That is both a truth that merits celebration and one that has significant implications as the political proper continues to use our visibility as a weapon. We’re in more movies and TV shows, yes. However, many of the most powerful liberal politicians and voices in Canada are speaking out against our fundamental rights and names.
There is obvious defeat in trans visibility, specifically its boost over the past decade. Ask any transgender people, myself included, and we’ll probably cite some type of obvious chance models who paved the way for our named life. That was the first time we encountered the term “transgender” or learned that someone could undergo surgery or use hormones to change how our bodies may experience. The first man we saw on television, or the person who had a they/them button on the street, gave us that Alison Bechdel-esque “ring of tips” time. That’s all awareness.
And transgender awareness is a far cry from that of years past, when trans people were undoubtedly present but not nearly as accessible to the general public. Important info-posting on trans possibilities was done in more underground, term-of-mouth ways, passed between closet doors and within the community. We currently have outspoken trans activists like Fae Johnstone on the CBC, bloggers Dylan Mulvaney documenting their shifts on TikTok, and Oscar nominations who are lightly discussing using the she/they pronoun. Heck, you can even get a binder at Target today! And Google searches for phrases like “pronouns,” “gender,” and “non-binary” have increased over the past century: a signal of how these concepts are extremely part of everyday language.
International Transgender Day of Visibility was established on March 31 to honor transgender people and increase awareness of the prejudice we face. It was first observed 15 years ago. It typically has a more upbeat voice than our another significant monthly occasion, Trans Day of Remembrance in November, which commemorates the lives lost to transgender hate crimes every year.
Despite all the garbage transgender people must deal with, that humor is, at least, uplifting. If you look closely at the #transdayofvisibility tweet on social media, you’ll see many trans people reveling in their own natural trans joy, proudly displaying top surgical scars, pronoun pins, and transition timeline photos. And that’s wonderful! More people are exposed to our lives, our tales, and our challenges, and more noticeable trans people who aren’t reduced to articles about murder or hate crimes. And happiness is great!
That visibility results in more transness being entered into after seeing transness in the world, as well as (hopefully) more empathy and understanding from society as a whole. Accessibility is something to celebrate—that’s what Trans Day of Visibility is about at its base. But more than ever, I’m aware of another, more widespread awareness that has however become a widespread component of trans people’s lives: our presence as a tool and threat in the eyes of the traditional right.
In recent years, there have certainly been numerous congressional and ideological attacks on trans rights in the United States and the UK. However, trans people have increasingly become a social battleground for right-wing politicians and actions even in Canada, particularly over the past year. Our lifestyles have been used as an argument and plan-making ground by those who are in charge of or intend to become leaders. Trans rights have entered the political controversy realm in New Brunswick, Alberta, and Saskatchewan with policies and laws that target gender-affirming care, pronouns, and sex-ed in institutions under the pretext of “parental privileges.” Additionally, disagreements are being sowed at the provincial and school board rates throughout the nation.
And in the midst of the campaign for our next federal election, Conservative Party of Canada leader (and likely next prime minister, if polls are to be believed) Pierre Poilievre has planted his flag in the anti-trans movement, making use of talking points against minors’ access to puberty and referring to trans women as “biological men.”
These actions and stances attack the basic rights of a small percentage of the population in this country by using the positive increase in trans visibility over the past ten years. As trans people—and frankly anyone who dares to challenge binaries or “traditional families”—have become more visible, the attacks on our fundamental rights have escalated and intensified. For every advancement we make, we frequently feel like two ways back.
I was thinking about this just as I dove into Judith Butler’s new publication, Who’s Frightened of Gender? The gender theory pioneer makes the claim in it that the current assault on “gender” is a spiraling escalation sparked by right-wing media, which has slowed down what traditional aspects of society call “gender” (i.e., cis and non-linear people—threaten.
“When sex is figured as a threat to humanity, society, ‘man’ and nature, when gender is likened to a radioactive catastrophe, the Ebola virus, or total-swept devilish power, then it is this escalating fear of destruction to which social actors appeal”, Butler writes. They sense the growing fear and are aware of how to use it, causing it to become even worse.
Who’s Afraid of Gender? is the notoriously convoluted Butler’s distinctively less academic work than usual. And that’s extremely necessary because Butler methodically dispels a lot of important anti-trans talking points and arguments in a way that might actually help someone who has innocently fallen prey to anti-trans arguments (though only if those people are brave enough to pick up a book with the non-binary flag on its cover).
