How to be awesome about Trans

Trans love is for you: A collaboration for the whole community

This post is a collaboration between Robin Taylor over at ‘That Trans Friend You Didn’t Know You Needed.’ and me, confronting transphobia and our desire to create honoring spaces on Substack and in the world.

We each share thoughts, and then offer some points for your reflection, response and collaboration.

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Pavini:

When I saw the post about Imane Khelif on a community member's social media, I trusted that person enough to click on the article.

What followed was a horrifying transphobic rant about the prizefighter's gender identity.

The person who posted was someone I considered a friend, yet in the comments were many degrading words written by them and their people about the athlete.

How could this be?

I am trans; she knows that.

She's hung out with me many times.

I never felt anything other than loved and welcomed in her presence.

But here she was, online and spewing trans hate.

In the several weeks that followed, this was a pattern that repeated with other older queer lefty white women who I had considered elders.

The TERF wars are not new to me, but somehow, the situation with Imane Khelif got under my skin in a new way.

It hurt.

It still hurts.

How can people who I thought were on my team be so anti-trans?

We don't want divisiveness in LGBTQ+ communities, but we do have boundaries.

You don't get to say shit about people's gender identity in sports or otherwise as if you somehow know better than they do.

At least not if you want to stay in community with us.

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Let's talk a bit about what it feels like to receive those comments and then, as Robin mentions below, also receive the "two sides" argument or the "devil's advocate" stance.

Of course, every trans person is different, but what it is for me is grief.

I feel that loss of trust profoundly in my body. I'm not talking about making a mistake or blowing someone's pronoun.

We have tons of grace for learning.

We will all always be learning about gender.

My grief is specific: people who I would like to care for and respect as elders are becoming brittle and hardened.

Holding a line as if trans rights and women's rights are somehow a battleground as if only one group is experiencing hatred and oppression.

Indeed, I have so much love and respect for my lesbian/queer female elders and ancestors who fought so hard.

I want to have nothing but respect.

Which is what makes this feeling of grief so bitter.

Every single one of us is human.

It is truly no one's business how someone else expresses their gender.

What's ironic is that Imane Khelif is actually a cisgender woman who has received the hate usually reserved for trans women.

What should have been a moment of glory for her was marred by the likes of Musk and Trump serving up toxic shit.

Which my former friend indulged heavily in.

It makes me cry.

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Robin:

How does it feel to face the relentless onslaught of anti-trans news articles?

Maybe you thought you’d just watch the Olympics, and everything else could fade away for a little while, only that wasn’t an escape either, was it?

I tried the same thing.

I picked out a harmless post about vegan diets for athletes (not because I wasn’t eating a bacon sandwich right in that very moment), and—lo and behold—the first half of it contained TERFy anti-trans garbage that completely ruined my appetite (and my day).

It happened again.

An innocuous post about joy and celebration became the perfect host location for a “both sides” argument in the comments about whether or not someone like me—a transgender queer human—should exist.

That felt like a signal from the universe to “put the phone down” and focus on something else.

But I am so tired.

I am tired down to my bones and tendons.

My sleep is interrupted with disquiet, with the familiarity of stress over a lack of belonging in my world.

My dreams are tainted.

I wonder… Are you tired, too?

We hold so much, those of us in this little queer, gender-defiant community.

We shout our joy into the world so that it becomes tangible for our siblings who need to feel it.

We hold ourselves tall and unwavering in our dedication to one another.

We persist in spite of the cultural pressures to be erased.

We keep moving in the face of toxicity, hatred, indifference, and shame.

We call out the names of brothers, sisters, siblings, and children who have been lost to this fight, this need to survive, this want to be freely beautiful as ourselves.

We should be tired.

What would it look like to create a restful space together?

How can we come together at this time of great need and feed ourselves from the resilience and light within us?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but perhaps we can find them together.

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Together is the start.

Robin and I considered what it would look like to offer a safe support space to this beautiful community we call home.

But let’s get real—this isn’t the sort of thing even two people can accomplish on their own, and even we need some rest and recovery.

So we started by dreaming aloud and framing up the walls of some ideas that felt good.

We’re here to show you what we’ve built, and now it’s up to you to step in and add dimension, context, color, life, and your dose of creativity.

We invite you to feel your way around these walls, to sit on a bench and breathe the fresh air in a place where you are welcome to be you in a restful way.

When you’re ready, please add your thoughts, feelings, or stories.

There is a trans sibling or transcestor who needs you right now.

Your words are the kindness Robin and I need, too.

Use the headers shown below to tell us where your comment would be best included.

We will revise this post with your comment embedded under the chosen heading (see our comments as examples).

Together, we will build something bigger, brighter, and more resilient than any of us can do alone. 

These might give you a starting point for your thoughts, or you might have something completely different.

We want to hear you.

Please note that there are no barriers to this space—only the expectation of safety for one another.

Anyone may participate, and all are welcome and invited to share.

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Trans people love you

We have always loved you. Many of us came from you, were born through you, grew up with you, trusted you.

We know ourselves because we knew you first, and we see ourselves reflected in you.

We want to be your allies. We want to be intersectional in our liberation work. But we will not tolerate abuse. 

Trans people love ourselves

There is no greater act of self-love than to be ourselves for ourselves, which is precisely what our collective becoming embodies.

No one is coming to save us. It's us, for us. 

Trans love is beautiful

It is the first kind of self-love I have known, and I want to shout it from the top of the world!

Trans people are sacred

Across time, trans and gender creative people have always existed.

In every culture, every religion, every place on Earth. We are a holy part of creation, often tasked with ritual roles of ceremony, of weaving the sacred in community. 

My partner who is also trans recently asked, "I don't understand, why do they pick on the trans people?" But I understand.

Outside of norms of society such as gender roles and gender assigned at birth is an immense freedom. We are powerful beyond measure, and oppressors know that intuitively.

Control the freest people to have control over society. Oh, that and that we aren't always doing our procreation job in capitalism. (But some of us are!)

The magical space of gender liminality produces a human who cannot be easily controlled, but beyond that, trans people often have a deep connection with the holy mystery. 

Trans love is for you

This beautiful trans love of mine is too big, too powerful, too important not to give it to you. Will you welcome it?

Trans labor ain't free

My love may be vast, but I am not inexhaustible. And I am worthy of the time and energy my body and my spirit provide, but that worth is mine to spend where I see fit.

It is such a kindness in this world when my cis friends and family engage in their own labor or learning and doing better without asking me to lift that burden or make it lighter for them.