09/27/2025
Our favorite pastor said some good words. What can you do for the Trans community?
From Pastor Franc:
Make anti-trans rhetoric a massive problem for your governing officials. Make noise. Call their offices. A barage of phone calls can overwhelm a government office because all of them are understaffed and underpaid. I promise. Call your representative. Write letters for the same reasons as above. All physical mail needs to be processed. And that costs the oligarchs money. Waste their time with all forms of nonviolent resistance because time is money. Make it too costly to hate us. And use your voices because many of us aren't safe to. And after you've done so, get loud about it so we can hear your resistance above the din of the hatred and so others will join you. Recruit other allies to help you. Attend protests because many of us desperately want to, but can't for safety reasons.Put out an intersectional rights flag. Get all of your neighbors to do the same. Donate to Trans mutual aid efforts, both national and local. The Trevor Project, Free Mom Hugs, Real Mama Bears organizations are just a few. If you're in the Central Wisconsin area, support q***r owned and allied spaces with your attendance and money if you can spare it. CREATE Portage County, the QRC at UWSP, and Pflag of Waupaca are just a few local safe space orgs. Organize Safe Zone trainings in your workplaces and places of worship. Attend q***r events (when allies are invited) and meet and talk to and LISTEN to actual q***r and Trans folks. Teach your children basic compassion and kind-hearted curiosity. I'd be thrilled to explain being enby at an age-appropriate level to anyone who came from a place of curiosity and safety, especially if those questions came from a genuinely curious smaller human, just wanting to understand. And in my experience, kiddos intuitively understand usually better than most grown-ups. And finally, privately check on any q***r or trans person you are related to or have met once or who works alongside you every day. Because I promise you, we are not okay and every day we have to pretend we are so we don't stand out more and potentially make ourselves a target. And if you don't know any q***r or trans people, see the above for suggestions about how to change that. Or idk, message me because I'm nonbinary and transmasc and q***r af and would be happy to meet and know more allies. Ask the individual q***r folk in your life how you can specifically help them and take at face value with no judgment whatever they say back. With survival mode being where many of us find ourselves, a meal or an offer to do a load of laundry or wash a sink of dishes could go a long way and are usually the first sorts of things to go when all mental resources are going toward sanity and survival in a world that is actively screaming about killing us. And if all of those are too big to ask, smile instead of scowling at the stranger you'd normally judge in the grocery store because they are presenting in a way you're not used to. Smiles in public spaces instead of judging glances or instantly armored body language go a long way to telling us at least we don't have to avoid that one human in our own towns. And that can mean a lot. And most of all, stop making it our job to educate you or explain why we are scared for our lives. If you're lucky enough to know a Trans person who trusts you and shares their fears, don't make us feel like a burden or make us explain why that is because all that shows us is you don't actually care enough to read a few headlines and Google some s**t. Ask us how we are but don't make us defend it because then you aren't safe. Take the initiative to educate yourself and then if you have specific questions after that, and you know a q***r person open to answering them, please ask with curiosity and I promise you it will be a mutually beneficial conversation. Understand that your curiosity also doesn't equate to the right to answers and private information about someone's experience or body. And if someone hasn't expressly offered to explain as I have, then stick with smiling at folks or questions that aren't invasive, (maybe instead of, "I'm confused, are you a man or a woman?"--yes, that's a real question I get asked by some entitled human every other week! Try instead something like, "I noticed you always wear that certain type of hat (or nail polish, or hair style or other clothing item) and I love it! Where'd you find that? Or, how long have you been wearing those because it suits you?") Be respectful. Be kind. Do your own education if you are old enough and able. Teach your kids compassion and kindness and how to educate themselves. Get a library card and ask your local librarian for resources to help you understand better--they'd be thrilled! Show up when it isn't safe for us to do so and know that right now is not safe and it isn't going to be for quite a while. Be as loud with your allyship as you can and even more humble because your allyship isn't about you. So center the Trans voices around you while also circling the wagons so we can be safe enough to speak for ourselves.
