Two of Lambda Legal’s transgender attorneys highlight 10 things that give them hope this Trans Awareness Week.
This is Trans Awareness Week, a time for centering the lives of nonbinary, transgender, and gender-nonconforming (TGNCNB) people and to spread awareness of the issues faced by the community. For many of us, this week is also hard and scary. There is so much going on and we’re hearing from friends and family about what we should and shouldn’t do, and maybe even how we should or shouldn’t feel.
As transgender attorneys, we see you. And we’re here with you. We won’t minimize it; this will be a difficult four years. But Lambda Legal is made for this. And we’re ready to do the work. We know there are immediate battles to fight, and we are going to come out swinging. But it’s hard to fight without hope.
In this open letter to the community, we want to share 10 things that are giving us hope right now:
- The increase in representation we’ve seen in our lifetimes. When we were in school and even in college, there were few openly trans folks in the world. Now we see nonbinary, trans, and gender-nonconforming folks everywhere. We’re not alone. There are so many of us!
- The courage of those who came before us. At times in our history, TGNCNB people have lived under horrific conditions, but still had the courage to stand up to bullying, oppression, discrimination, and criminalization. Our history is one of resistance to the government, whether in the form of the police or the president, from invading our privacy, keeping us from participating in public life, and taking our freedom away simply because we exist. We owe it to those that came before us to demonstrate the same kind of courage and give everything we’ve got to this fight.
- The repair that has been done to the federal judiciary over the last four years. There is more professional and demographic diversity among federal judges than at any other time in our history. President Biden appointed more lesbian and gay judges than any other president in history. These judges are already making an imprint on cases.
- The fact that we’ve been through a Trump administration before. We know this will not be the exact same experience, but we are prepared for it. During Trump’s previous term, we filed 14 lawsuits against him for the anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant, and anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion actions taken. We won 12 of the 14 lawsuits.
- The bravery of transgender youth. Despite the nonstop hate targeting them, trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming youth stand up openly and proudly as who they are. They are glorious. We see our future in them.
- The many openly trans lawyers across the country that are blooming right before our eyes. We can’t wait to see them run past us as fast as they can.
- The election of the first openly transgender person in Congress. Sarah McBride, currently a state senator in Delaware, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent the at-large district in Delaware.
- The first openly trans person to argue in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 4, Chase Strangio (he/him), will become the first openly transgender attorney to argue a case at the U.S. Supreme Court. He will do that in the challenge to Tennessee’s ban on hormone therapy for youth brought by Lambda Legal and the ACLU, L.W. v. Skrmetti.
- The fierce commitment of our nonbinary, trans, and gender-nonconforming colleagues who come to work in movement spaces every day and who are not able to “compartmentalize” who they are in this work. It is hard work, and it gives us hope that more and more of us are showing up to do it.
- The fierce and loving ally-ship that we witness every single day at Lambda Legal and with our partners in the work.
We know what our community has faced in the past and continues to face today. We know what this movement can do when we come together. And we fight together in fierce hope for a better world.
In solidarity,
Sasha Buchert, Counsel and Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project Director
Ethan Rice, Senior Attorney, Fair Court Project