Trans Children - Tumblr Posts

someday my basic rights won’t be up for debate

I wanna tell a story.

So, rewind a little more than a year. I'd just started my new job, which is unimportant to the story apart from the basic nature: I get on the phone with people to help them open financial accounts, and I spend maybe 15-30 minutes helping them do so. It's complex, the computer systems I have to use are finicky, and it's laden down with a lot of bureaucratic red tape.

My very first day live on the job, I was a nervous wreck. There were so many things I needed to keep track of, and I was having to talk to people over the phone for the first time in years, which meant my voice dysphoria was at an all-time high.

Then I got this client. I don't actually recall his name and I couldn't tell it to you even if I did, so let's call him Bob.

Bob was elderly and had lived a hard life. He was transferring the contents of his pitifully small 401k from Walmart into a more accessible account, and I was helping him set that up. He came on the line cranky and more than a little paranoid. He asked me repeatedly if we were going to tell the government about his money, grumbled at me about the information I had to collect to get the account opened, made a few political statements with which I heartily disagreed. It was not a bad call, but I was definitely on edge.

Then it came time to set up a beneficiary on his account -- someone who would inherit the account if he passed away.

And he paused, and then he said, "My daughter."

I asked for her name and date of birth for the listing, and Bob told me. But then he went on.

"I want to tell you about her," he said. "She's very special to me.

"You see, I didn't always have her. Years ago I had a son. And my wife and I, we loved our son so much. He was our perfect boy. We watched him grow up, he made it into college, he got a job. I never went to college, you know? But he did. I was so proud of that.

"Then, one day, he disappeared. Stopped calling, stopped visiting, stopped everything. Six years, we didn't know what had happened to him, if he was alive, if he was dead, nothing. It was..."

He paused there, his voice creaking like it was about to break. I could see where this was going, and I was rapt.

"Then we got a letter," he went on. "From her. She told us everything, explained it all. That she was--" He paused, then said "transgender" as if it were a foreign word that he wasn't entirely sure how to pronounce. "That he'd -- she'd -- disappeared like that because she was afraid of what we'd say. What I'd say. Maybe what I'd do. But she missed us and she wanted us to get to know her as she really is."

He paused there, pretty clearly waiting for my reaction. I said something -- I barely remember what -- about how scary it must have been for her, and how hard for Bob and his wife not to hear from their child for so long.

"It was," he agreed. "But you gotta know this. I love my daughter." He said it with his whole being, with every bit of power and meaning that his thin, aged voice could hold. "I love my daughter, and I'm so proud of her. She's getting married next month, and I thank God for letting me live long enough to walk her down the aisle, just like every girl deserves. She is the light of my life."

At the end of a long, intimidating, tiring day, his fierce love for his trans daughter took my breath away. I'm always going to remember Bob -- remember how he wasn't perfect, wasn't progressive, didn't really know the etiquette or the language, but how deep and intense his love for his daughter was. How he told this to me, a stranger, as though daring me to say even the slightest rude word about her.

There is love in this world. Sometimes, it comes from the people you would least expect. It might not look quite like you think it will. But it is out there.

"I love my daughter," Bob said, intense and emphatic, and I will never forget the sound of his voice.

the right to not be murdered/harassed, the right to medical care, in some places just being ourselves is illegal.

if you genuinely think that queer and trans people have all their rights I'm going to assume you've either never opened your eyes before or you're willfully a fucking idiot.

also the freak above called transness a fetish when I was talking about TRANS CHILDREN, are you really going to rally with them?

and we're not a pet group you fucking weirdo.

also

Transphobes-look-up-basic-proven-shit-challenge: year 2024. 0 winners and counting.

I feel like many people don't understand how fucking terrifying it is to be a trans kid and see government officials state that you do not deserve rights as act as though you are some sort of degenerate freak.

ngl after @aretheygayvideos stopped making AreTheyGay content (about a year ago) I was hesitant to watch his sociology videos- I was scared. of finding misogyny or, at least, of finding the exhausted cisgender male perspective of the sociological topics I knew he was beginning to cover

SO I MISSED HIM TELLING US HE'S TRANS (great job, me)

it's so fucking tiring trying to find media to connect with only to have 80+% of people beat your extended hand back with a stick. as a person who is pan, trans, aspec, and mixed race, at least one of my identities always seems to be in contention at all times. I'm used to listening to my gut and falling away from creators as their content and takes delve closer to the Zone That Is Likelier Than Not Going To End Up Hurting Me If I Watch It

I'm not even halfway through his video on being a trans kid and I needed to write down somewhere what I'm feeling. Seen. (except for the part where he, pre-HRT, passed as an androgynous boy in high school- that's fucking crazy and I'm so goddamn jealous)

I was also a "tomboy girl" who then at around 6/7 realized something was Wrong with how others saw me. for a while, I assumed that problem was me- being a girl - so I punished and belittled girlhood. that, of course, didn't fix the problem of people seeing me Wrong.

in my life, labels have been a safehaven because they have given me a beacon to light in search of others like me. upon finding the definition of genderfluid after god knows what of a google search query, I cried for a good bit. I was 10.

my experience of trans childhood is a good bit different from Alex's. for a lot of reasons, but especially because I hid who I was from my parents until my eighteenth birthday. so any gender-affirming care other than secretly binding when I was 17 wasn't realistically available to me. now, I'm an adult.

Alex does not owe the world his life story. no one does. I deeply appreciate that he chose to share some of it with the public.

knowing that there are people out there who, as kids, got support from their families, passed as the gender they wished to, made it to graduating college, and - most importantly - are kinda happy? gives me a lot of hope for myself. and the next generation of kids. helps me picture a happy future for myself.

as for rediscovering a YouTuber I sort of fell away from a year ago- I've been on a PhilosophyTube kick recently and finding Alex again has made me look forward to watching the hours of sociology content of his I haven't seen yet. thanks for keeping the light on for me, Alex. I can't wait to see what you do going forward.

after hbomberguy’s video, im hoping people go check out alexander avila’s channel: transmasculine folks are highly underrepresented in the video essayist corner of the internet and i’m a huge fan of how he explains concepts