Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Weekend is one of my favorite weekends of the year. Unfortunately, this year’s induction weekend has been marred by multiple liberal Jewish transphobic people displaying their transphobic views in a Jewish anti-hate group.

As if solo Shabbos isn’t already depressing enough, it’s even more depressing when dealing with transphobic-triggered depression. I look forward to Shabbos every week but less so when I know I’m going into Shabbos without any dinner plans.

There’s no fun in walking back from shul on Friday night while both dealing with depression and knowing that Shabbos dinner would be solo and all of maybe five minutes—it certainly does no favors when I arrive at one of the local kosher grocery stores after the kosher meat counter has closed, but that’s beside the point. It was made worse with seeing more transphobic comments after the conclusion of Shabbos, including someone arguing that “it’s a legitimate position, especially in this group, to not be on board with trans people entering or competing in women’s spaces.”

The worst is when said people say that such rhetoric is not “dehumanizing".” It forking is dehumanizing. When you tell a transgender woman that she must use the men’s room or when you tell a transgender man that he must use the women’s room, how is that not dehumanizing? It’s no less dehumanizing than the rhetoric coming from the White House. It’s the primary reason why I refuse to renew my U.S. passport. I am not going to travel out of the country with the wrong gender on the document because it will only lead to getting harmed.

My identity is not up for debate. My right to use the women’s restroom is not up for debate. My unalienable rights are not up for debate. If anyone comes after my rights, I am not going to go down without a fight.

The worst part is that these comments weren’t being made by women—in fact, the large majority of Jewish women I know are perfectly fine with transgender rights. No, these comments were being made by men. The most recent batch was made by the male founder of Yaffed, who subsequently started up Shtetl. Why is it always men who are the most uncomfortable with transgender people doing basic things like using the restroom? How does my using the women’s restroom impact their day?

I can’t even complete my bucket list because of states having transphobia embedded into law, including transgender bathroom bans. I want to get to all 30 MLB ballparks, all the presidential museums/homes (except for the current guy because that’s just never going to happen), and tour state capitols. But how am I supposed to do this when a number of states have laws preventing transgender people from using the correct restrooms in government buildings? Come to think of it, I should have toured the Texas State Capitol in Austin when I had the chance—at least I made sure to get to the LBJ Library and Museum on my final day while in town for SXSW 2019.

Throw in transphobic-triggered depression and it just makes everything worse. That’s how I’m going to be spending the upcoming week, even with the National Sports Collectors Convention in town.