In elementary school, the first and only time I heard about trans people existing was a rumor about Lady Gaga. The first movie I saw with any kind of trans character was Ace Ventura, which my dad paused and preemptively explained, in serious tones; not because the transmisogyny might be upsetting, but because the existence of trans people was such an adult and taboo topic for us to be introduced to.
But things got better- were getting better, slowly. A guy in the grade below me in high school was the first openly trans person at my school. There were a few openly gay/lesbian couples at every school dance, something kids even a few grades above me said hadn’t happened for fear of backlash. TV and movies, even kind of shitty primetime ones, were adding lgbt+ characters to their lineups.
Gay marriage was legalized in June of 2015. I remember walking to get frozen custard with my friends, and feeling an infectious joy: that everything was getting better.
I graduated high school in 2016.
Everything that year felt like a slide backwards into hatred. Increasingly fascistic rhetoric from the Republican candidates had crystallized into a bid for Donald Trump to run for president. The Pulse nightclub shooting happened that June; I remember crying for days, going to a vigil with my sister. We lied and told our parents we were going to the movies. Each car that passed made everyone at the vigil tense and relax – we’d already seen the news about the bomb threats, the foiled copycats.
I had just entered my first year of college, bought my first binder. Offered she/they pronouns in one class. Gotten to vote for the first time.
Trump won. Anti-immigrant and anti-queer and anti-BLM posters were slathered over campus the next day.
I remember feeling broken, the whole week after. Crying in the tiny LGBTQIA+ club room with a bunch of other dead-eyed queer kids. We spent every moment not in class huddled together like penguins, basking in the meager solace of all being equally scared.
We fought. We made social groups and organizations. We protested. We signed classmates up to vote. The microphone set up for national coming out day the following year saw lines of people waiting to tell the world who they were, in spite of it all. We got gender-neutral bathrooms designated in every building. We kept trying.
Social change comes in waves- 2 steps forward, 1.9 steps back. It feels awful and horrifying to see the backpeddle, especially when you’re just coming of age after a period when all you can really properly remember is the steps forward. I know; I entered the world at a similar moment.
I don’t want to retell my whole life story, so I’ll end on this. After I graduated, Fall of 2019 I went down to Tennessee and worked at Cracker Barrel HQ for a while. They have a pride affinity group. One of the company leaders was an openly gay man old enough to be my grandpa. The world after that went to shit in other ways, but sometimes I sit and stare at my tacky CB-logoed rainbow flag and pride glows inside me. Pride that we have made it so far, so fast; that what was unmentionable 40 years ago and mockable 20 years ago is normal enough to be blandly included today. I am asking you to believe that we are still stepping forward. I am asking you to keep being you – as quietly as you want to, as loudly as you can.
amhrancas 