#transally

Playing around with both ends of my scrappy Musselburgh hat before I shorten it to a wearable length. Pulled all the way down, I appear to have been detained by the Stockinette Chapter of The Knitting Craftivists (interesting image). I almost like the massively wide brim but it hides the Trans Pride stripes, and I want to be a visible ally. The bag cap has a kind of Renaissance or liberty cap look, but it's not exactly a 21st century look. Onward!

“Today is the day to make sure that the trans community is visible for who they are and what we stand for. Today is the day to make sure that a trans person in your community feels seen and that their opinions and ideas are heard. Today is the day to make sure that the trans community is seen and most importantly heard in any level of legislation, especially if our rights are up for debate.” 

Kiki (she/her), 14 yo Youth Voice from New Jersey

🏳️‍⚧️ Today is #TransDayofVisibility.

So, what exactly does that mean in a year when we've already been made VERY visible by lawmakers, school officials, and in the media? We asked around in our community. This year, it means...

🟣 Intentionally LISTENING to trans people (including trans youth) about our own personal stories, feelings, and experiences is so vital.

🟣 Allies need to stand UP and speak out alongside us - sometimes it's not safe for us to do so.

🟣 We need to engage with and share more trans content and uplift trans content creators to learn from each other and educate allies - we have amazing streamers weekly on our Twitch, tons of stories on Youtube, and a whole trans and nonbinary playlist on TikTok!

🟣 We need to share resources to support one another. We have an entire database of over 1,000 LGBTQ+ organizations on our Get Help page that you can filter by issue area and location, including a page just for trans and GNC people at itgetsbetter.org/gethelp. Save it for yourself and share with friends.

🟣 We're not going to stop celebrating trans joy...

Happy Trans Day of Visibility 💙💖

Incredible artists from across the world have created pieces celebrating trans pride, community, and visibility.

Yesterday my sister told me about her friends predicament and I insisted upon buying him a binder. I may not be trans, but if you want to feel comfortable in your own skin, I'm all for it and will help you.

Everybody deserves the right to be comfortable and happy with the way they look and who they are.

I understand that a lot of the way we empower ourselves to embrace our feminity is by drawing strength from what a feat of nature we are. That we can create life. And that the idea of men being able to do the things that we can do can feel like them taking control of yet another thing. Of the patriarchy removing every last ounce of us. Can feel diminishing. But trans people exist at the bottom of that patriarchy. They do not stand for it at all.

This is not what trans people are trying to do. Trans women (people assigned male at birth who now identify as women) were not the ones who asked for the packaging to be changed, yet seem to be the ones being attacked. They are the ones who generally find it endlessly painful that they cannot do all of the things cis womens bodies can do. They are the ones who greave never being able to carry a child. Who would sign up to the monthly pain we all cuss about because they want to be a 'real women'. That they have missed out on the magic. They are the ones denied access to safe spaces because people will not stop viewing them as male, and in that, as a threat. They sit at the bottom because women will not embrace them for fear of attack, or taunt them that they should be glad they'll never know the pain. And men will not embrace them as either male or female but as a thing to attack. Or as a thing to fetishise.

Trans men (assigned female at birth now idenitifying as a man) did ask for the female gender markee to be removed from Always pad packing. Calmly. Nothing else. They have never commented on it being advertised towards men, and they would agree with us that surrounding sanitary products there are bigger fish to fry such as taxation or being more eco friendly or even using red liquid instead of blue. However, this is what the company responded to and agreed to. They simply asked that a symbol be removed that hits them when they are down.

We know how painful periods are, we generally do not want them and complain about them to high heaven, now imagine if you literally do not believe that you should have any of those parts. You are and want to be seen as a man. Removing that tiny symbol helps ease their dysphoria a tiny bit, while affecting no one else in anyway.

What could be the harm in that.

Because they do not want to be able to do these things. They do not want to erase women or stake a claim that these are male things. They want to run away from these things because only people assigned female at birth can do them. But until any surgery they might choose to undergo they are stuck which painful bleeding taunting them monthly that they are in the wrong body. Can you even imagine that added pain.  

Removing a symbol you probably never even noticed does not erase you, it simply helps someone else's day in a deeply important way.

The idea of saying pregnant people or just generally saying people instead of women is not to erase women it is to not assume gender on someone because of their reproductive organs. But no one is forcing you to say it. Not a single soul.

Nobody wants to erase women or take away their strengths. All this pointless war is doing is alienating us from our trans sisters and brothers because of an empty threat we feel. when we could use that strength to help each other. Pulling us away from fights that matter. From taxation. From the shit show that is politics. From rape culture. From global warming. From all of it.