by Jayla Wilkerson

Today is #TransDayOfVisibility or #TDOV. Many of us are struggling with how to be visible in the era of coronavirus and social distancing/sheltering in place. So, here is my contribution.

Many who know me well know that Harvey Milk is one of my biggest heroes. But what does that have to do with TDOV? Harvey wasn’t transgender. True. But Harvey knew the power and the importance of visibility.

Gay rights in the US were on very shaky ground in the 1960s and 1970s. Harvey Milk was on the front lines fighting for change. One thing about which he was passionate was the need for all gay people to “come out.” He said that though you may face hardships, may lose your job, may lose your friends, may lose your family, you HAVE to come out for the good of the movement and for the good of the community.

You see, people fear what they don’t understand. Many in society at that time thought that all gay people were deviant, dangerous, child-molesting monsters. That’s why they jumped on board with rolling back the rights of gay people to exist in this nation. That’s why Harvey and his folks pressured everyone to be visible. If they see us; if they recognize that we are everywhere; if they know that we are their neighbors, their friends, their coworkers, their own family members; if they see that we are doctors, lawyers, college professors, engineers, artists, and everything else; they will be forced to recognize that we are fundamentally no different from themselves. Then they’ll be forced to reckon with their misguided fear and hate. It’s harder to hate someone you love.

Harvey was right. People came out in droves. Gay rights were solidified eventually in many ways unfathomable to Harvey’s generation.

Transgender people are still today in much the same condition as gay people in the 1960s and 1970s. We are misunderstood. We are feared. We are living in shadows and closets. We are shunned by many in the gay community. We are persecuted by many in the religious community. We are legislated against by the governments. We are harassed and abused by law enforcement. We are MURDERED by hateful, ignorant bigots. Many of us are scared. Many of us are hiding who we are. We need to stop. We need to come out. We need to be visible.

And we need support, acceptance, understanding, and love from the rest of you.

It seems today that being transgender is a new fad. It is not. Transgender people have been around pretty much as long as gender has. We lacked vocabulary and understanding which we now have. That is why more transgender people today are able to live their truth than before. That is also why younger people are able to recognize their own gender more than we have historically. I knew when I was five years old that “I wished I had been born a girl.” That was my only way to understand what I felt. I was 28 years old when I found out what transgender meant and recognized that as my life-long truth. If I were born in today’s world, I would have had the vocabulary and information at age five to speak my truth. So don’t be scared that we are recruiting or that youth are being forced to transition. All of that rhetoric is lies mass produced to scare you into hating transgender people.

Also, the common concept of a transgender person is “a man in a dress.” That is not the case. There are transgender women like myself. There are transgender men who look just like other men. There are non-binary people for whom I cannot speak because I am not among them, but they are valid and they are human same as you and me. There is a whole spectrum of people who are transgender and by and large, we are really great people.

I personally know transgender people who are lawyers, engineers, politicians, artists, aviation professionals, cashiers, construction workers, activists, medical professionals, unemployed people, homemakers, judges, police officers, military veterans, college professors, clergy members, high school teachers, and many other things. We are everywhere. We are everyone. We are your neighbors. We are your friends. We are your siblings. We are your kids. We are your parents. We are your coworkers. We love you. We need you to love us. We are humans. WE ARE VISIBLE. See us.

Like another of my biggest heroes, Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said, “I ask no favor for my [community]. All I ask of our bretheren [and sisteren] is that they take their feet off our necks.”

Happy #TDOV2020

Be Visible. Speak your truth. Spread the love. Educate the ignorant.

Jayla Wilkerson lives in Dallas and is an attorney.