A pastor who is also the mother of a trans son explained why visibility is critical to transgender people’s happiness.

“Being seen, insisting on visibility, is not a matter of ego, ‘wokeness,’ or forcing one’s identity on other people,” Serena Rice explained in an impassioned essay for Advocate. “It is a matter of basic human dignity. It is the instinctive understanding that being seen for who we are is essential to being valued for who we are.”

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A desire to be seen for exactly who we are is innate, she explained, comparing the need to be out and proud to a child who breaks out “into a beaming grin” after searching for their parents at the start of an elementary school show.

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“These adorable little humans haven’t done anything beyond entering the stage,” she said. “However, they still feel proud of themselves because the people they care about can see them.”

Rice also said there is a biblical aspect to all of this as well, in a desire to be seen by God. She gave examples of people in the Bible, like Zacchaeus, whose “lives were changed because God saw them”

When it comes to trans people, she said, it would in certain ways “be much easier and safer not to be seen,” but that “being seen, insisting on visibility, is not a matter of ego, ‘wokeness,’ or forcing one’s identity on other people. It is a matter of basic human dignity. It is the instinctive understanding that being seen for who we are is essential to being valued for who we are.”

Trans people, she said, are facing mounting pressure to hide as rightwing forces do everything in their power to demean their identities, and many on the left abandon the fight to help them.

But trans people, she said, are “made in the image of God… and their trans image is not a mistake.”

“God made them trans on purpose,” she concluded. “They beautifully teach the world about the beauty and power of breaking binary categories that try to hide God’s diverse creativity.”

“Trans people need to be visible for their dignity, but the rest of us need them to be visible so that we can see the face of God in them. We will never know the fullness of God if we hide them.”

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