Beyond Visibility: Celebrating the Trans Community

March 31st marks the 13th anniversary of International Trans Day of Visibility — a day meant to center and celebrate the legacies, culture, and abundance of the trans community in addition to raising awareness around the reality of anti-trans violence and oppression. Though this recognized day is only 13 years old, the visibility and history of the trans community spans generations. 

However, on a day like this, in an industry like ours—where we work to provide education on myriad DEI topics—there’s a tendency to focus on cis people’s comprehension, instead of centering trans people. This echoes a painful reality many of us face on a daily basis. To, with polite smiles and unduly patience, swallow our tongues in the face of anti-trans rhetoric and explain our humanity on a meticulously sorted and decorative platter. To explain the necessity of respecting one’s pronouns, explain the difference between sex and gender, or deconstruct the fallacies and absurdities of cis-heteronormative paradigms. To use our day of celebration to ultimately center cis education, taking the spotlight away from us and instead focusing on a group responsible for and complicit in our day-to-day oppression.

And, let us be clear, as what’s going on in Florida and Texas demonstrates to us, there is ample opportunity to provide that education. There is much value in that work and there is much necessity in it, however, we’d like to focus on how this day is for us. 

So, on this International Trans Day of Visibility, we’ll be using this space to instead say thank you to all of you who make this day possible. Who, in your lived experiences as trans people, reveal the lies around gender we’ve been told, and embody the endless possibility of who we can be. Who choose self-realization and authenticity in the face of a culture that works to convince us that we’re wrong. 

 

So, with that, this is a thank you to every trans person, ancestor and present-day, who:

• Honors the world with your existence.
• Has not or cannot openly express your identity, but offers yourself the visibility of who you are.
• Decided to medically transition despite endless healthcare discrimination.
• Socially transitioned and chose authenticity and exploration.
• Has not or cannot transition.

 

Thank you to every trans person, ancestor and present-day, who:

• Has ever imagined a better world for us and, through that visualization, proved that that world was possible.
• Continues to, through policy work, advocacy, activism, artistic expression, and philosophical exploration, fight for that world and show the truth of human experience.
• Has built and existed as the foundation of our community.

 

Thank you to every trans person, ancestor and present-day, who:

• Created a chosen family when our born into families let us down.
• Is still seeking their chosen family.

 

Thank you to every trans person, ancestor and present-day, who:

• Has ever laughed, sang, danced, and had the audacity to choose joy.
• Has impacted the collective culture with our boundless creativity and magic.
• Has ever loved, been loved, or sought to love. To know that our very root is love.

 

Thank you to every trans person, ancestor and present-day, who:

• Has ever been out at work and deconstructed rigid norms of professionalism.
• Has done work to educate the masses on who we are—who, through that work, illuminated, and made space for myriad trans people to come into themselves.
• Has done whatever they needed to do to survive.
• Was unable to survive, or to whom life was cruel.

 

And, thank you to every trans person, ancestor and present-day, who chooses to get up and do it all over again … and to those who are unable to. 

Visibility is more than the grandiose. Visibility lies in the day-to-day, in the struggles and triumphs known to the world or only to ourselves. It is in the thoughts and wonder that ventriloquize our own movements. Our society may try to flatten us with oppression and, most certainly, we will continue the fight to dismantle that oppression alongside our allies. But today is about gratitude, joy, and celebration.

Thank you for choosing you. 

For, simply, being you.

March 30, 2022

If you want more resources to celebrate the trans community, contact us today!