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Elise's avatar

I was born in 1954. Same year Christine Jorgensen's autobiography was published. I do not blame my parents for the way I was raised. Nor do I blame the place I was raised (West Texas) for their ignorance. They really could not have known at that point in history. (Not likely anyway.) Some folks in SF, NY or Denmark would have known. But for me, it was like having a terrible infection 50 years before penicillin was discovered. Not their fault.

Today is very, very different. Now we know. Now we know there is treatment for the trans condition and that all people should have a choice whether to engage that treatment or not. To deny this treatment to children is child abuse, plain and simple. And the religionists and politicians striving to ban this essential health care are child abusers, plain and simple.

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Alexa Maeve's avatar

I couldn't start HRT until I was 32 and my heart breaks for trans children today who have so much more knowledge while also facing grotesque political attacks from the worst elements of the human species. Not a day goes by without wishing that I had access to the information and medical care I needed before I had to live my entire life morbidly depressed and miserable, and of course I still live with the damage caused by being forced to perform a gender incongruent with my own for nearly three decades. People like me may never have the privilege of being treated with basic dignity or respect, but we have to keep advocating for the next generation.

The government is the enemy of the people, never forget. Your rights in an oligarchy only exist to the extent that they are profitable to the true owners of this country, the ultra rich, and it is remarkably easy for the wealthy to use their media to convince the uneducated and gullible public to hate a marginalized group most have never even heard of before (because the GOP finally regressed abortion laws, the religious bigots needed a new target). Trans people will outlast the myth of the United States; we have always been here and will remain here long after all evil empires and their justifying mythologies have turned into dust. It is really nothing out of the ordinary for a shameless nation founded on tax evasion, enriched by slavery, expanded through genocide, and maintained by ruthless exploitation of millions of people to manufacture scapegoats out of the most victimized demographics - while exporting the hatred globally. The banality of evil incarnate, and it's about time to stop waiting for this flawed notion of a nation to grow a conscience and find solutions beyond it.

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