I’m tired of being gaslit.

Let’s just start there, for lack of a better place to start.

I’m so tired of being gaslit. Aren’t you? Aren’t you tired of being told that you’re overreacting, that you’re such an SJW, that it’s more complicated than that? Because I’m really fucking tired of it.

More than that, I’m really fucking tired of genocide! I’ve been trying to find the right words to say that—I don’t want to sound flippant because there is quite literally no graver threat to humanity than the genocide of human populations. But I would rather speak (write) imperfectly than say (write) nothing at all.

Today, what I want to write about is the United States’s active genocide of transgender people. I want to write about it because I’m trans and I live in the US and I’m trying to survive an active genocide. I want to write about it because it’s fucking terrifying. I want to write about it because if I don’t say something—don’t scream something at the top of my lungs—I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. I want to write about it because I have a thought, a thread that I’m trying to unravel. That thought is:

I want to write about the United States’s active genocide of transgender people because I think it’s all genocide, and I need to write to work out that thought.

According to Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch, there are ten stages of genocide:

“Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Stages occur simultaneously. Each stage is itself a process. Their logic is similar to a nested Russian matryoshka doll. Classification is at the center. Without it the processes around it could not occur. As societies develop more and more genocidal processes, they get nearer to genocide. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.”

Today, I want to invite you to unpack the matryoshka doll with me—to stand by my side as we look genocide in the face.

I want you to stand by my side as we look my genocide, the genocide of myself and my family and my friends and my community, in the face. And then, I want to take a step back together, hand in hand, to see more of the picture. I want to take a step back and ask you if you see it, too—do you see that it’s all genocide?

God, I hope you do.

a thesis statement

I’m not trying to write an essay, but the English major in me can’t help but think in thesis statements. So, before I go any further, I need to ask myself—what are my central points?

1. it’s all genocide

2. until we acknowledge that it’s all genocide, we won’t be able to imagine what a world without genocide could be

When I say it’s all genocide, what I mean is: the United States is—and has been since its inception—an imperialist project intended to build a “utopia” for white, cisgender, heterosexual men (henceforth referred to as “the fascists”) at the expense of and through the genocide of everyone else. And until we acknowledge that it’s all genocide, we permit genocide to happen. And as long as we permit genocide to happen, we lack the radical imagination necessary to envision a world free from genocide—or, put another way, a liberated world.

I am not an educator, not a scholar. In fact, I’m sickened by the fact that genocide is something people study, just as I am grateful that those people are keeping their attention on something so horrific. But this isn’t the work of scholars; the work of focusing one’s attention on genocide—on the ugly fact of it, the bloody reality of it—is work we all have a responsibility to take on. I am inviting you to unpack the matryoshka doll with me because I feel so intensely alone in the looking. And I want—I need—to try, however imperfectly, to share my gaze with you.

the genocide of trans people

Genocide Watch’s explanation of the ten stages of genocide begins with classification (1), which Stanton considers the first stage “at the center” of the matryoshka doll. That section begins, “All cultures have categories to distinguish people into ‘us and them.’”

How fucking depressing is that? The idea that every culture contains genocide’s bloody, beating heart.

You don’t need me to point out the “us and them,” I’m sure: cis and trans. According to Stanton, “Bipolar societies that lack mixed categories, such as Rwanda and Burundi, are the most likely to have genocide.” While many, many people have expansive understandings of gender, the fascists argue that there are discrete definitions of “man” and “woman.” These definitions are largely predicated on beliefs about what it means to be “biologically” male or female—which is very genitalia-oriented—and what it means to be a “traditional” man or woman.

Anyone whose identity falls outside of those definitions therefore “falls outside of” cisness.

This is different than (though not mutually exclusive from) identifying as trans. I would argue that all individuals who identify as trans are considered “trans” in the eyes of the fascists, while not all individuals who are considered trans in the eyes of fascists actually identify as trans. Consider, for example, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, a cisgender woman who, during the 2024 Olympics, was attacked by anti-trans commentators who falsely claimed that she is a trans woman. Khelif does not identify as trans, but in the eyes of the fascists, she is considered trans because her gender presentation didn’t align with the fascists’ discrete definition of woman.

So, you don’t have to be trans to be considered trans in the fascist consciousness. Therefore, the genocide of transgender people in the US is a grave threat to anyone who doesn’t meet the fascists’ definitions of man and woman.

