And I Should Be
Originally posted on paulastonewilliams.com on May 24, 2024
It came to me mid-afternoon, after I had run, showered, and returned to my desk. It was an awareness, sudden and certain, that the world had changed in ways that were not personally helpful. I had just lost three speaking engagements at a major university, a Fortune 500 company, and a national women’s conference. For all three, someone at the c-suite level pulled the plug. “No transgender speakers here. Too controversial.”
It began around the time Dylan Mulvaney, a trans woman, was celebrated by the Anheuser-Busch company, not generally known for its embrace of liberal causes. They paid a huge price, stock plummeting after the far right attacked, as they have been doing for years now.
The sociobiologist E. O. Wilson said we are the only one of nine tribal species that believes an enemy is necessary for the tribe to survive, and where no natural enemy exists, we create one. Wilson said if we do not get ahold of that, we lose the species and the planet as we know it.
I transitioned genders in 2014, and in the early years after my transition, America became more and more accepting of trans people. Laws were passed allowing me to change the gender on my driver’s license and passport. Unless I was in evangelical territory, I was almost universally warmly received. The election of 2016 began to change that. After marriage equality had become the law of the land, the far right began looking for a new bogeyman as they became more and more bold in wanting to legislate their view of morality.
As our species has been doing for millennia, they chose a tiny and powerless segment of the population, transgender people, as the focus of their ire. About one in 200 people is transgender. The scripture of not one major religion says a single thing about the subject. (If you’re going to quote Deuteronomy 22:5, unless you are an Orthodox Jew, give me a break.) Nevertheless, the spotlight turned to us.
At first, most of corporate and liberal America rallied to our defense. When HB2 was enacted in 2016 in North Carolina, requiring trans people to use the bathroom on their birth certificate, companies canceled plans to expand in the state, sports teams moved tournaments elsewhere, and there was a general outcry against the law. Billions were lost and North Carolina rescinded HB2.
Last year there were 592 anti-trans laws introduced in state legislatures, 90 of which were signed into law in 22 states. From those same corporations not a peep was heard. The protective curtain that had included the “T” in the LGB community had parted. Transgender people were on our own.
For me, white male entitlement has known no bounds. I always assume good will and opportunity will be in abundance, as they always have. For about the first seven years after I transitioned, thanks to my TED Talks, opportunity did abound. I was speaking all over the world, commanding high fees, companies competing for my limited availability.
Last year the good times began to wane. I am still blessedly receiving great speaking fees. What has changed is the number of engagements booked. Inquiries remain high, but time after time, those at the top do not want to provoke the anger of their customers and constituents on the right.
My first cognizance of this shift was subconscious. When in public, I found myself no longer revealing the fact I am transgender unless it was necessary to do so. Now, a year or two later, I am always nervous when circumstances require revealing my gender identity.
Since Donald Trump’s election, the far right has been emboldened to be smug, boorish, and transphobic. For the first time since I transitioned I fear for my life. When I was in Scotland last month I realized how much has changed. The atmosphere there was about what it was in most parts of the US eight or nine years ago – complete acceptance. But as soon as I was back in the US, I tensed up. Hardly a week goes by without another anti-transgender bill being signed into law. It is not a safe time to be transgender in America.
It is not just us. As hate and bigotry multiply, it is happening again to a group that has been suffering oppression for centuries. I am speaking of the Jewish people. I am no fan of Benjamin Netanyahu and the military atrocities he has wrought, but I am frightened for my Jewish friends who have been caught in the maelstrom and vilified without justification. I see young people swarming on college campuses who have little awareness of the millions of lives lost in the Holocaust, or the circumstances surrounding the modern-day formation of Israel. Misinformation abounds, just as it does with gender dysphoria. People in echo chambers scream ever more loudly without the counterbalance of information based in discernible truth.
It is not a good time to be Jewish in America, or an immigrant, or refugee, or person of color, or transgender. I am frightened, and I should be.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” I will run in the shadow of Lady Liberty when I am in New York this week. As I take step after step through the mosaic of Brooklyn, I will feel comfortable, secure, and safe, just as I am at home running up Stone Canyon Road, nestled in the foothills of the Rockies. But in the vast space between the two I am ill at ease. And again, I should be.
