transgender violence

Days before two Moore County power stations were shot in a targeted attack, plunging 45,000 people into a week of winter cold and darkness, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's National Terrorism Advisory System warned of a heightened danger of ideologically driven attacks against infrastructure. "Targets of potential violence include public gatherings, faith-based institutions, the LGBTQI+ community, schools, racial and religious minorities, government facilities and personnel, U.S. critical infrastructure, the media and perceived ideological opponents," the national bulletin read.

It’s an age-old, chicken and egg discussion: Is it extant societal forces of exclusion, hatred and reaction that give rise to authoritarian politicians who in turn foment division, prejudice, and violence, or does it work the other way around? A global survey reveals compelling examples of both scenarios in action. It’s hard, for instance, to imagine the repressive religious fundamentalism and secular authoritarianism we see enforced today in many modern nations if there weren’t already some preexisting levels of support for it in pockets of the general public.

I’m trans. This year I turn 30, and my teenage self would be beyond surprised — not just at the joys that fill my life, but the fact that I’m alive at all. I’m part of the last generation that didn’t quite have the language for the feelings that flooded us as kids. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t take off my shirt as I stomped through puddles with my pals, why I was never invited to the sleepovers I actually wanted to go to, or why I seemed to be the only one that couldn’t quite envision my future self as a devoted wife and mother.

April has been a cruel month for North Carolina’s transgender community.

As the General Assembly debates bills that would exclude them from sports teams, bar them from health care and protect discrimination against them by doctors, the community is also mourning the murder of two young, black trans women in Charlotte.