As trans Kentuckians, we are in danger. We are scared. But we will fight back. | Opinion

Cisgender people simply don’t grasp what transgender people are going through. If they did, they would offer a very different kind of help.

There is debate over the proper term — many online activists have considered the relative merits of “genocide” or “pogrom” — but there is no question that radicals are coordinating an aggressive anti-trans project to remove access to health care for kids and adults, justify our segregation and exclusion from public spaces, and even ban books by and about us. The goal is our removal or our deaths, and the program is being enacted in a dozen states.

For trans people, the emotions range from anguish to terror to rage. Every trans person in America is paying attention.

The night of the primary election, one of us spoke to a politically involved Democrat who was absolutely stunned we were glad Kelly Craft isn’t the Republican nominee. They were clearly thinking: “But her net favorables are so much worse than Daniel Cameron’s! Her head-to-head numbers are so bad! She would be much easier for Andy to beat.”

There is no way to explain to them what it means that Kelly Craft just spent $10 million on ads — that our neighbors and families saw everywhere — that say that we are a threat. That we are to be feared, hated, and scorned. There is no way to explain what it’s like to read on Twitter, on an otherwise pleasant evening, that “Under a Craft-Wise administration, we will not have transgenders [sic] in our school system.”

Although the threat is far from over, it is amusing and relieving to see Mrs. Craft walk away with third place.

Of course, politicians telling Kentuckians whom to fear and loathe is a time-honored tradition. But this time is different.

The reality is that trans people are one of the politically weakest groups in the commonwealth. We have few institutions that facilitate the strength of our community. We have zero support from the donor elite. Even sympathetic politicians are more likely to look to us for applause or free labor than for friendship or wisdom.

Even though the oppression of trans people hurts every Kentuckian, disrupting the principles of liberty and free expression that are supposed to protect everybody, the reality is that trans people are uniquely vulnerable. And there is simply no effort by any progressive groups or institutions to make space for us, especially in the wealthy “social justice” organizations raising money off our pain.

Something is badly broken in Kentucky politics. The culture we have built, far from nurturing bright young people and welcoming in the vulnerable, exists only to command submission to personalities and duties. And that just doesn’t leave room for humanity.

Volunteers don’t show up in political spaces in search of tasks alone, nor in search of “inspiration” from charismatic individuals. They show up because they need community. They need to connect with other people who are feeling what they feel, seeing things as they do, and taking delight in shared purpose. Instead, they receive a canvassing list or a donation link and they’re sent on their merry way, possibly with an exciting selfie, back to lonely alienation.

Politics can’t solve every problem. But when a group of people is politicized and othered, they need to engage in politics much more robustly than before. They need to build their communities within, and around, politics in order to survive. They need a political culture of their own, one that emphasizes the belonging and equity of their whole community, so that everybody in that community can escape the terror.

Trans people need to build power, and to build our own kind of power.

That’s going to look a lot of different ways. We have to stop entering other people’s institutions, which tokenize and exploit us, and start building communitarian institutions that exist to support trans people; support trans candidates for public office; invest our wealth back into our own community; and offer mutual aid to ensure that nobody is left behind.

This is a big project, and it needs to be a big discussion. Many parts of it already are underway, led by trailblazing trans Kentuckians who see the deep need. But we need to consciously learn from other communities that have built power from nothing despite being a small share of the population, especially Black and Jewish Americans. And we need to be diligent in identifying needs, supporting one another, and proceeding in love and kindness.

There can be no question: the stakes are survival. Unlike almost every other marginalized community, trans people can never be fully killed simply because we exist as a natural result of biological variations. But we can be erased. We can see our culture and ideas suppressed. We can see efforts to deny trans kids self-knowledge, even to the point of their lives being in danger. The ancient world may have invented concrete, but the medievals forgot it.

Cis people: write a check, ask a trans-led organization like Kentucky Health Justice Network, Transcending Stigma, or Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky what to do, or sit down.

For trans people, in self-defense and in real pride, the rallying cry is simple: Trans Power Now.

Rebecca Blankenship is Kentucky’s first openly transgender elected official and the executive director of Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky. Mason Chernosky is a transgender activist and the organizing director at Hood to the Holler. Maddie Spalding is the founder of Kentuckiana Transgender Support Group and the Transgender Wellness Coalition. Alexander Griggs is the executive director of Transcending Stigma.

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