Strategies to Protect and Preserve Trans Hope
It is absolutely vital that we disengage from this hamster wheel of doom. We can take back our attention, we can take back our time, we can take back our energy. I will use this space to offer three main strategies for protecting and preserving trans hope. I will go into depth with each strategy, with the hope that you can begin implementing even one of these things.
How Trans People Use “Trans Enough”
Unfortunately, we’re not immune to the context in which we were raised. Trans people have used “trans enough” ideology to gatekeep our own community spaces, and have harmed ourselves in the process. Ultimately, we must learn to make space for all the many different ways that one can come to interact with, claim, and even release trans identities.
How Cis People Use “Trans Enough”
The idea that there is some standard of trans ness that makes any given individual authentically or truly trans is a powerful, seductive concept. This idea has been used by cisgender people for a very long time to control trans people—their access to medical and social services, their access to identity documents (like passport, ID cards, etc), and their access to all the many privileges that cis people enjoy, regardless of their gender.