I refute them by living

I think it is important to keep telling my story and sharing my journey. I hope and believe that by doing so I can open a wider window for others into what it means to be a transgender person in our society. But sometimes I grow weary, because it often feels like I have to justify my existence over and over again. I have to try to convince people who view me as fake, as immoral, as a threat to society, that I am none of these things.

I recently read an article by Jenny Boylan, a transgender author whose book about her journey was one of the first I read when I began my own. In her article she announced that she was done explaining her humanity, a sentiment I can strongly resonate with. One statement in particular jumped out at me. Speaking of how she intends to respond to transgender detractors, she states:

You want to know how I’d refute them? Look at me. I refute them by living. I refute them by celebrating this life. I refute them, every day, by getting up and stepping out into the world and by refusing to be defined by any one or any thing other than my own heart.

She expands on this thought when she writes: “It may be that all of the explaining we do of our own lives — all our empassioned speeches about what it means to be trans, what it means to be this particularly complicated and gifted form of human — are less effective than simply being, than simply living in the world and having people understand that we’re here, that we’re not going away, and that we deserve, same as everyone else, equal protection under the law — as well as — who knows? — maybe even a little human kindness.”

I understand my mission in this way as well. I want to educate, inform, open eyes and hearts through my words. But even more I want to demonstrate to the world who I am, who we are as transgender people, simply by living my life every day in the midst of society. I get up, go to work, go shopping, eat out, attend events, as my own daily protest against those voices that would silence me, push me out of the public sphere, tell me that I do not have the right to use the bathroom that is appropriate for me, do not have the right to be protected in my housing, employment, healthcare and other basic needs simply because I’m different. Sometimes this can be difficult, as I’ve shared before.

Last weekend I exercised my freedom by choosing to attend a Women’s Comedy Festival. I hadn’t really attended a comedy show since my college days, and it turned out to be wonderfully funny and relaxing. As I debated whether to go though, I weighed whether I wanted to enter this new arena, whether I felt the courage to exist as a single transgender woman in this space. I wonder whether cisgender people weigh such issues? In the end I chose to go in part to stretch myself by trying something new, and in part because I refute them by living. My life is my protest.

I appreciate the value of safe spaces where transgender people, particularly those who have not reached a point they can come out openly, can gather to interact socially, find support and share their stories. We need such spaces. But I am also thankful and eager to live my life in the broader society as well, because I believe that the more boldly we do so, the more we demonstrate that we too are humans, that we too deserve basic human rights, the more society will come increasingly to affirm that as well. That’s a vision worth working to realize.

I will continue to speak and use my voice to advocate for transgender rights. But I will also refute those who reject us in the most basic way possible:  by living.