Thank you, Governor McCrory

by Gianna Meranto
Op-Ed

Real freedom comes from real truth. Real truth easily is brought about by an injustice.

The transgender part of the LGBTQ community has or will all suffer from some form of discrimination.

As all LGBT people have experienced and found, this injustice is what galvanizes an effort, galvanizes a community and brings eyes and ears to listen and see the truths.

Until the passing of HB2 in North Carolina, and other similar bills, transgender people generally had an ultimate goal of anonymity; one that allows them to leave the person they were pretending to be and allows them to become the person they really are and assimilate into their community. These goals are common across all races, ethnicities, or any other way of defining a group of people. We all want to be who we are, be accepted and experience life and love as we dictate.

Bills like these are full of hate, opinions, discrimination, invasion of privacy and the list goes on. Equal to this list are the many visions that we all have for our future as individuals and as a people. They actually have done some good though. As crazy as it sounds it is true.

Most of the transgender community has experienced the fractured disorganization that happens when everyone knows what they need but none of the directions is the same. These bills give us direction. They, for me, made it easy to define why I fight and what I fight for.

Some people don’t want to be called transgender, others want to take some kind of a protest and create a forceful presence. All of these are reasons that to the individual may be valid. I won’t discount anyone’s opinion because I see value in all of them.

I have to thank Governor McCrory and lawmakers in other states that have passed these bills. I and others are more involved than what we would have ever been. We all share common goals and come together when it really matters. I see this time and time again. We protested in front of the capitol and people came out of the woodwork to support the movement against possible legislation that affected transgender rights.

Across the country these kinds of things are happening. People are waking up and finding themselves in a fight they didn’t choose but it chose them. I meet people that have transitioned over twenty years ago and they say this is the reason they have become more visible as transgender.

I am proud to be part of this community and stand with you. Most of all I am glad that we can all be together when we are needed to fight the good fight and support each other. I am proud of myself, I never saw myself doing anything that I do today and I believe that we all have something good to contribute. I am proud of every person that I know because we are so few that we might be the only “trans” person that someone may ever meet.

This bears a heavy weight. This­­­­ makes each of us a representative of the T in LGBTQ. It’s not a choice because we didn’t choose it, it’s not a fight because we picked it and it’s not something to be taken for granted. We are no longer a small group of friends talking in the living room about injustices and leaving the subject alone as we close the front door on our exit. We are a people who all want the same tranquility and calmness to our lives in each of our own ways. Together we become one and together we will move mountains.

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Copyright 2016 The Gayly - 11/26/2016 @ 12:17 p.m.