mark Transgender Day of Visibility. (Greg LaRose / Louisiana Illuminator)
When the current president was elected and the people around me started to make plans to update their documents, put together living wills, get married and formally adopt the children they have raised since birth, I tuned them out. I had already done the bulk of those things, and while having a passport with an F on it has been frustrating for me and occasionally confusing for the folks in the Transportation Security Administration, I still had a bit before it expired, and the thought of not getting my full money’s worth and navigating bureaucracy before I absolutely had to meant that I just kept putting it off. More than that, though: taking proactive steps to protect myself meant fully admitting how afraid I am about what could be coming in the next four years.
Two hours after the inauguration, I remembered that F on my passport and had a moment of panic. I figured the wheels of government would be as slow and rusty as they always were — of course there would still be time! I googled “transgender gender marker passport,” clicked the .gov page that was supposed to take me through the process, saw the “404 page not found” error message and burst into tears. I tried to talk myself down. I’ve lived with an F on my passport for years; what would be the difference, really? But those were years when for many people in this country, transgender people were hardly a consideration — a daytime talk show parade of pain and intrigue, a three-episode arc on a non-network drama, an Oscar-winning role for a non-trans actor, maybe even a friend from college “who used to be a girl but goes by __ now.” Most folks couldn’t even define the term transgender, let alone have a passionate political stance about us. I had always thought that social progress was a slow, but still forward-moving march toward a better world, but here I am in 2025, and it is looking like my community will have fewer rights than we did a decade ago.
The first two weeks of the current presidency have been littered with executive orders focused on transgender, non-binary and intersex people and how our existence seems to threaten the order of the world so deeply that we can’t be allowed on sports teams, in public schools, bathrooms, or domestic violence shelters. We can’t be allowed to claim our identities on official documents like passports and social security cards (note- New Mexico makes it wonderfully easy to amend our driver’s licenses and birth certificates!). And we certainly can’t be allowed to have bodies that feel like home by accessing medical care that can drastically improve our lives.
I don’t know what the coming weeks and years and months will bring for myself and the people I love. I do know that there are organizations who will sue to block orders, who are already litigating at the Supreme Court, who are feeding and housing trans people in their communities. I do know that trans and non binary people will continue to move through the world, moment by moment, as our joyful, embodied selves.