Whose Rights Are Actually Being Taken Away?

If you’ve ever thought:

“LGBTQ+ people are forcing their political beliefs on me,”

“This is just two sides of a debate, why can’t you compromise?,”

Or, “I support some of these new laws being passed”…

I want to invite you to pause and look closer.

Here’s the truth: My rights as a trans person do not interfere with your daily freedoms.

They do not:

• Stop you from flying on a plane, traveling to another state, or crossing a border.
• Prevent you from using pronouns, to refer to yourself, that feel right to you.
• Prevent you from marrying the person you love.
• Prevent you from getting medical care — including government-funded care.
• Prevent you from serving in the military.
• Put your professional license at risk.
• Put your legal name on your driver’s license at risk of being treated as a crime.
• Decide what medical care your kids must or must not get (excluding vaccinations, which prevent disease spreading that does harm others)
• Require you to undergo mental health evaluations before treatment.
• Require you or your kids to conform to the government’s version of gender (I only expect you to respect what I and others say our own gender and identity is).
• Police your body or your gender in public bathrooms.
• Make violence toward you more socially acceptable and likely.
• Stop you from playing in sports according to your gender.

But laws and policies inspired by your political stance can — and already do in many cases — limit me in all of those exact ways. They DO have the power to:

• Stop me from flying on a plane.
• Endanger my ability to travel in or out of the country — or state to state.
• Stop me from using pronouns that feel right to me.
• Stop me from getting married.
• Stop me from receiving medical care, including government-funded care.
• Stop me from serving in the military.
• Put my professional therapist license at risk.
• Make my legal name on my driver’s license a potential felony charge in some states.
• Force my kids into or out of medical care against medical advice.
• Require me to undergo mental health evaluations before seeing my doctor.
• Require me and my kids to conform to the government’s version of gender.
• Police my gender and my body in public bathrooms — along with anyone else who doesn’t look “masculine” or “feminine” enough.
• Make violence against me more acceptable and more likely.
• Stop me from playing sports according to the gender I know I am.

For me, it’s not hypothetical. These restrictions are real and this list is not exhaustive…there is more trying to be taken away from us. They affect where I can go, what healthcare I can access, what legal risks I face, whether I can work in my profession, and even my safety.

So here’s the core difference:

• What you fear is based on what might happen, imagined through stereotypes and misinformation.
• What I face is happening right now — in black-and-white legal text, in courtrooms, in legislatures, and in my daily life.

That’s the difference between:

• Human rights versus political opinions.
• Feeling uncomfortable versus actually being restricted in how I live.

You not liking my identity is not the same thing as me infringing on your rights. My existence does not reduce your freedom. But when laws are passed to limit mine, your politics are directly shrinking the space in which I am allowed to live freely.

I don’t need you to agree with me on everything. But I do need you to see that this isn’t about “two sides.” It’s about whether everyone gets to move through the world with the same freedom and safety that you probably take for granted.