A Letter To The Trans Teen Thinking About Giving Up

Dear friend,

Throughout all of human history, three things have always been true:

1. There are trans people.
2. There are boring assholes who try to make there not be trans people anymore.
3. They fail.

The words we use to describe ourselves and the weapons they try to hurt us with have changed over the centuries. The landscape of what we do and don’t have access to changes all the time. How we find each other, what it looks like when we do find each other, how much the government knows that we exist and whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing? None of these things are the same as they were a thousand or a hundred or twenty or even five years ago.

The thing that never changes is this: they can’t stop us from existing, no matter how hard they try.

And holy cow, are they trying right now! We got the decision back in U.S. v. Skrmettiexternal link, opens in a new tab this week, the supreme court case saying that it’s fine for states to make it impossible for people under 18 to access gender⁠ (gender: Characteristics that are seen or presented as distinguishing between male and female in a society. Gender may or may not include assigned or chosen: social roles, feelings, behaviors and/or presentation or appearance.) -affirming care like puberty⁠ (puberty: The process of physical and sexual changes from childhood to adulthood, initiated by hormone signals from the brain to the gonads. ) blockers⁠ (blockers: Also called puberty blockers or puberty inhibitors. They block the release of hormones from the pituitary gland, thus putting a pause on puberty. Used by young trans individuals to prevent elements of puberty that may cause dysphoria.) .

I’m going to give you two short paragraphs of legal analysis, which you can skip if you want to, and then talk about what I think it means for all of us.

The plaintiffs in the case were suing the state of Tennessee for its law banning gender-affirming healthcare for people under 18. They argued that the law was discrimination on the basis of sex⁠ (sex: Different things people choose to do to actively express or enact sexuality and sexual feelings; often this involves genitals, but not always. ) , which would violate the 14^th amendment to the constitution. If the court had agreed that the law discriminated on the basis of sex, that would have meant that it had to be analyzed under a standard called “heightened scrutiny” – the government would have to prove that there’s some really good reason that they have to make these restrictions in order for the law to stand. If the court ruled that the law did not discriminate on the basis of sex — which it did — it would have to be analyzed under a less stringent standard, “rational basis” – the government would only have to prove that the law is sort of related to some governmental interest.

In practice, most laws meet the “rational basis” standard, and a lot fewer laws stand up to “heightened scrutiny,” and so the court deciding that Tennessee’s ban isn’t sex discrimination, and therefore only needs to meet the “rational basis” standard means that the law will stand. In practice, this means that the 27 states that have already passed legislation banning gender-affirming care for people under 18 can keep doing that, and that any other state that wants to pass similar legislation can currently do so without having to worry that it will be overturned as unconstitutional. If you live in one of those 27 states, this probably means that if you are still under 18, it will become a lot harder for you to get gender-affirming medical care through the channels that you would have been able to before. If you live in a state that has not passed one of these bans, this ruling does not change the law in your state.

I know you’re probably tuned into this news and I know it’s scary, because it feels like something really important is being taken away from us by the government refusing to recognize and protect us. I know that many of the organizations that are supposed to be supporting you are talking a lot about whether you want to be alive, even using it as an argument for why people should give them money, instead of sitting down with you and saying, “Hey, I love you and I’m here for you.”

I also know that trans community is creative and resilient and crafty and if you haven’t already found ways to get what you need, those ways are growing all around you like roots in soil and will soon blossom. I know my therapist just told me their teenager went to a punk show and came home with a year’s supply of estrogen⁠ (estrogen: A steroid hormone found in the bodies of all people, produced in the ovaries and the adrenal glands.It is involved in puberty, menstruation, pregnancy, mood, bone health, and other things across the body and lifespan .) . I know hundreds of parents who will move heaven and earth to make sure that their children can access what they need to access, and I know networks of thousands of queer⁠ (queer: In the context of sexuality, a broad term for sexual orientation that can describe any number of orientations which are not heterosexual. People who identify as queer may be bisexual or pansexual, gay or lesbian, questioning, asexual or more.) and trans people all over the country who are reaching out⁠ (out: Short for ‘out of the closet’. When someone’s LGBTQ+ identity is known to other people.) for your hand, your hand in particular, to say “Hey, I love you and I’m here for you.”

I also want you to know that if you’re looking down the barrel of a puberty that feels like the end of the world, or if you’re already in it, and you can’t get your hands on the medications that will keep it away from you, I want you to know that you *will* get through it and you *will* come out the other side and we’ll all be here to catch you, because nearly every trans person who is an adult today went through the exact same thing and we know exactly what you’re feeling right now.

When I was thirteen I had never heard the word “trans.”

I also didn’t know there was such a thing as changing your gender or liking your life. All I knew was that I felt like there was something terribly wrong with me, like there was nobody else like me in the world, and like it was just going to be like that forever. As my body started to change, I felt like I was becoming a monstrosity and I would have done anything to keep it from happening. I stopped eating; I wanted to disappear. I was so sure that everything would be better if I didn’t exist. I was so sure that I was never going to feel any other way.

I was so sure but I was also so wrong. I got access to gender-affirming healthcare in my twenties; more importantly, I found community. I found other people who felt the way I feel, who I could talk to without feeling like an alien, who I could show my heart to and hear them say, “me too.”

