The following statements come from staff writers of the New Trier Political Journal as they reflect on the Day of (No) Silence.
Imagine what would happen if everyone switched genders, including physically. Except you remember being your old gender. Your parents, partners, friends, etc. they all insisted on acting like you are this other gender, but internally you are not. It is a crushing experience. You would want to transition as well. Try it yourself. Do your best to switch for a day. Then understand that we don’t get that choice to switch. We don’t get that choice for it to be only a day. It is a sentence we are handed for life, from birth, with no rhyme or reason, no fault of ourselves or surroundings. If you were held hostage in the wrong gender or social views, you would fight tooth and nail for any opportunity to get out. We are no different from you, except that we do have to fight against our sentence. So please, don’t stop us.
– Anonymous
As we celebrate and honor Day of (No) Silence, it is crucial we, as the queer community, resist efforts to cede ground on transgender issues and fight for those most impacted by the administration. Under the current administration, our very history as the queer community is under attack. Efforts are being made to divide and conquer us. There has been a push from the right for the “LGB without the T” movement, with notable publications like the NY Post publishing op-eds advocating for separating transgender individuals from the broader LGB community. The website for the Stonewall Uprising national monument has removed the words “transgender” and “queer”, erasing mention of the trans identities of crucial leaders like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. All this is occuring while the United States government has pushed to limit access to life-saving care for transgender people under the age of 19, despite many challenges to the legality of such a move. While the attacks from the administration target primarily transgender people, history has taught us that the administration will not stop at transgender folk. Infringements on the rights of cisgender queer people, which are already under threat, will become more and more prominent. Divided from broader communities, transgender people, along with many other marginalized groups, may not stand a chance against oppression by the federal government. The only path toward effective resistance requires cisgender people to fight for those under attack now, knowing that the transgender community will have their backs when the time comes.
– Aleksei Sokolov (he/him)
