The Government Erased The T. Let’s Embrace It

The Stonewall Inn, NYC.

On Thursday, February 13, the Trump administration continued an ongoing pattern and theme of theirs: erasing transgender people. This time, it involved the official website for the Stonewall Inn in New York City, a gay bar known as the site of protests in 1969 where LGBTQ+ people protested and rioted against a violent police raid. Here’s what the National Park Service’s website now says about this historic monument:

“Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969, is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.”

Let’s be clear: transgender people played an enormous role in these riots, the most well-known figure being Marsha P. Johnson, who threw the first brick and incited the first riot. Another person is Sylvia Rivera, who protested alongside Johnson and her fellow activists. There are countless others like them who have been left out of the history pages but whose impact undeniably shaped the modern LGBTQ+ movement and the progress it has made over the years.

Sculpture of Marsha P. Johnson by American artist Jesse Palotta, located near Stonewall.

How dare they be removed from the story they were responsible for telling? By a government who wants to pretend they don’t exist?

This is not the first time transgender people as a whole have been publicly excluded by the U.S. government––much of this having happened in the last month. The Department of State travel website changed its page to “LGB Travelers.” It changed its section on “Resources for LGB Prospective Adoptive Parents.” The Social Security website changed its “Social Security for LGBQ People” section. Don’t even get started on the number of government websites that have been completely removed, from a page dedicated to the Commerce Department’s LGBTQ program to information about an LGBTQ working group at the Justice Department. 

Trump’s attacks on transgender people are also evident in his new legislation, Under one executive order, transgender women have been banned from participating in women’s sports under the guise of “keeping men out of women’s sports.” Another executive order requires passports to put someone’s sex assigned at birth rather than their gender identity, along with stopping non-binary people from having an X for their gender. Trans actress Hunter Schafer revealed in a TikTok that this policy has quickly been put into play––her passport now lists her gender as male. In the video, she shared in part:

I was shocked, because I don’t know, I just didn’t think it was actually going to happen…I also want to say, I don’t give a f*** that they put a M on my passport. It doesn’t change really anything about me or my transness, however, it does make life a little harder.

Intersex people––those who are born without the typical binary characteristics of male or female, or a combination of the two––have also been left behind through this legislation. Like transgender people, many of them will have gender identities differing from those now put on their passports. They straddle a unique line, one with nuance that the Trump administration didn’t even bother to acknowledge. 

Non-cisgender people have long been subject to disrespect and the discrimination just for openly being who they are. As a cisgender person myself, I’ll never know what it feels like to have your identity effectively erased by a government who claims to protect me and my freedom. I’ll never be disrespected for wearing a dress or calling myself a woman––because I am a woman, just like transgender women are women. While the LGBTQ+ community is currently under attack by the very people it looks to for protection, there is hope. There is always hope. For anyone reading this who has been personally touched by these actions, we see you, we stand with you, and we love you. You will never be erased. As Marsha P. Johnson once said,

History isn't something you look back at and say it was inevitable, it happens because people make decisions that are sometimes very impulsive and of the moment, but those moments are cumulative realities.