“I don’t know what you all want trans people to do. I remember growing up in elementary school and having that one kid in class whose body didn’t seem to match his behavior in our eyes, and how they were never spared a single second of humiliation, threats, bullying. Even teachers wouldn’t stand up for them when they saw this stuff happening. If another kid stood up for them, they were bullied too…
“So what do you all want to see trans people do? Because to see someone bullied, harassed, and threatened — told that they were too feminine, they’d never be a man — only to transition and be told they could never be a woman, makes it seem like you don’t want them to be.
“I understand the whole concept makes you uncomfortable. I was socialized in the same world you were. But there are people who are going through some thing that you don’t understand. And I don’t understand it either, but it’s not for me to understand. It’s enough for me to know that people have been subject to harm their entire lives just for trying to be the most authentic version of themselves in ways that I’ve taken for granted by entire life. So it’s not too much for me to stand in solidarity with them or applaud them when they break barriers, because it’s taken an immense amount of courage just to be here.” — Jamyle Cannon
Smuggling Grace 