TDOV: The Complicated Paradox of Visibility
Another year, another Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV). Every time we come to this time of year, or really to any time where transness is highlighted for any reason, my feelings are complicated. You will not typically see me post content that uplifts and celebrates these days because I do not think that I can, honestly, without engaging in the complexity and the nuance that they require.
Trans Visibility is Complicated
Visibility has never felt particularly safe for trans people on this land since colonization. For the most part, safety has been predicated on passing…either passing in their assigned gender or their true gender, but always maintaining absolute privacy around their transness. Many folks will remember the breathless 2014 media coverage of the "transgender tipping point," where a number of well-meaning journalists saw that we had a few out trans celebrities and decided that the oppression of trans people was over, or nearly enough.
Gosh, 2014…what a time to be alive!
Yet I remember in 2014, when I was doing research on the effect of stigma on the trans community, and seeing a profound disconnect between these trumpeting proclamations and the lived realities of most trans people's lives. This was especially profound for Black and Indigenous trans women, who were sitting at such a complex superhighway exchange of oppression that their experience was utterly incomparable to that of a white transmasculine person. Tipping point…where, exactly? And for whom?
The impact of all that brouhaha was multifaceted, a complex mix of good and bad, helpful and harmful. For trans people, visibility always is.
As a doula, I know that TDOV and other trans-centered days/weeks in the year often hit folks in a variety of complicated ways. So I want to be clear that visibility is not a one-size-fits-all thing. There are the impacts of visibility on individuals, on the community as a whole, and then visibility as a political strategy.
The Political Strategy of Visibility
Visibility as a political strategy has been very effective for the LGB community. When Harvey Milk encouraged folks to come out of the closet, he was engaging with visibility as a political strategy. The idea was that the more straight people discovered that folks they already knew and loved were gay, the more they would be willing to accept gay people in general. Its harder to think that all gay people are evil perverts when you have to square that opinion with the fact that your beloved brother, sister, friend, hair stylist, car mechanic, clergyperson, etc, are all gay too.
The LGB community has paired a simple visibility strategy with a strategy of normalization. In other words, for the average heterosexual it isn't just that all these folks you know and love already are gay, but that they are also just like you in all the ways that count. They, too, want to get married, have children, make money, buy houses, walk their dog, wave to their neighbor, enjoy the (white) American Dream.
Not all LGB people engaged this way, but cisgender LGB's with immense financial and political capital invested in these strategies, and they won big*. This is why we have made so much progress in terms of LGB law and policy - marriage equality, conversion therapy bans, hate crime legislation, adding "sexuality" as a protected class on anti-discrimination law, the list goes on. And each of the legislative wins in that list has complications, caveats, critiques, nuances (see the controversial concept of “homonormativity”)…but the political landscape has change drastically in the past 40 years as a direct result of this strategy.
(*Note: of course the main beneficiaries of this movement have been white, cisgender, able-bodied, and affluent LGB’s. When I say that this strategy was successful I do not mean that its impact was unequivocally good or equally good for everyone. I mean that it worked the way that the demographic who funded it wanted it to.)
Visibility & Agency
Visibility is a different thing for trans people. Its not always a choice for us, and that changes the meaning of it. To choose being visible as an act of agency can be powerful. To be made visible, regardless of your personal feelings on the matter, is a far more complex experience. To be made visible is to be made vulnerable, and there is little, if any, choice in what visibility is exposing you to.
And yet! And also! In an ideal world, in the world that I am dreaming into, in the best of all possible worlds, in the world that I inhabit, already, in my heart and mind and imagination, every form and method and possibility of the most expansive gender reality is perfectly, beautifully, abundantly visible. In that world, all people, all bodies, all expressions are free of gendered constraint or assumption. People are allowed to identify for themselves what their gender is, how they want to live it, express it, embody it, and this is totally normal and quotidian and unremarkable.
The pain of this comes from the chasm between the world we currently inhabit and the world I described above, the world of my dreamspace (ty Tricia Hersey for "dreamspace" as a concept). The space between vulnerable/painful/nonconsensual visibility and perfect, unremarkable visibility. I believe deeply that we can achieve that dream, but it also hurts to see how far our current reality is from that.
TDOV
So what do we do with something like TDOV, which has essentially become a day of social media campaigns, performative allyship, and complicated feelings?
Well, if you're a trans person, you can do anything you want. Truly! Some folks will want to celebrate this day, to post nudes on social media, to make TikToks or reels or whatever else, to go to a protest, to have a party, to really allow themselves to see and be seen. Other folks will want to delete every app off of their phone and turn off notifications. Many people will fall somewhere between, around, above, below, or far afield of these two reactions. I think trans people get all the leeway they need with days/weeks like this. Do whatever feels like the best option for you.
Because the thing is, visibility is a political strategy. TDOV is made for that purpose. A political strategy can not account for all the many individual realities of the various humans involved in the group it purports to help. So in case you need to hear this today, gorgeous trans human, you are not required to do anything at all, actually. You are not failing your community if you choose to opt out of days like today. You are not less trans. You are the trans person that you are most responsible for, and taking good care of yourself is a sacred act. The care you need to get through this may be different from what others need. That's not a problem.
If you're a cis person, though, I believe you do have a responsibility to stand up during this time. You have a responsibility to make it more possible, safer for trans folks to be visible. How you do this can look all kinds of ways. I suggest you take time every week, like literally put an hour on your calendar, and spend that time writing to local, state, and national representatives. Go to protests and actions if you can. Vote against anyone who has aligned themselves with transphobic policies and ideologies. Give money to Transgender Law Center, to other trans orgs, to individual trans people on GoFundMe.
And more than that, speak out to your friends and family. Anyone who is genuinely in your circle of influence. Say, "I know you to be a good and compassionate person. I know that you can see how this group of people is being harmed. Will you join me in [insert any of the above actions here]?" If there's a trans person in your family, YOU be the one to hold the rest of the family accountable. Make it about love. Always love. And recognize that every trans person in America is suffering right now. This is a traumatic time. So be gentle.
In Conclusion
Will we get through this? Of course we will. Trans people always survive. Our transcestors are holding us through this. But its hard right now, and its not clear when it will get easier. So this TDOV, remember that you, gorgeous trans person, are not responsible for being perfectly visible. You are not required to put yourself in harm's way. You get to make of this day, and every day, whatever you want, because your presence on this earth is already a miracle.
Take gentle care of yourself. Take gentle care of one another.