Submitted by Josh Peterson
in response to ‘Editorial: Laws should regulate gender reassignment for minors’
“My earliest memories of childhood are marked by a clear realization that I did not belong,” says Christiana Monde. In a New York Times piece submitted to the editorial series Transgender Lives: Your Stories, she confides “I am transgender,” but “that was something I could never really admit.”
“Years of failure at retaining a sense of self while contorting pretzel-like to assimilate left me in ruins,” Monde says. “Suicidal ideation became a way of life as I learned to hate the cold and uncaring world that seemed unable to accept a person like me.”
Monde is not alone. State and federal data indicate that one in every 137 teenagers would identify as transgender if asked. This population of minors is one of the least understood—and therefore most marginalized—minorities in the U.S. They are daily demeaned by unrelenting bullies; they are repeatedly told they are unwanted by their teachers and peers; and their family often ostracizes them – kicking them out on the street with no one to turn to. The True Colors Fund estimates that LGBT youth, while only making up about 7 percent of the general youth population, comprise up to 40 percent of the homeless youth population.
It is no wonder then that, with no support network, transgender minors often give way to despair and have suicidal thoughts. The National Transgender Discrimination Survey has found that 41 percent of transgender adults have attempted suicide. This vastly exceeds the 4.6 percent of the overall U.S population and the 10-20 percent of the lesbian, gay and bisexual adults.
And yet, they persevere. Transgender adults and minors continue to pursue gender reassignment, hormone therapy and medical treatment. They do this in spite of overwhelming opposition and even violence. They don’t do it flippantly— they don’t wish to be “dinosaurs”—and they are almost certainly not “children mascots” of an “adult battle over identity.” Very few adults, essentially none, would encourage their children into a transgender identity knowing the extreme discrimination they would face. No. People who are transgender pursue these options because at their core they have a profound sense that they are other than this body they have inherited. They pursue this inalterable course simply because they are human beings who want to feel good in their own skin, regardless of how other people laugh and jeer.
I now ask, are we as a society willing to interfere with another individual’s private choice – their deepest desires? Will we dismiss transgender people out of hand unthinkingly, without first committing to listen to their stories with unconditional love and kindness? Are we willing to love and care for people like Monde who have only known hate and judgment? People who are transgender have rich, complex and fragile lives just like any humans, and as such, they are worthy of our respect. And to any LGBTQIA+ Asburian I say the same: you are worthy, you are loved and you are overwhelmingly beautiful.
