America is denying yet another generation of young trans people their childhood

But it will not feel like this forever

When I started coming out as trans at the age of 27, the long arc of the moral universe seemed to be bending swiftly. The Affordable Care Act was making transition more accessible, advances in medicine and surgery were making it safer and more effective in reducing dysphoria, and people seemed to quickly be growing more tolerant.

As I let myself truly feel for the first time, I became fully aware of just how hard it has been to pretend to be someone else for so many long years, just how much it had shaped me, just how much it had hurt. The pain would come in waves, but I eventually found a thought that would hold it at bay: no matter how much I had suffered, no matter the marks that testosterone and neglect had left on my body, young trans people today would not.

At times I thought it likely that the younger generation of trans people would find aging transsexuals like me embarrassing and unrelatable - an uncomfortable reminder of a darker past that everyone would rather just forget. And yet here we are.

In half the country it is now illegal to transition before the age of 18, no matter how early someone can put words to their identity or how supportive their parents have been. In half the country it is now illegal for those who found a way around that ban to play middle school soccer with their friends. In a growing number of states, it is either illegal or unsafe for them to use a public bathroom. In much of the country, young trans people are repeating experiences from my childhood that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

We are failing those people. We are allowing their foundational years to pass in terror and in distrust and in pain.

I first became interested in politics around 2004, as a teenager. I was so angry then. I did not understand why so many people who I thought were good, kind people in my school and my church and my Boy Scout troop could not see that the way politicians talked about LGB people was wrong (I hardly ever heard a peep about the T). I tried and tried to get the people around me to explain it. Few ever even bothered. It was just the way things were, and I wanted to tear it all down.

And then in 2006, the energy started to change. People were sick of the chest-thumping and the grift. The midterms were a blue wave. The 2008 election was a landslide. People wanted to feel optimistic again. They were ready to imagine a future different and better than the world we lived in. It doesn’t feel like it now, but we got that future, or at least a taste of it. There were disappointments. The future unravels itself slowly. But the culture started to change, quickly (if you don’t believe me, go watch some reality TV from 2004). You could hold all your friends and your entertainment and anything you ever wanted to know in the palm of your hand. Gay marriage was legal, slowly, and then all at once. Weed wasn’t something you had to buy from the worst guy in your dorm room. Health insurance covered things. The future was female. And it felt, for a time, like it really would be.

What I am trying to say is that it will feel like that again, someday. If you’re trans and you’re young - even if you’re just young, really - I know it feels like the whole world is just hitting you over and over and over again. And why would you trust someone like me on the internet who tries to tell you otherwise, who promises that I am working night and day to make it better. You have only ever seen us fail you. And why would you trust someone else who might just let you down?

I know what it’s like to feel like you can’t afford to believe in the future. And I am so sorry. It doesn’t matter, but there is no single thought that has brought me to tears more frequently in my time writing about the way people talk about trans people.

I cannot tell you right now when or how it will get better. But I promise you that it will not always be like this. That there will be a time when the walls around your heart crumble. Not forever. But even if it is just for one moment I promise you that this will have been worth it. And I promise that I will never, ever, whether you can see it or not, stop fighting to make this world kinder. To build a world where I, an aging transsexual with more scars than I can count, an embarrassing and unrelatable reminder of a past that we would all rather forget. You deserve it. All of us do.