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The past is not the prison of current trans rights
Thomas Paine decried conservatives in 1792 in their attempt at imposing past values onto his society, calling their actions tantamount of erecting a prison for the present and future based on the mores of the past. It is a great irony that trans rights won in the 2000s and 2010s are being revoked on grounds of squeamishness and arch-conservativism, turning our present into a prison for future trans lives. There comes a point when pragmatism erodes rights to the point that you look back and see the sunny uplands of yore, only to turn and see that you have entered a barren land bereft of hope and dignity. Britain entered such a place last week, and many US states have been there for a while; the reality is that in their rush to “protect” children, conservatives have scorched earth prosperous futures for trans adults for potentially a generation. Our present fast moves into the rearview, and it is unconscionable that we turn it into the goal for those yet to come out.
One wonders what the Jews in 1930 felt, feeling the benefits of emancipation in Germany, relative prosperity gutted by the recent Wall Street Crash. Same with lesbians, homosexuals, gypsies and socialists. Their future hung in the balance, three years of limbo after which terror stalked the land. Same with black Americans emancipated after Gettysburg, shackles loosed and their great hope in the…
