Transgender people stand up and fight

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/02/2025 (303 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Transgender. The smallest of the small marginalized communities in the world. The doormat. The punching bag. The ultimate sacrificial lamb for the Conservative/Republican political parties. If a semi-truck got hit by a speeding train, the train would be damaged and possibly derailed. If a bug hit the windshield of a train, it would account for no damage or detrimental affect.

The Anheuser-Busch company, the makers of Bud Light beer and other beer brands boycott comes to mind. They lost their 25-year reign as the No. 1 beer supplier to the world over their declaration of ally to the transgender community. They were damaged. Not derailed. They have since distanced themselves, at least publicly from transgender allyship. The loss of business, tradition, reputation and money had such a huge detrimental impact. The Anheuser-Busch train limped away from that one.

Enter now the transgender community. My community. We boycott the unfriendly businesses and organizations that have picked a fight with us, too. In every case that we do so, it means nothing as far as its effectiveness. Or does it? Going back to the train scenario, we are a bug on the windshield of the speeding train. No damage. No effect. No remorse. After all, those businesses and organizations that we have boycotted don’t want our business, nor do their patrons. Again. Bug versus speeding train windshield that is travelling with a massive tailwind.

Why does our minuscule transgender community efforts in defending itself have such a minimal impact toward helping ourselves? Or does it? Opposed to what happens when a large, extreme right-wing majority decides to mount a societal offensive campaign against the transgender community?

The transgender offensive is humanitarian based, while the opposition is an economic one. There is money, influence and power to be had on so many levels by their efforts. The boycott spoils take from one, give to the other. In society, in business and in government. Because people vote based on profitable and detrimental fiscal impacts to themselves. When people suffer, they want change. When change is wanted or needed, the cause of peoples’ economic woes of dissatisfaction need to be identified. Enter a window of huge potential of leverageable opportunity for the extreme right-wing parties to obtain power through rhetoric hate, fear, partisanship, disinformation, psychology — and the No. 1 answer on the survey board, scapegoating.

Since the beginning, people with motives figured out that to start a movement in their favour, that if they use the aforementioned to start that proverbial snowball rolling from the top of the mountain, it will quickly become an avalanche. The transgender community will always readily stand in its way to what always ends up being the bitter end. Why? It’s not martyrdom. It’s not a death wish. It’s a heroic, humanitarian effort to appeal to people to remember that they are human. To show people what would happen to them if they were to experience the transgender fate of being the bug versus the train. To show them the horror, tragedy, inhumanity, the absence of things like compassion, remorse, mercy and your perceived value. Your extinction. The absence of love.

We as transgender people stand up and fight. It’s our innate instinct. To be the change we want to see. To educate. To overcome disinformation, hate and fear. To overcome evil. Remember, David beat Goliath and did just that. Many real such David versus Goliath examples of conflict were won in history. How? Love. Love always wins. Even against a Goliath. Even against a speeding Conservative/Republican extreme right-wing train.

WENDY FRIESEN

Brandon