I grew up in a country where being queer or being trans was illegal. Then, when I moved to the states, I lived in a state where being queer or being trans was also illegal. Was it hard? Absolutely? Did that mean I was any less queer or trans? Absolutely not. And that, in fact, politicized me in a very radical way.
When I came out under those conditions, I came out so LOUD. And for thousands of years before me, people were queer and trans, too.
A law that says that “there are only two sexes” doesn’t change the fact that that is actually not true. It certainly doesn’t change who I am and how I identify. What’s changing is how it is being weaponized. (This administration has also decided to forgo the factual distinction between sex and gender.)
For instance, people calling me Chinese or Japanese does not mean I am no longer Korean. Instead, it indicates to me that they’re the ones who are limited in their knowledge and in their scope of life. They are weaponizing their limitation.
Similarly, a declaration that there are only “two sexes” is a weaponization of that limited thinking, transphobia, ableism, and racism.
Remember that you are the only one that can define your own gender identity. No one else can do that for you. And everything that tries to take that power away from us informs us how we need to protect each other and ourselves.
Fortunately for us, and this will always be the case, gender is infinite. And what I have learned in my lifetime is when entities try to limit our expression of our identities, that expression only gets louder, bigger, and more powerful.
We protect each other infinitely.
Transphobic people can only come up with two genders, whereas trans and genderqueer people can come up with an infinite number of genders. By all counts, trans and genderqueer people win here.
Just because they can’t imagine us does not mean we don’t exist. After all, I’m right here. And I see you too.
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