We, transgender people, are being erased.
The category of transgender has been removed from government websites from the State Department to the Center for Disease Control. Not only our identity erased, but access to important medical information removed.
The National Park Service removed references to transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument website. This is an erasure of history, as so much of what happened at Stonewall is rooted in trying to prohibit gender expression. The sacrifices and struggles of people like Marsha P. Johnson erased. History erased.
It is easy for us to say we will not be erased, we are not going anywhere.
Those things are true. Transgender people have always existed and will always exist.
But the danger of this moment is we could become refugees in our own country.
So it is on us to show up more than ever before. To make our presence known.
We must choose to not allow the b******s to grind us down.
We must organize.
We must educate.
We must fight for our rights to exist.
Maybe it shouldn’t be on us to do this work. We need our allies with us and next to us.
But it starts with us. We must set the tone and standup for ourselves.
