In the wake of President Trump’s first-day executive order denying the existence of trans people in the United States, we reached out to legendary trans activist, good friend to the Underground Bunker, and former Scientology first mate Kate Bornstein for their thoughts on this political moment. They not only penned this response, but also uploaded it to their brand new Substack. Please give it a look.
I woke up this morning, looked in the mirror and saw a great big bulls-eye on my chest. President Trump is calling upon the United States government to wipe out everything gendery about me. That would be all my life’s work, the hurdles and challenges I’ve overcome on my seven decades old journey to become the not-man, not-woman gender outlaw I am today.
With literally the stroke of his big fat stupid felt marker, Trump is trying to make my very existence illegal. If he has his way, I and all my beloved chosen family of sex and gender outlaws—we’ll have zero recognition and protection under the law, and zero civil rights.
It’s shocking and it’s gut-wrenching, but none of it is surprising. Fact is, despite the fact that trans people make up about half of one percent of the country’s population, despite that ridiculously low number, we nonetheless got big enough, strong enough, and smart enough to scare the bejeezus out of the reactionary right. And now that they’re back in power, they are responding out of fear in the only way they know how: they build walls. They’ve been organizing things so that trans and nonbinary people aren’t welcome in the United States of America—and we won’t be able to live here legally.
Well fuck all that. We’re here now. We’ve been here for a long, long time. And we’ve been organizing too,
They wanna do away with trans? Ha! That genie’s out of the bottle. That train left the station. Too many of us are alive and well in this country. Too many of us have felt the miracle of self acceptance and self realization for us to ever go backwards to the bad old days. Too many of us have made our dreams come true, and in so doing we’ve already made the world a little bit better around us. No stopping us now.
To be sure, this is a difficult moment. Me and mine, we’ll no doubt be going through some dark times. Well, I was there in the very earliest days of the trans movement. Those were some dark times. Well now I intend to keep a light burning for trans and nonbinary freedom.
— Kate Bornstein
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Posted by Tony Ortega on January 22, 2025 at 08:00