For all intents and purposes, then, the US is a “bipolar” society without mixed categories of gender, making our society especially likely to have genocide.

Stanton continues, “One of most important classifications in the current nation-state system is citizenship in a nationality. Removal or denial of a group’s citizenship is a legal way to deny the group’s civil and human rights.”

This concept—not citizenship, but the removal or denial of a group’s citizenship in a society—is our country’s bloodstained foundation. The US could not have been founded without the genocides of Turtle Island’s Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans. It’s all genocide. Enslavement and disenfranchisement are fundamental components of the Constitution. The denial of passports to transgender people is another in a long line of acts denying citizenship to a group in the US.

At this stage, Stanton says the main preventive measure is “to develop universalistic institutions that transcend… divisions, that actively promote tolerance and understanding, and that promote classifications that transcend the divisions.” These include legal protections and paths to citizenship, common languages, and tolerant religious or cultural organizations.

The fascists ruling the Trump administration are actively working to dismantle any such transcendence of divisions. Websites for government agencies now use the acronym “LGB” to refer to queer people, the State Department has trans people’s passports sitting in bureaucratic limbo right now, there are calls to deport people like Bishop Mariann Budde (a born and raised American) because they preach tolerance, and trans people are being banned from public restrooms, organized sports, and more.

Classification goes hand in hand with symbolization (2), a process by which we assign names and other symbols to the classifications. As Stanton points out, “Classification and symbolization are universally human and do not necessarily result in genocide unless they lead to dehumanization.” Monica Helms’s trans pride flag, for example, is a symbol, one which represents the vast spectrum of gender identities. The trans pride flag is far from dehumanizing—it’s a celebration of our humanity.

When a symbol is “combined with hatred,” it becomes problematic. This comes in two forms:

1. Symbols that are “forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups,” with a commonly cited example being the yellow Star of David which Jewish people under Nazi rule were forced to wear

2. Symbols that represent hate groups—that represent, in other words, the fascists—with a commonly cited example being the Nazi swastika

Stanton points out that hate symbols and speech can be legally banned, but notes that “legal limitations will fail if unsupported by popular cultural enforcement.” Take, for example, Meta’s updated policies allowing the use of the slur “tr*nny,” which the company no longer considers a designated slur. Fascists in power across the private and public sectors don’t have to worry about legal limitations; they can just choose not to enforce them.

If preventive measures are often legal or political in nature, so too are the actions of genocide. Trump’s slew of executive orders are examples of discrimination (3):

“A dominant group uses law, custom, and political power to deny the rights of other groups. The powerless group may not be accorded full civil rights, voting rights, or even citizenship. The dominant group is driven by an exclusionary ideology that would deprive less powerful groups of their rights. The ideology advocates monopolization or expansion of power by the dominant group. It legitimizes the victimization of weaker groups.”

The legality of the executive orders is questionable at best. For example, as Mira Lazine reports for Erin in the Morning, Trump’s executive order banning gender-affirming care for individuals under the age of nineteen is unlawful and has “no clear enforcement mechanism.”

But Stanton makes it clear that “law” and “political power” are two separate tools. The executive orders are an exercise in political power. When, for example, hospitals roll over and comply with unlawful orders, they validate the content of the orders. They sacrifice trans people without a fight. Or as Stanton would put it, they legitimize the victimization of trans people.

Every anti-trans executive order being signed in recent days is built on the foundation set by Trump’s inauguration-day order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The definitions of man and woman that I referred to above are enshrined in this order, which asserts:

• There are only two sexes, male and female

• Those sexes are based on genitalia and traditional gender roles

• The federal government only recognizes those two sexes

This goes beyond merely “falling outside of” cisness. It is the required first step to deprive trans people of their rights—civil rights, voting rights, citizenship. And what we’ve seen since is a cascade of orders depriving trans people of one right after another.

In the Meta policy updates I mentioned above, an example of acceptable speech in training for content moderators is, “A trans person isn’t a he or she, it’s an it.” What Meta considers acceptable, then, is dehumanization (4):

“One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in print, on hate radios, and in social media is used to vilify the victim group. …They are equated with filth, i​m​purity, and immorality.”

Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Matt Walsh, Charlie Kirk, Chaya Raichik… the list goes on. Fascists in power spread conspiracy theories and use hateful rhetoric to convince the general public—starting, here, with MAGA Republican voters—that trans people aren’t people. Matt Walsh, for example, claims that US public schools “recruit” children to identify as queer and asserts that transness is a “delusion.” In 2021, he said that a “child who is put on hormones and who has their body being mutilated is being sexually violated in a way that is just as depraved or damaging as molestation or rape.” The aforementioned executive order Trump signed on January 20 claims its intention is to protect women’s “dignity, safety, and well-being.” The January 28 executive order banning gender-affirming care for anyone under the age of nineteen (despite eighteen-year-olds being legal adults) is called “Protecting Children from Surgical and Chemical Mutilation,” using the same rhetoric as Walsh.

I’m not going to go on, though God knows I could—fascists never seem to shut up, so there’s plenty of material.

The point is, there is a concerted effort to dehumanize trans people to lay the groundwork for extermination (9), which is what legally qualifies as genocide. Because dehumanization “overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder,” when fascists are able to effectively dehumanize a group of people—as we see “israel” do to the Palestinian people—they are able to get the public to turn their attention away from genocide or, worse, to actively support it.

As Trump and Musk work together to dismantle the federal government, they perform the process of organization (5) to prepare for extermination.

That process isn’t beginning now. Stanton says “[g]enocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility.” The January 6 rioters are an example of such a militia, and Trump’s agenda is supported by informal militias formed by everyday Americans who have been indoctrinated into MAGA’s fascist, white supremacist ideology.

These groups also perform polarization (6) through hate speech and extremist aggression. Right now, polarization includes attacks on trans people and “[e]xtremist terrorism [that] targets moderates, intimidating and silencing the center.” Organization is a process that solidifies who will actively support and perpetrate genocide, while polarization is a process that asserts who will turn a blind eye to genocide, whether out of willingness or fear.

Stanton says one way to prevent polarization is “assistance to human rights groups.” We’re watching the government do anything but:

• Trump is withdrawing the US from the UN Human Rights Council

• The fascists are attacking USAID, UNRWA, and other human rights groups

• Trump plans to “take over” the Gaza Strip

It’s clear that the state is preparing itself to continue carrying out multiple genocides. It’s all genocide.

There are four more stages of genocide: preparation (7), persecution (8), extermination (9), and denial (10). At this time, I’m choosing not to write about them. Not because I don’t think they’re coming soon if we don’t stop them. Just because I’m tired, and it’s heartbreaking and terrifying to think of myself and the people I love being persecuted and exterminated.

Over the past couple weeks, my anxiety and fear have skyrocketed. I find myself swinging wildly between suicidal ideation and a persistent refrain: I want to live. I want to live, and to live means surviving a genocide that nobody will even fucking call a fucking genocide.

it’s all genocide

If you’ve been keeping up with the news—which it feels almost impossible not to do right now—you must see the parallels. Trans people are under attack. So are Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, immigrants. The fascists have a clear vision of what their ideal future will look like: one without trans people, one without people of color, one without non-Americans.

I’m tired of being gaslit. Not just by the fascists—after all, we know denial is part of their playbook—but by the liberals who want to pretend that there’s some sort of decency being upheld, some invisible line that of course won’t be crossed. I’m tired of being treated like my fear isn’t rational.

We have to name genocide when we see it. And not just when it reaches extermination—by then, it’s too late.

The US is a country founded on and furthered by genocide. The American imperial project is continuing on its course toward the fascists’ utopia, and genocide is its means for reaching that utopia. It’s all genocide. If we aren’t screaming that for the world to hear, then we aren’t going to achieve liberation. A refusal to name genocide, whatever the reason, is complicity. And we aren’t liberating ourselves or anyone else if we’re complicit in genocide.

So, please. I’m begging you. Call it what it is: the US is committing genocide against trans people. Committing genocide is, after all, what the US does. I am trans, and I want to live, which means I want to survive this genocide. More than that, I want to stop genocide. Not just the genocide of trans people, but all genocide. There is nothing more urgent, nothing more imperative to be done. We must stop genocide.

I want to end by sharing a few slides from Aleah Black’s recent piece on trans survival on their Instagram account. They made me feel a little bit less alone. Maybe they’ll help you, too.

I love you all so much. Let’s be brave together.