Old Men Keep Complaining to Me About Trans Rights

There is a war against transgender people, and old white men are losing their shit. I work a couple jobs in the hospitality industry, and I must have an inviting demeanour because these men keep talking to me about gender politics. Maybe I’m just another outlet to vent after watching the news. Or maybe they think they can say anything to me, and I have to listen because I’m not a man. Either way, the conversations keep rolling in. We may not see eye to eye, but I can try to sympathise with how they might be feeling. As I too have formed strong opinions about things I hardly knew anything about.

Some of the topics include but are not limited to: gender affirming surgeries for those under 18, doctors who provide said surgeries, pronouns, transgender people in sports, and the battle with the bathrooms. All ending in an awkward agree to disagree resolution, or me nudging the discussion in another direction. Even though we’re in the Bay, it doesn’t mean that everyone supports the gays. Or those whose identity lies outside of the ‘LGB’ in LGBTQ+.

It seems that older generations, and those less exposed to queer people, are having a harder time accepting us. Don’t get me wrong, the majority of people I come across have nothing bad to say about cis queers, but throw in the gender debate and their walls usually go up.

I identify as non-binary, which can be classified underneath the trans umbrella. I present fairly “femme” and people will always assume I am a woman. Most of the time, people assume I’m straight. I get to hide behind my appearance when discussing these topics and typically not worry about my safety. With that being said, I do sometimes get a different perspective on these issues because people don’t think that I could ever relate.

One of the most common concerns I get is, “we need to keep the bathrooms safe for our children.” What’s frustrating about this is that they seem genuinely worried, so we usually end up going in circles. They defend the children, and I defend the trans community. What I really think is happening is their world is being flipped around and they can’t handle this type of change. Because if women start having penises, and men have vulvas, then what does that mean for themselves? These type of men seem to be having an identity crisis, and the only way they know how to handle it is to be loud and opinionated. Like they always have, because they can.

The thing is, it’s not the cis children that we need to worry about in these bathrooms, its the transgender and gender non-conforming children and adults. A letter signed by school officials in several states described the bathroom dilemma as such; “Discussions about school policy involving transgender students often focus on hypothetical concerns that respecting students’ gender identity, and allowing them to use facilities in accordance with their gender identity, will violate the privacy or “comfort” of other students … But in our experience, none of those concerns have materialised in the form of actual problems in our schools … our transgender students simply want to be safe while using school facilities.” In addition, researchers have found that transgender and non-binary teens are at greater risk of sexual assault, when not allowed into the bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

With 1.6 million people identifying as transgender within the United States, it’s kind of hard to sympathise with someone saying that we’re not real. Or if they believe that we are, that we don’t deserve the same rights as cisgender people. What I’ve gathered from talking to these men, and people in general, is that there is a huge learning curve. I think on both sides everyone wants the right thing to happen, but if we’re not causing harm to your own life, why must it matter so much to be “right?”

Transgender, genderqueer, non-binary, whatever you want to call us; we’ve been around forever. What people need to grasp is that we are not something new, and we are not just following some trend. We finally have ways to connect with each other in ways that have never existed before. Teens who are denied the chance to go through hormone therapy, and express themselves according to their gender identity, are at greater risk of psychological distress as adults. This isn’t just a war against transgender people, this is a battle for survival.