do you guys remember what it was like a few months ago? when everyone was still afraid to leave the house, to go into stores, to take public transit, to get too close to another person?

it was a very singular moment for a lot of people, i think, to not know if we could safely buy groceries or go to work or even leave the house to go on a walk. the world was a lot smaller.

every interaction involved a new calculus: how much time will i be spending around other people? how close will they get? can i trust them to take my safety seriously? can i trust them to tell me if they’re sick?

and every errand was the same way. will i have to go into an enclosed space? how many people will be in there? how much room will there be for distancing? does the space have a mask mandate?

even going out for a walk or a hike or a drive was so fraught. what if i forget to bring water and have to go into a business to buy some? what if i run into other people who are not behaving safely?

it’s isolating to live in a world that small, that bounded by factors you can’t control and other people’s behavior. it’s even worse when all you can think about is how easy it would be for other people to just take some basic precautions so none of us would have to feel unsafe.

i mean, how hard is it really to just act like you care about other people’s ability to leave the house safely? to buy groceries? to go for a walk? to exist in public without fear?

to use a public restroom, for example — an enclosed space where your safety is entirely dependent on the behavior of others — without feeling like it’s a matter of life and death?

i don’t know about anyone else but i actually didn’t notice that much of a difference (besides the masks and handwashing, anyway) because this is how i live pretty much all the time

because i'm trans.

when you're trans, all too often the world is such a small place, and one bounded entirely by other people’s behavior: whether we can go for a walk without a neighbor lashing out. whether we can trust the people around us to take our safety seriously.

whether we can buy groceries without being harassed or assaulted. whether we can go into a business and know that they’ll take our safety and personhood seriously. whether we can walk down the street without being arrested. https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/arrested-walking-while-trans-interview-monica-jones

it’s survival mode, all the time. how many exits are there? which one is closest, if somebody gets violent? will the other people here have my back or turn away? will i have room to defend myself, if i have to?

is it really that hard for people to take the most basic precautions so we don’t have to feel constantly unsafe? is it really that much to ask?

republicans want trans people ostracized from public life. a lot of the time i think people don’t really understand what that means, but now you all know what it’s like, because we’ve all experienced it.

it’s what we’ve all experienced for months now, except in perpetuity. republicans want trans people to live like this from the moment we come out until the moment we go into the ground. alone, and isolated, and hidden away.

being eliminated from public life means living in constant fear, not being able to trust businesses, the people around us, the availability of a public restroom, any of what people used to take so clearly for granted.

it means not feeling safe anywhere. it means spending most of your life at home, cut off from the rest of the world, penned in by other people’s refusal to see your personhood and safety as equivalent to their right to do whatever they want.

we all know how that feels, now. we all know how much it fucking sucks. and i think we also know how easy it is to keep that future at bay — as long as we act in solidarity.

wear a mask! wash your hands! have your trans friends’ and neighbors’ backs. not just in words, but in actions. give, generously. promote our voices. talk to your cis friends and relatives, even the ones who you don’t think will ever meet a trans person.

make sure your workplace has an explicit inclusiveness policy. make sure it backs that up with actions, too. if you don’t have any trans coworkers, question why. if your trans coworkers never get promoted, question that, too.

if you don’t have any trans friends, examine why that might be. if you keep your trans friends separate from your other friends, examine that as well. if you haven’t educated yourself about trans equality, type it into google and start now.

if you don’t donate to or promote fundraisers, think about why. think about how nobody likes to ask strangers for money, and what might drive someone to that point anyway. reconsider your own positions accordingly.

safety is not some abstract entity that either exists or doesn’t. it’s something we create collectively, through our choices and actions — by valuing each other as much as we value ourselves.

the world doesn’t have to be small and full of fear. we don’t have to feel isolated and alone. but we do have to act as individuals, and in community with each other, if we want that to change.