Growing up Black and trans in Detroit meant that I saw a lot of hardship, but for a long time, I had no idea my experience had a name. It wasn’t until I met my wife that I found out what it meant to be trans. It took even longer for me to realize that I was actually a guy forcing himself to live as a woman.

As a kid, I was bullied for not acting like a typical girl my age, but I loved studying American history. It was my best subject in the eighth grade. I learned that even with atrocities like slavery and the prevalence of racism, the Founding Fathers wrote the United States Constitution with the mind that it is a living document and can be changed to fit the needs of the nation.

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“Please don’t leave this world”: Trans activists react to Donald Trump’s victory
“Trump, too, is America. Quite possibly the most America. And we must accept that.”

All my life, I’ve known Michigan to lean Democratic. When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, I had just returned to my home state from Oklahoma City. I was so disgusted that people voted for him over Hillary Clinton. My wife and I made it through that first presidency because Donald Trump was limited in what he could do. But he still planted the seeds in his attempt to turn everything in America away from the values this country was founded on. 

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America is growing, and diversity is a good thing. But people like Donald Trump think that being too diverse is a threat to our country. It isn’t. The real threat is people like him and those who support him, who want only a small group of people to have rights while the rest of us have to pick at scraps to survive. 

Trump and his supporters want to control people’s bodies. They want to force people to have children they may not be ready for or can’t afford. They want victims to carry children created from the abuse they had to endure. They don’t want trans kids to transition because that means those are bodies they can’t control. They want everyone to bend to this narrow view they have of the world and how it should work. I went out and voted because I was against all of this.

I was angry when Trump succeeded in overturning Roe v. Wade to appease his pro-life supporters. Then states started banning abortion access, and as expected, people are dying because of it. I was hopeful that Kamala Harris would win, and when I woke up the morning after the election, I found myself in tears, fearful that as a trans man, I wouldn’t have access to abortion care should I ever need it.

I was afraid, but then it hit me: That’s what they want us to feel. Trump and his supporters want us to hide; they want us to quietly go back into the closet. They don’t like that we aren’t scared to be ourselves.

Since Trump’s victory, I have seen so many messages from trans people saying they’re going to detransition for safety. Some who haven’t started transitioning say they won’t even try at all. It breaks my heart. I want everyone who is trans to know that we can’t just give in. They want us to give up and go back to hiding to make them comfortable. They did this to gay and lesbian folks, too, and they had to fight to remain visible. Our battles intersect with theirs. Certain people see all of us as a dangerous problem. 

My mother didn’t find out I was trans until I was in my mid-thirties. I’m 36 now, and though she initially seemed accepting, there seems to have been a shift. She calls me by my dead name and doesn’t respect me as a man. I don’t talk to her anymore, but I keep on going.

We need to keep living. We need to keep being ourselves. We need to stay visible. Because then they’ll realize their divisive tactics to make us hide won’t work. The best thing you can do when faced with hatred is to not buckle at the sight of it. If we give in, they will win. They are counting on us to give up. They want to stop us from transitioning because they know it will drive some of us to end our own lives. We can’t do that.

Marsha P. Johnson fought hard for us to have the rights we do, and so many trans activists are fighting for us now. We have to be our own advocates, too. We have to be louder than the negative press. People need our stories. Get out there and tell yours. 

As Harris said in her concession speech, “There’s an adage a historian once called ‘a law of history,’ true of every society across the ages. The adage is: ‘Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.’”

If America is indeed entering a dark time, we need to be like the stars and shine. I’m not letting anyone put my light out, and neither should any of you. We’re stronger when we live and keep going. That’s how we will survive.

If anyone needs words of hope right now, especially my trans siblings in red states, know you’re going to make it through this. You have to fight, to blaze the trails for those behind you.

I believe in all of you. You must live. Don’t give up.

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