Sunday, March 5, 2017

Transgender Rights Going Back A Step: Go Back To Activism Roots

It may seem that with Trans Bathroom rights laws being repealled on the federal level that things are going back a step or two. That may even be the correct evaluation. However, anything that is going to be changed requires heart on a grand scale.

Roadblocks are nothing new to the LGBT community and especially the trans community. Often times trans people are the ones who bear the brunt of hatred, violence and pubic ridicule because hiding or being "closeted" for many of them is near impossible. So roadblocks are nothing the trans community isn't used to.

This is the time to revamp your program. Now is the time to take a step back and go back to grass roots organization tactics that involve your rights to peaceful protests and city marches. Remember Martin Luther King Jr and the Black Panthers and Vietnam protests and Black Lives Matters and the list goes on and on and on. The trans movement must not be any different.

Our predecessors have laid a foundation of peaceful demonstrations that have been highly effective in gaining publicity and a following. Which, would be beneficial to our cause. With publicity and a following it becomes talked about more, a buzz is created until finally, we are normalized in peoples mind that we do exist and we are ok. 

We deserve rights and safety too. Not just one part of LGBT should be safe or equal. 

A mentor once told me that "there is no equality until there is all equality." I believe that, but I believe in us even more.

You must adapt to the changing times dears, after all, that is what we are asking of everyone else, is it not?

With Love
Jeff Utnage

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