You Have To Live
This was written for a project for my Perspectives in Queer Studies class, where we had to write a manifesto of some kind. Posting here for my portfolio.
“if u r transgender u have to live . if u accomplish something else then good . if u accomplish nothing else then good . but u have to live”
This is a tweet posted by user Tessert (@weedcatholic) on November 1, 2022. In the year and a half since it was posted, it’s really stuck with me, and has been made clear that this is something every trans person needs to hear. You have to live.
You can protest if you want. You can make yourself heard. You can march in the streets and scream and yell and demand your rights and protections as trans people. You can block traffic. You can plaster stickers and posters along the walls and road. You can call your politicians and tell them how to help you or tell them how they’re failing. You can run for office. You can win. You can channel your trans anger, and your trans joy, into art. Make a film, write a poem, draw a sketch, a painting, a script, a collage, a song. You can make history. You can be The First Trans Blank. If you accomplish something then good. But you don’t have to. You just have to live.
All you have to do is get out of bed every day and live your life. Live your life and have stories. They don’t have to be exciting. They don’t have to be about being on the frontlines of historic protests. They can be as simple as “One time I was at a small coffee shop and this dog came in and sniffed my pride flag pin and it was really cute,” and that’s okay because, as a trans person, all you have to do is live. Just go to work or school or sit in bed and watch YouTube videos because the world is too overwhelming sometimes. You just have to be alive. The mere act of exploring your gender and realizing that you’re transgender proves that you can see a life worth living for yourself. So live.
There are unfortunately so many people out there who don’t want us to live. It doesn’t matter how loud and open about our transness we are. We have been so dehumanized in some people’s minds that they won’t see us as people. There are many ways to combat this. You can get confrontational, whether online or in person, and assert your right to be seen and treated as human. You can also educate them about your experiences and show them what it’s actually like to be a trans person. But you don’t have to put yourself in those situations, you don’t owe the world an explanation. The number one way to combat the people who want us dead is to simply live. Live out of defiance, live out of spite, live for yourself, just live your trans life. There are so many of us whose lives have been cut tragically short. Trans people who didn’t necessarily want to make history, but who just wanted to exist as their authentic selves. Every trans death makes the world a worse place… but every trans life makes the world better.
So please, from one trans person to another, live.