A Thank You to the Trans Community
When we see members of the trans community in the news, it’s often about them being attacked, murdered, or attempting to read books to children in libraries, which seems to be as controversial.
This piece is not about the trans right to exist. It’s not about the danger they face every day. It’s not even about the legislation that perpetuates and protects the hate and violence against them.
This is a thank-you letter.
I grew up in the Evangelical “Born Again” Christian Church. I was imbued with the belief that having premarital sex was the surest way to ruin your life and that being gay was the surest way to lose your salvation. Identifying as a gender you weren’t assigned at birth could not even be considered. These were people to be feared. As a teenager in the 1980s, I attended a multi-media event with my church’s youth group. The purpose of the event was to describe how deplorable it was to be homosexual. We learned that golden showers (peeing on each other) was a common practice among the LGBTQ+ community to emphasize how depraved the lifestyle was. I later learned this wasn’t necessarily true or exclusive to the LGBTQ+ community. I don’t remember where I first learned the idea that AIDS was God’s punishment for homosexuality. I believed all of it, though. A dutiful Christian girl, I accepted the teachings to condemn all who identified as anything other than monogamous heterosexual. We didn’t call it hate, but I felt hatred and disgust in my heart for an entire community of people who had the courage to come out.
Years later, at our weekly group at their house, our college church leader very carefully, very strategically invited us to question the teaching that the LGBTQ+ community didn’t belong in the kingdom of heaven. I remember the absolute venomous pushback he received. People stopped coming. Eventually, the group stopped meeting. I am so grateful for this man’s courage to speak on the topic. He gave me permission to expand the beliefs I’d been given.
I attended the very conservative and academic Wheaton College in Illinois in the ‘90s. It was known as the “Harvard of Christian Schools.” We were often reminded that we were the cream of the crop. I had lunch in the cafe with a new friend from English class. She confided that she and her roommate were attracted to each other, and that they were trying to resist their urges. They believed they were wrong, and they would be kicked out of school. She said they were trying to stop at “grandma kisses.” I am still overwhelmingly honored that she felt safe to share her story with me.
Little by little, I began to question more and more of the church’s indoctrination so deeply planted in my early conditioning. I began to notice teachings that were in direct opposition to Jesus' teachings. I slowly began to extricate these teachings from my worldview. I still struggle with some of those old beliefs and how they play out in my view of myself and my role on this planet. Eventually, I left the church because, among other specific reasons, I did not want to be where the LGBTQ+ community was not welcomed.
A decade later, in a multicultural psychology course for grad school, I chose LGBTQ+ youth as the population to learn about for my cornerstone project. I attended the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth (BAGLY) meetings, where teens squeezed together on a couch and shared their stories with me. Most of them had come out to their parents by age 15. These kids had done so much introspection, so much tuning in and aligning with themselves. They bravely chose authenticity over fitting in. It was a profound lesson for me. I was in love with them, in awe of them—maybe a little envious. I wanted to know what it felt like to be aligned like that. I wondered what thoughts I would have about myself if my brain hadn’t developed inside the confines of conservative Christianity. I wondered how differently our world would look if more people chose authenticity and alignment like these kids. These kids were masters of a practice I knew little about, and they influenced me to find my way to align more deeply with myself.
To the LGBTQ+ community: You are still my soul’s teacher. I appreciate you for existing. I think about Nex Benedict, the nonbinary 16-year-old who died early this year after a beating by classmates in their school bathroom in Oklahoma. Nex should be alive. Their death was a senseless, avoidable tragedy.
Sadly, their death is one of many senseless, avoidable tragedies. Trans people are four times as likely to be victims of a violent crime, too many times fatal. There were 320 deaths in the trans community reported in 2023. The majority were Black women under age 25.
Violence and death aren’t the only things trans folx risk for expressing their true identity. According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the trans community lacks legal protection against discrimination, and in some states, they are denied their right to exist. Trans people are often denied healthcare, and I’m not even talking about hormone replacement therapy; I’m talking about physicians refusing to treat them for anything because they identify as trans. Though they are at high risk of becoming victims of violent crimes, a recent study by The Center for American Progress and The Equal Rights Center found that in four states (CT, VA, WA, and TN), only 30% of women’s shelters were willing to house trans women. In many parts of this country, it is difficult for members of the trans community to get accurate identity documents, without which they cannot travel, register for school, or access essential services. In a system of this kind, trans people are more likely to live in poverty, especially trans adults of color. Let’s imagine for a moment the accumulated toll of these hardships on the trans person’s mental and physical health.
My precious trans friends and family, you are heroes to me. I’m so grateful for your courage, and I am blessed by your existence. I appreciate you for getting up every day. You are a gift to me and to this planet.
Trans people, in my opinion, represent the highest form of alignment with true self. To me, this makes them the best humanity has to offer. Their existence inspires me and encourages me to be my most unapologetic self. Their influence frees me to embody the fullest expression of myself.
There is so much value in the perspective of someone with lived experience as both genders. These souls have something precious to offer our culture. I want to hear about your experiences and perspective. I have so much to learn from you.
A few years ago, I started an LGBTQ+ Pride group in my town on the South Shore. As a cisgender (someone who identifies as the same gender they were assigned at birth; someone who is not transgender) and a woman who has only had cishet (both cisgender and heterosexual) partners, I’m sure people wondered why I started the group. For one reason, I started it because our town needed it. In a community listening session, I heard from LGBTQ+ youth in our town about their treatment in school. The unrelenting harassment, the threats that were carried out, and the school administrators who turned a blind eye. LGBTQ+ kids are not safe anywhere in our country.
I was an activist before organizing Bridgewater Pride. That work is important and necessary. My hope for Bridgewater Pride is to build a community for myself as much as for others. I want a community that affirms each other’s unique identities. I want a community of people who’ve done the heroic work of aligning with themselves, come what may. I want a community that supports, protects, and celebrates all expressions of gender and love. One of my favorite friends in the group often says, “I got your back.” Those words bring comfort to me that’s hard to describe
And as far as my own identity goes, as someone who’s only experienced cishet partnerships, and been disappointed every time, I would like to try something else. I claim the freedom to explore attraction wherever it lands for me. Maybe, in what I think of as more evolved generations, pansexuality (attraction to people of all gender expressions) will be the norm. It makes more sense to me than compulsory heterosexuality.
I have so much to learn from people who dare to be their truest selves in a world that condemns this form of authenticity to death.
Precious community, thank you for being here. Thank you for your impossible courage. Thank you for your hard-won wisdom and your priceless perspective.
Love,
Your student, your fan, your people.
Tess
