Do you believe me now?
"Hey! Listen!" - Navi
Update: The full text of the Executive Order is now available. Erin Reed has also done in-depth analysis of it.
On Inauguration Day, 1993, I stayed home from school. I was sick - my stomach wasn’t feeling well. And so, on a grainy TV, with rabbit ear antennae, I watched parts of the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, who I didn’t know much about.
But that’s not what I remember most that day.
My dad came home from work at his usual time. There was a big windstorm blowing as well, and for whatever reason1 the family decided to go out to dinner at a sit-down restaurant a little north of us. Normally I’d jump at the chance, but I was feeling sick enough that I said I shouldn’t go. My dad insisted that I go anyways, sure that it wasn’t that bad. And so, I went.
His certainty vanished when, mid-dinner, I threw up on the table we were all sitting at.
When I got back from cleaning myself off in the restroom, I remember him saying, “well, I’ll believe you in the future when you say you’re not feeling well.”
The moral: each of us is the authority on our own lives. We’re generally best positioned to say how we feel and what is happening to us.
Inauguration 2025: Anti-Trans America
I spent much of 2024 trying to sound the alarm of what would happen with another Trump presidency. I tried hard to base my concerns in things Trump himself said, so that people wouldn’t have to believe my speculation, they just needed to believe Trump.
And an enduring, sometimes paralyzing, response from others was that I was just wrong. Trump didn’t care about trans people, they said. Trump can’t do anything to trans people, they said.
Well?
Today, Trump announced the end of America’s recognition of transgender people. His executive orders end non-binary passports, move trans women in federal prisons to men’s prisons, cut funding for medical grants to research trans health care (the very thing that many on the right say we need more of), and attempt to restrict funding for gender-affirming care, though it’s unclear how much effect that will have. The important thing to note about the last one is: he tried. And there’s no reason to think he won’t try again.
And every single one of these things was a thing I previously said he was going to do.
So, my question to those who may have considered me to be overreacting or too afraid, or something like that, is this: Will you be like my dad was 32 years ago, and finally have the humility to admit you were wrong not to listen to me and so many other trans voices, and indeed the person who said he would do these things?
Or will you continue to play pretend? Will you continue to listen to whatever sources were wrong about this? And if so, for what reason?
I’m not even asking for an apology, though one would be appropriate, I’m just asking that you finally listen. To me and so many others.
My best guess is that the power at home may have already been out (so making dinner was difficult), and that my parents didn’t want to leave me (10 years old at the time) at home. Our house had many large trees around it, one of which eventually fell and hit the house in 2001. We went to a restaurant farther away than normal, making me think we chose it because it still had power.
I always believed, Celeste. The signs, the blueprint, and your important voice were always there.
What do you mean by saying that Trump's executive orders going to move trans women from federal prisons to women's prisons? Do you mean that the orders are going to move trans women from federal prisons to women's prisons & trans men from federal prisons to men's prisons, do you mean you they'll move trans women to men's prisons & trans men to women's prisons, or what? I'm trying to understand what you mean by that, Celeste.