Trans Day of Visibility 2025
A message from Lee, one of our co-founders and board members:
Monday, March 31st, 2025 was Trans Day of Visibility. I have always had trouble with being visible, both professionally and personally. This year felt especially hard with the political escalations against our community in the US where we are based. We have received some especially helpful signal boosts from a handful of influencers and podcasters recently, leading to an increase in follows on social media. We have even had a little uptick in individual/private donations and sales in our shop- Thank you!! But this also means that many of you do not yet know us who are behind the Trans Doe Task Force, so I thought I would try to open up and be a bit more visible today, and wear some of our gear out to the dog park with my partner (Dr. Redgrave) after dropping our daughter off at an event for Trans young adults. Then I thought I’d share more personally than usual here, in our professional space. (Unpacking the word “professional” is a whole other topic you could get me going on sometime.) The truth is that our work greatly affects me personally, and likewise, my personal experience informs and motivates my work. I have lately been doing much of this silently out of trauma response. And since the attacks on Trans rights began really escalating during the election months, we were forced to hold off on making any plans to travel just in case things got worse. And they’ve gotten so much worse, that just this past weekend, there were four events that we could have and should have been presenting or tabling at that we could not safely travel to because of them being held in places that are hostile to Trans people. None of these events were able to provide us with a virtual/digital option of presenting, which we feel is an absolute disservice to our community right now. The number of TDTF staff is single digits, and we don’t have the bandwidth or budget to fly everywhere (and it isn’t safe to do so right now) or pay steep conference fees to present our work or mission to larger audiences. We need to be able to have visibility, and we need the help of ally groups and individuals to signal boost us, stand with us and give us a platform we can actually stand on, too!
We have been used before. I have been scared before. I have been hurt, and been threatened; worse, my family has been threatened, and I am aware this could happen again. I have felt my fear cause me to shrink away and hide myself and conduct more and more work in solitude combined with involuntary rest. I’m old, and I’m tired. I first realized that I was Trans and nonbinary (genderqueer was the word then) back in 2004 or 2005, when my daughter was a toddler, and I started transitioning in 2006. Most people and doctors had no idea what to do about any of that yet unless you were in a large city, which I was not, and it was still recommended under Harry Benjamin standards that a person should state that they want to essentially jump from one gender binary box into another before the gatekeepers would write letters for hormones or surgeries that were being called medically necessary “cures” by the DSM-IV but not covered by insurances. Being a Mom-identified Trans guy person, my gender feels really wiggly. People weren’t allowed to transition if they admitted to being genderqueer or “unsure” of the binary in any way. Doctors yelled at me to “pick one!” I fought to find someone to treat me under informed consent, which is a more respectful and humane model of care that did not require me to lie to my providers about my identity. And while I didn’t lie to my first spouse about my gender because I didn’t know I was trans when we got married and had a baby, it didn’t end up going well, and we split.
Then my ability to continue parenting was called into question by the courts due to my “mental illness” of GID (Gender Identity Disorder, as in the DSM-IV), and I spent 14 months defending myself in order to maintain custody of my daughter, which I ultimately successfully did. This all occurred in a very blue state, and during this time, I met Anthony who gracefully stepped into the role of stepdad. Once the case was over, I developed agoraphobia and eventually decided that I needed to detransition in order to feel safe that my right to parent would not be further called into question. I decided that I could wait until my child turned 18. It was absolutely incredibly difficult and further traumatic going through those dozen years. My kiddo grew up with no memory of me being Trans when she was a toddler/preschooler. Then when she was 17, she told me that she is Trans! Life can be funny; it was actually a surprise to me. When she turned 18, I told her I am Trans also, and we exchanged a lot of hugs and clothing.
Everything was going well until the political tides began turning to target Trans people, and our rights began to be called into question by the masses concurrent to Presidential campaign activities. Life can also be un-funny. Obviously, we have been personally affected by this, even being in a blue state. We shared how some of our work at the Trans Doe Task Force is being affected by the Executive Orders a little while ago. My agoraphobia has returned, and I have definitely had feelings that I should detransition again for safety, and have leaned harder into the nonbinary zone for a while. Likely another trauma response, but also detransitioning has been suggested as a real option by some very smart and visible Trans influencers, so it’s obviously going to be normal to feel disoriented.
When I read that the Administration was declaring March 13th, 2025 officially “DeTrans Awareness Day” and holding an event with pro-detransition influencers, I felt myself shrink. I also felt an instant burning inside to speak up. Not a desire, but an obligation to the Trans community and parents of Trans kids, who are also largely scared. But the fear gripped me, and I did no writing, no being visible, no posting or offering to help others. I’ve felt badly about this ever since. I really hope that someone who needed to hear something on that day didn’t feel alone because I allowed myself to be overcome by my instinct to hide. This definitely feels like oversharing at this point, but I used to do that a lot. I used to write poetry. I used to write songs and record and perform. Then I was a Mom, and then I was a He-Mom, and then I was hobbled back into the gender binary, afraid to show myself for over a decade before I felt safe to try transitioning again. And then I tried again. And then...
I want to feel safe. I want my daughter to feel safe. I want you and your families to feel safe. Working has to happen even more now, and I wish it didn’t involve having to be visible, but right now it really does. So today, I drove my family to a bigger town, wore my TDTF gear, went outside, took my daughter to see other queer and trans youth, and watched my doggo get tired with other doggos and have a pup cup. I took some pictures, and I thought of you. Thank you for being here, and thank you for however you are able to be visible, too. Hug a Trans person today, especially a Trans kid, and hug your dog or cat. And hey check out the new hats in our shop, they're really soft and have the nice cloth/metal adjustor instead of plastic.
