9
" The hypocrisy in telling young people who are genuinely desperate for treatment that it’s too risky for them to have it—even after they have jumped through so many safeguarding hoops—while sanctioning, encouraging, other kinds of risk distresses me. It has everything to do with cultural norms, and nothing to do with keeping children safe while still allowing them their autonomy. We have to move forward from the idea that it is somehow a shame, a failure, for a child to grow up to be trans. We have to start approaching this subject with young people’s best interests at heart, not our own concerns and judgments about how we would want our children to conform. Being trans is not a fate anyone needs saving from. But everyone, every child, needs to be loved for who they truly are, without conditions. "
― C.N. Lester , Trans Like Me: A Journey for All of Us
10
" If we were to take another example, and apply the same rules, it becomes obvious just how inappropriate and harmful this trope is. For some (not all) trans people, one element of being trans is the physical process of transition. It can be joyful, it can be painful, it can be messy, and it can involve surgery. The same could be said of parenthood. Conception, pregnancy, and childbirth are necessary parts of making a family for the majority of people. Like medical transition, it is vital that we're educated about these processes if there's a chance we'll find ourselves personally affected. And luckily, in both of these cases, the medical information is freely and easily available online, through public health initiatives, in libraries, and from the relevant medical authorities.
But it would never be appropriate to approach a new mother in a cafe and say, 'so, did you rip your vagina giving birth to that one?' When greeting a colleague returning to the office after maternity leave, we don't ask if we can examine the stretch marks and possible scars, or ask about hemorrhaging and post-natal incontinence. If we're close friends or family, we might well talk about the most personal physical aspects of creating and delivering a baby - the same is true of transition. But the need to be honest and close with our loved ones doesn't make the intrusion of strangers okay. "
― C.N. Lester , Trans Like Me: A Journey for All of Us
13
" This is not about only wanting 'respectable' trans people to be portrayed.
This is about asking why these facts - that many trans people are sex workers, that many trans people turn to drugs and alcohol, that many trans people suffer violence both at the hands of those they know and at the hands of stranger, and that trans people who suffer from the effects of racism are more likely to suffer further from violence and abuse - are suitable fodder for light entertainment, but not for an urgent and sincere investigation into the oppression which are killing the most marginalized members of the trans community.
Instead of reporting on the whys of all this - the scandals that are endemic racism, endemic transphobia, the particular hatred of trans femininity and womanhood that is transmisogyny, the daily ways in which it is decided that some people are not as worthy of protection, of life, as others - instead, the lives of marginalized trans women are used as fodder for schlocky drama series, the background hum of an oversaturated media machine. "
― C.N. Lester , Trans Like Me: A Journey for All of Us
18
" And I will say that to my precious Shine, or Malik, or Nisa, or Nina or any of the children and young people we cherish and lift up, that you are brilliant beings of light. You have the power to shape-shift not only yourselves but the whole world. You, each one, are endowed with gifts you don't even yet know, and you, each one, are what love and the possibility of a world in which our lives truly matter looks like. "
― C.N. Lester , Trans Like Me: A Journey for All of Us
