Transmissions: Eyes on the prize

I've said it many times before: the trans community is very good at eating its own.

I think it is something inherent in us. We have to be strong to survive, we need to be firm in our convictions to find our place in this world, and to stand up and be proud of our trans nature, even as everyone around is telling us that we are wrong.

That strength can come with a price, however. It is hard, sometimes, for us to bond as a community. It can be hard to let down our guard, be vulnerable, and learn to work as a greater whole. How can we trust anyone, after all, in a world where we have been so rarely trusted to know exactly who we are in our very skin?

I recently saw this in action, as one trans person online went toe to toe with another, arguing over some relatively inconsequential thing or another. In an era where the full force and power of the United States government is barreling down on our community like a runaway freight train, one may assume there are bigger things to deal with than interpersonal squabbles.

As the online altercation was being dissected, one person quipped about how the fighting left us vulnerable, and how it kept us from dealing with larger issues. Indeed, how all the struggles we were facing made it hard to even know what to focus on, and that maybe this, too, led to us lashing out at each other simply to feel some sort of control in a world so far out of it.

I replied that I, too, find it hard at times to, as they say, keep my eyes on the prize. This led to a challenge, of sorts, as to what "the prize" would even mean today.

The difficult part is that I also don't think there's a singular "prize" to speak of. I think there's a short-term goal and a long-term one.

The important thing right now is survival. This is a time of triage, where we need to focus on urgent goals, shoring up the damage, and doing what we can to survive. Every day is a new attack, with threats to our legal status, our health care, even our very existence that we need to prioritize and fight back against. We need to focus as strongly as we can on this.

Indeed, the prize, today, is to do our best to not lose a single trans person to despair, all the while trying to maintain a world for us that allows us to exist. That is a big short-term goal.

This means fighting to preserve all we have, even as politicians from the left and right come for trans rights. This means finding ways to provide outreach and care among ourselves, as hospitals, clinics, and other medical establishments shutter their trans programs out of fear or under threat.

It is on each of us to try to focus on providing within our community, from basic material goods to more spiritual and emotional needs like love, kindness, and community. It also means standing up and defending us all, making sure that we continue to lead even as things turn so dark.

So, yes, for the short term, our goal is to simply outlast those who want to see us gone. It's not easy, but it is vital and, as I said, we need to keep our eyes on the prize.

All that said – and I feel this is important – we do need to preserve our joy. We cannot survive without feeling that there is a good reason to survive. What is the point of life without living? We need to have more than just survival, but happiness in spite of the darkness. We need to preserve our joy.

This brings me to the second prize to remain focused on – the long-term goal.

It is key that we look at where we want our community to go. What do we want this world to look like for us in 10 years, or 50, or 100? What is the future we want to build?

For us, I think it's obvious that we want acceptance as who we are. We want a world that understands that we are trans people, and that trans people deserve the same rights and privileges as non-trans people. Right now, we're mired in petty skirmishes about sports or bathrooms, but the bigger fight is, when you get down to it, about our humanity.

We need to build our place, both as a part of mainstream culture where we can enjoy our freedom to exist within the world at large, but also within our own cultural spaces, building a true community that elevates us all.

Imagine a world where we can teach our own people, care for our own needs, and even provide on a scale unimaginable today, alongside our allies in any number of other communities.

Consider a world where the issue of trans rights is understood as simply the right thing to do, an example of body autonomy that anyone could enjoy should they wish? A time where the dark political battles of today seeking to abolish our very existence – even as so many other groups face similar struggles – are avoided for the atrocities they are.

This is the bigger prize. A world where we can, truly, be free to exist in harmony, where we can simply be. This is a prize worth linking together for, standing up for, and taking concrete steps now to create.

This is a prize worthy of our community and our attention.

Gwen Smith wants to see a better world. You can find her at www.gwensmith.com .