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Simon Leonard lives and works in the Bangor area.
I am the same as you. In the morning I wake up and get ready for work. I work my eight-hour shift at my local grocery store and then I come home, eat, and go to sleep, so I can do it all over again. I fill up my Toyota Corolla with $30 worth of gas and still remember when it only used to take $20 to do the same. I don’t make minimum wage but it seems every week I still watch my savings get smaller and smaller.
We are all the same. We are all just trying to exist in a society that seems hellbent on making it as hard on us as it can.
Actually I lied to you — we probably aren’t the same. The big difference is that I am transgender.
Now I don’t think me being transgender makes me all that different. I still put my pants on one leg at a time like everyone else, but the difference is that I am treated as someone different, something different.
Right now I am being treated as though I am the enemy. I am being lied about, my rights are being threatened, and those in power are doing their best to ignore and erase my existence.
What have I done to deserve this you may ask? I have just lived my life.
I have fought myself and came out the other side knowing myself better than most people ever will. I have fought and struggled to be myself in this world. I have not fought loudly, but I have fought honestly.
I do not think people of this country see that. This country looks at me and sees only the lies being fed to them by the people in power. It sees the monster that has been created.
I am not the monster you are being told ghost stories about. I am the person who delivered your groceries. I am the person who helped you reach something from the top shelf. I am the person you talked to on the other end of the phone. I am the person who passed you with a smile. I am the person who lives down the road with the friendly dog.
I am your friend, your neighbor, your child, and your sibling. I am not the enemy. Trans people are not the enemy. We are just trying to live our lives just like anyone else and yet we have become the scapegoat.
I will tell you this. When those in power pick out one group of people to “other” and make into an enemy just because they don’t fit into societal norms, they won’t stop there. You have to wonder: When will your difference be turned into an “othering”?
When will you be lied about? When will your rights be threatened? When will you be ignored and your existence erased? Because if my rights are taken and I am erased, it won’t be “if,” it will be “when.”
None are really free if one’s neighbors are not free.
We can disagree on the economy, electric cars, right versus left, and who is best suited to run the country, but human rights are not something to be agreed or disagreed on.
If you want to worship a god, you should have every right to. If you want to get married to your high school sweetheart and have 2.5 kids and a white picket fence, you should have every right to work towards that goal. If you want to buy a homestead and live off the land, good for you! I don’t want to do any of those things but I don’t want to restrict your right to do so either.
I just want to be able to live my life, make some art, and be respected for who I know myself to be — and I should have every right to do so. Whatever we want to do, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, we should have the right and freedom to do. The government should not be making any statements, orders, or laws otherwise.
I am the same as you. Don’t let us be treated this way.
Fight with me.
Fight for me.
Fight for us.
Fight for trans people and their rights.
Fight for all people and their rights.
I am the same as you. Let us fight.
