Roundtable: Transphobia and Allyship on Trans Day of Visibility

FEATURING CARL CHARLES, EBONY HARPER, MAEBE A. GIRL - March 31 marks Transgender Day of Visibility around the world. It was founded in 2009 by Rachel Crandall-Crocker, who used a Facebook post to encourage people to celebrate the rights and dignity of transgender people, instead of mourning them. At that time, Transgender Day of Remembrance marking the victims of murder was the only formal day recognizing the community. In 2021 President Joe Biden issued the first-ever presidential proclamation marking Transgender Day of Visibility.

Today the rightwing culture war that has taken aim at “wokeness,” the right to an abortion, and the teaching of history in schools, has also targeted LGBTQ folks, and especially transgender people. There are currently at least 340 state-level legislative attacks on LGBTQ people, according to the Human Rights Campaign. A hundred and fifty of them are specifically targeting transgender people–the largest number ever.