I mean…can we talk about visibility?

It’s safe to say that trans people have never been more visible, seeing that we are currently under siege by the fascist-aspirational ultra-right-wing Christian Nationalist zombie hoards. So, maybe visibility is not our most pressing issue at the moment. Avoiding being fed into ovens is more at the top of our minds.

I’m being dramatic, of course (kind of); I know visibility is essential. If only because it’s more difficult to hate a group that includes someone you know. So the more we’re out there getting to know the people who wish us dead, the sooner they will grudgingly accept that we exist and may be entitled to some human rights, I guess.

I don’t know. Are human rights still a thing? I know that part of the Christian Nationalist plan is to interrupt our pursuit of our human rights by using the “maybe we’ll just say you don’t exist” smokescreen. The fancy word for that is epistemicide – erasing the knowledge, history, and language of marginalized people in an attempt to make it impossible for them—us, me—to articulate our oppression.

It’s all diversion. And honestly, it’s all about making us suffer. That’s the true (only) goal. The rest of it, all the individual “issues” they continue to bark about, are just tools or proxies to increase the number of ways they can inflict suffering.

, and ultimately, we aren’t going anywhere (those of us choosing to stay in America, anyway). Visibility, though—at this moment—could be dangerous. But most of us couldn’t be invisible even if we wanted to. I can’t really hide these boobs. I could put my hair under a hat, but I’m not going to do that. It’s far too marvelous to suffer such indignity.

The point—and the truth—is that it’s taken me too long to get to where I am, and I’m not going back into the closet for anyone. I don’t care if Hitler is knocking at the door.

I mean, he is knocking at the door, actually. His spawn and disciples, anyway.

But I am that I am, ya dig? Just like God said to Moses, and as Jesus said to the Jews when they doubted he knew Abraham, and as Popeye the Sailor said to anyone who would listen. You’d think Christian Nationalists would know that. The dumbest of them (which is all of them) should at least know it from a Popeye cartoon.

Even if the concept of keeping your weird, unhinged racism and homophobia under wraps is dead and buried, we’re still here. When you can’t shame people who have no shame and can’t love people who don’t know what love is, you can’t make yourself more visible to them without becoming a bigger target.

So, I’m still here, yes, but I sat out the 2025 Trans Day of Visibility. I mean, except for all this typing, okay, you’ve got me there.

Will the 2026 Trans Day of Visibility be any different? Let’s ask the Magic 8-Ball…

My sources say no.

WRITTEN BY A HUMAN