some deep recognition inside me. And I let that percolate for almost a year before I had the courage to say out loud, “I’m nonbinary!”

I was visiting family in Utah and was in the car with my little sister and her two kids on the way to REI. At REI, I let myself shop for clothes in the men’s section for the first time in my life. And the joy that came with that! The EUPHORIA. You wouldn’t believe it. It was just a pair of pants, but it was so much more than that. I still have that pair.

I looked through my pictures from that summer, and there aren’t many of me, and there are fewer of me that I’m happy to share publicly like this. I was living in Tanzania at the time—I lived there for over a decade for my public health work.

Here, I’m teaching a group of study abroad undergrads about public health messaging while we visit a clinic. I did my best to cover my body in baggy, androgynous clothes and kept my hair short and often covered in a hat.

This is where I was in my life when I had that moment. Living abroad. I had a husband and a kid about to turn 15. I had that moment of book-shaking resonance when I said, “yes, this, THIS!” That jaw-dropping experience of “That’s exactly how I feel!” They SEE me. I am KNOWABLE. People like me EXIST in the world.

This is the first book that showed me life’s possibilities for me. I bought Nina Here Nor There on June 17, 2017, which is 5 days before the picture above. Again, I was 37. I bought the e-book because, again, I lived in rural Tanzania.

There is a line in the book that I remember as Nick explaining his sense of gender to his mom as “It’s not that I think I’m a boy, it’s that when I look in the mirror, I expect to see a boy.” That was it.

It explained all the times I looked in the mirror, and actively avoided looking in the mirror, and didn’t see what I expected to see. There was something wrong with my reflection. It wasn’t me. The mirror lied. And Nick experienced that too, which meant I wasn’t alone and I wasn’t crazy. This thing inside of me, this part of me that I’d known since I was 3, but couldn’t quite pin down—couldn’t quite see except in my peripheral vision—was finally, finally coming into view. Coming into focus.

Thank goodness for ebooks! I bought or borrowed and read every single trans-related ebook I could get my hands on. I read multiple books a week, sometimes. I gave myself a crash course in myself.

Trans people, especially trans youth, are under major attacks right now in the US. We’ve gained visibility, but that has also resulted in a huge backlash from right-wing extremists. They are the very same extremists who are taking away bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. They are the same people who are banning books, scrubbing us from websites, and stripping away our freedom to information. They are the same people who are removing race and racial issues, disability justice, and all diversity from our government.

What are they so afraid of?

Trans people are less than 1% of the population.

We need your help. We need your allyship. (Trans allies, here’s what you can do.)

But let’s take a moment to recognize that trans people also get to have joy. Trans people also get to thrive and achieve self-actualization. Trans is beautiful, radiant, magic, trans is love.

We deserve our stories of joy. We get to be the protagonist instead of the villain. We get to be fully fleshed-out characters who live until the end of the story?

We get to have our whole lives, our whole selves, and not just our transness.

I also acknowledge my position of privilege as a white trans man; I walk through the world very differently than trans women, nonbinary people, and especially trans people of color, who face disproportionate levels of violence, discrimination, and scrutiny. This is why I continue to use my position and my voice to amplify their needs, to push boundaries and challenge the status quo, to educate allies, and help and support my siblings.

On this Transgender Day of Visibility, celebrate trans joy, euphoria, thriving, resilience, life, and love.

1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60099237-before-we-were-trans