I want you to know that whatever happens, there is a future for you, because there is a future for us.

I don’t know what that future is going to look like, but I know that you’re not going to face any of it alone.

We’ve had a couple of years of this really lovely reprieve where sometimes, in some places, a person of any age can say, to their parent, to their doctor, to the government, “I’m trans and here’s what I need,” and the care they need is made available. Sometimes, in some places, if there are barriers to that access, the government will even step in and say that that barrier is illegal, that the law requires that trans people be allowed to exist. It looks like that period⁠ (period: The fluid – or flow – which contains blood, from the shedding of the uterine lining usually at the end of each menstrual cycle. Sometimes periods may be less fluid and more globby; this is the state that is often mistaken for blood clotting.) is ending, and like things are going to get harder again. I think it’s been easy to feel like we need that government protection, and so when it’s under threat or taken away altogether, it’s easy to feel like everything is lost.

I also think that terror and dread can obscure something really important, which is that this reprieve is very, very recent. In the living memory of people who are not that old, it wasn’t possible to go to your doctor and say “I’m trans and here’s what I need.” Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which created the first nationwide nondiscrimination protections in healthcare for LGBTQ⁠ (LGBTQ: L = lesbian, G = gay, B = bisexual, T = transgender, Q = queer or questioning. Additional letters sometimes added include U = unsure, I = intersex, P = pansexual, A= asexual, S = straight allies.) people, came into effect in 2016, only nine years ago. Up until 2012, the majority of people who were able to access gender affirming surgery or other kinds of healthcare paid out of pocket because insurance companies wouldn’t consider covering it. Lady Gaga’s song Bad Romance is older than comprehensive insurance coverage for trans care.

For the vast majority of human history, when we wanted to do this stuff, we had to do it ourselves. The obstacles were different, over the years, than they are now, but the outcome — that we have to go through a first puberty that might suck real bad, that we have to fight and hide and travel, and meet someone who knows someone who knows someone, and get tips from folks who have been out longer than us about what loopholes and tricks we can use — and that when we do those things, we get what we need and live lives that are beautiful in ways they can’t possibly imagine — that’s the same.

The memory of when it was hard before is still alive: all the skills and networks and loopholes and intergenerational information-sharing and the ways we show up for each other are also still here, ready to be reactivated. The boring assholes didn’t stop us then and they’re not going to stop us now.

Between you and me, the right-wing narrative about us isn’t really about us at all: it’s about what our existence means for the systems of power that are trying to extract everything they can from the beautiful world we live in. If gender isn’t what they think it is, then their hierarchies get wobbly. If people of all ages have body autonomy⁠ (autonomy: The state or condition of being independent and/or having the right to independence.) , then their grip on reproductive control— which they mean to exert over cisgender⁠ (cisgender: Describes people who have a gender identity which is traditionally thought to “match” their assigned sex. For instance, someone who was assigned male at birth who identifies as a man. Often used in relation to transgender.) women too, of course — starts to slip. If they don’t own the children they parent and can’t control their bodies, then their propagation of racial hierarchies is in danger. The people driving those machines are old and frightened and miserable, and seeing us, seeing you, being so free, engaging with your bodies and your community in ways they could never imagine, doing a backflip off of their systems of power and giving them the finger – it drives them up a fucking wall. 

But they are boring assholes, and they will fail.

I get asked all the time, “what gives you hope?” and I know a lot has been written about hope, and despair, and nihilism, and belief, and I don’t need to recreate that whole argument here. Instead, I want to propose that the kind of hope we need today is not the belief that things will get better but rather the commitment to finding meaning and connection and beauty all around us even if they don’t.

I promise you that the ruling in Skrmetti is not the death sentence it feels like or that you might even have been told it absolutely is. It’s just the fascist state telling us what we already knew, which is that we can’t ever count on it for protection, but that’s okay, because we can count on each other. Samuel Alito was never going to show up for us, but we will always show up for each other.

I really wish that the circumstances were different and I was writing you this letter to say, “Great news friend! The supreme court gave us a break today!” or to say, “Guess what, here’s how to run your endocrine system on manual without having to ask anybody’s permission!” or to say, “The state has given up on trying to destroy us!” From the bottom⁠ (bottom: Either a colloquial term for buttocks or even the whole genital area, or someone who wants to consensually relinquish control or active leadership during sex to a partner and follow their lead.) of my heart, I’m so sorry that this sucks so bad. I wouldn’t blame you if you feel scared, because I’m scared, too.

But listen: there’s a story of the future that has you in it. That story has some scary parts and some parts that hurt, but it also has some beautiful parts. There’s a future you who is surrounded by meaning and connection and beauty, and who has people around them that will catch them when they stumble and hug them when they get up. There’s a future you who doesn’t depend on the state for anything because they are seen and held and loved by community, who can reach out their own hand to the next generations of queer and trans people and pass along some of this stuff to them, just like I’m passing⁠ (passing: Being perceived as a member of a non-marginalized group when you’re a member of a marginalized group.) it to you now. There’s a future you who is living a life that’s cooler than you can even imagine in the present, and who doesn’t feel the way you feel in the wake of this decision. And I am determined to meet that person and high five them.

All my love,

Andy

P.S. Thank you to my comrades Corey, Kai, Ellie, Yellow, and the Bean who test-read this for me.