Our common world is tossed upside down, with meanings ravaged and passions claiming place before fact, science, and human care. Here is one example: the current official policy of the United States is that transgender people do not exist, and if they do, they are not to be recognized by the government in any way.
It is worth examining the conditions that produce these policies, the environment that leads some to vote against their interests. For instance, what if I was struggling to survive financially and chose to elect only billionaires as my protectors; or what if I was a member of a group targeted by Christian nationalists for suppression and chose to ignore the calls for my own destruction.
Would these be rational responses?
These choices, incidentally, are not mine. I want a world filled with caring people who know the difference between health care and hate and who can distinguish religious fraud from actual, real-world debate. I want to pursue human happiness and to live as well and as honestly as I can, and to join with others as equals in this pursuit.
But, my friends, this world—our world—is being stepped on, slandered, humiliated, and ravished by the same fantasies and fears that have torn other nations down and left only ashes for their legacies.
Trans rights are human rights. Trans issues are atheist issues. I urge you not to worry about American Atheists including trans people in its work. We are less than one percent of the United States population and have no plans beyond living good lives, just as you ask for yourself. Trans identity is not about any of the mangled and fearful things the reactionary religious proclaim. And it is absolutely not about the sexual behavior or desires actually so prominent in the downfall of radical religious leaders and wayward politicians.
Trans identity is one of the most personal of experiences. No one can just “choose” it. It is part of self, just as your own self is part of you.
Trans identities have existed for millennia. The only reason people currently hear so much about transgender people is that, like so many small groups before us, powerful religious and political agendas have decided we are excellent targets to be used in frightening others and advancing their own dangerous and repressive hopes. Maddeningly, this vicious tactic is working! We are literally demonized.
Trans people are now under attack by all the high powers of the strongest national government in the world. For a small group that is not supposed to even exist, our state and federal governments spend a lot of time and money on anti-trans executive orders and legislation, including over 700 active bills across the country.
What do politicians and anti-trans groups gain from these attacks? For us, pain and suffering, degradation, suicide, ruin. For themselves, newly frightened voters (see Katherine Stewart’s latest book).
The powerful many range their bruising attentions on the weakest few. The weakest are crushed, and this is called victory? Where have you heard that before, and where does that lead?
Here is the very reason for atheists to join in opposing trans destruction by religious and political edict. Trans people are active in American Atheists’ work; we are already with you. I won’t ask you to do more than help protect us all, trans included. If you offer your courage, intelligence, and active care, that will be grand.
Of course I wish for more! I want us all to proudly understand each other and pursue together our common goal of liberating minds from ancient shackles.
But time is short and the attacks are swift. We will not be alone for long. This kind of demonization spreads quickly to other groups. It already has, and without united understanding and mutual work, a great deal more than ideas will be lost.
Let us step up, clasp hands, and struggle together. I think of Robert Green Ingersoll’s great words of daily guidance: “The time to be happy is now, the place to be happy is here, and the way to be happy is to help make others so.”