At the book’s foundation, though, Butler argues that the threat trans people pose to conservatives is how we challenge the supposed “inevitability and superiority of the heteronormative family form.”
Self-assignment is a means of living a life that can be lived, a collective freedom that has been achieved through struggle. It is, however, twisted into a rights-stripping activity in order to justify stripping trans people of their rights,” Butler writes. “Similarly, queer families do not negate heterosexual ones. They only contest the heteronormative family form’s inevitability and superiority.
Anti-trans actors are afraid of trans people, and they use us and our visibility as political cudgels because we push the limits of the world they’ve built. Many smart people, Butler included, have rightfully pointed out how this is all rooted in racism and sexism—if conceptions of “womanhood” and “manhood” are malleable and subject to the self-determination trans people represent, then how could a society where women are lesser and capitalism rules even exist?
Conservatives then use these threats to prey on voters and audiences’ insecurities around those societal rules and weasel their way into power to continue enacting and upholding that sexist, racist, and capitalist society, as we’re seeing in Canadian politics right now.
These right-wing politicians have a right to view trans people as a threat to those institutions. They should! Being trans, and specifically being visibly trans, isn’t just about hormones and pronouns and top surgery scars. It’s primarily about challenging the foundational societal structures. These structures go beyond simple definitions of man and woman and into areas like family structures, self-determination, and healthcare access.
There is this fear of trans visibility because, to the anti-trans, it serves as a form of indoctrination, particularly for kids. Books that are forbidden, those that support gender-affirming care for minors, and those that change sex-ed curriculum come from the same source: a fear that young people will see themselves reflected in them and decide they are themselves queer or trans. Politicians can dance around with soft-spoken statements and claims about protecting children and trans adults’ rights, but these policies have a fundamental foundation in the desire to stop trans children from claiming transness and the challenges that our larger institutions will face as a result.
Anti-trans actors fear that it will awaken another person who questions or challenges the traditional heteronormative, sexist, and racist version of capitalism in the same way that trans people and our allies celebrate trans visibility and its ability to give a questioning person a “ring of keys moment.”
According to Butler, “[Conservatives] warn against ‘recruitment’ by gay and lesbian teachers or books, but they are turning the public into a phantasmatic scene in which they are the ones who are being stripped of a sexy identity by progressive laws.”
Just a reminder of the 1,000,000 Canadian March for Children from the fall. A wide range of people, including parents who are motivated by religious concerns, claimed transphobes, white nationalists, and genuinely concerned centrists from across the nation who were present at the event under the pretense of protecting “parental rights.” They were given information about the danger of hasty medical procedures, social contagion, and false information about transgender people, sexual orientation, and gender identity (SOGI) policies in schools.
Take off that “concerned parents” rubber mask, like the Calgary premier Danielle Smith, who wants to outlaw trans women from sports.
To be clear, in 2024, trans visibility matters. Beyond just saying, “That’s like me,” and seeing someone in a movie, it matters! Or an influential person sharing their HRT journey. Owning our self-determination and the power it can wield is what makes trans visibility in the present moment. It’s about reclaiming our visibility and not letting it be used against us by these bad actors. It’s taking what they’re afraid of—that transness is a threat to so-called “traditional” values—and embracing and celebrating that.
I honor the bravery and visibility of my trans siblings on this International Transgender Day of Visibility. Even with the abuse, threats, and difficulties that it frequently brings, I celebrate my own personal visibility (though I’ve learned to ignore my Twitter mentions). And I urge everyone to keep the visibility these politicians seem so threatened by, even as it continues to be used against us.
Sometimes it feels like the answer is to get quiet, to hide our transness out of self-preservation, and to not push for loud visibility into the areas where it can be used against us. And I get it, especially since visibility for individuals can be frightening right now.
But as Butler argues at the end of Who’s Afraid of Gender?, our collective visibility is powerful.
The only way out of this bind is to unite the struggle for gender rights and freedoms with the critique of capitalism, to formulate the freedoms we struggle for collectively, and to allow gender to be a part of a larger struggle for a social and economic world that eliminates precarity and offers food, shelter, and healthcare in all regions.
