The thing about being transgender is that everyone – and I mean everyone – thinks they can express an opinion about your identity, how well you ‘pass on’ to the gender you identify with, and even your existence.
And they expect you to defend it. No, expect is the wrong word; sy require it.
Said punt, Dr. Rachel Levine. She is the pediatrician who is the secretary of health for Pennsylvania. Their “rigid, composite, data-driven approach” to the COVID-19 pandemic has won widespread praise.
She has also been the target of a stream of online hate, in print and on the radio, and has been called a man several times. Levine, a transgender woman, has largely ignored these small-minded, intolerant bigots.
“Do not miss me, only what I see is a big fat guy in a blonde wig and dress”
“If I want to identify as female, I want to identify myself as a millionaire …”
“He misses himself every morning taking down his mother’s dress with me.”
The latest attack is an imminent attempt by a senior legal adviser to President Trump to divert attention from the epic disaster that is treating this administration with the coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, Jenna Ellis, one of the bombastic blowhards who doubled as often as Fox News mouthpieces and Trump surrogates, shared a May story from May.
“This man is making decisions about your health,” Ellis tweeted, accompanying a report that Levine had offended a radio talk show host who repeatedly called her “lord,” and asked him to stop her wrongdoing.
Ellis’ tweet drew more than 7,800 likes, 4,200 retweets and some 2,400 comments – most calling her out for transphobia and noting that she was reported to Twitter for violating her terms of service. The platform is meant to remove tweets that mislead people, and it’s really hit or miss; Ellis’ tweet remains on the site at the time of this writing.
The widespread criticism of her words, however, was pleasing to watch, as was the swift condemnation of Ellis’s Human Rights Campaign.
Ellis is hardly the only offender. A state prosecutor, a local official and countless other Pennsylvania people who tweet in their pajamas have portrayed Levine as a freak and a man in a dress and mocked her advice that wearing masks would curve the ongoing and deadly pandemic. flat.
Last month, Levine decided it was time to tackle the attack, and in doing so, she speaks for any transgender person who simply wants to do our jobs, live and love without defending our right to exist as the person we know ourselves. to be. She said those slings and arrows aimed at her actually hurt her neighbors.
“While these individuals may think they are only expressing their displeasure with me, they are, in fact, hurting the thousands of LGBTQ Pennsylvania people who suffer directly from these current demonstrations of harassment,” she said at the beginning of one of her coronavirus media introductions. Then she raised her haters.
“Your actions support the spirit of intolerance and discrimination against LGBTQ individuals, and specifically transgender individuals,” Levine said.
‘To the survivors and perpetrators of these actions, if your apologies are sincere, I accept them. But an apology is the beginning, not the end, of the conversation. As for me, I have no room in my heart for hatred, and honestly I have no time for intolerance. ”
Since we’re connected on social media, I reached out to Levine today after Ellis’ tweet, to ask how she’s dealing with the never ending wave after wave of average tweets and other online gal. I even find refuge in the arms of my children, my widow sisters – a group of nine girlfriends who accept me as just another mother. I go for walks, and play with our dog.
I got no response, probably because she’s too busy to save her life.
“Dr. Levine is laser-focused on supporting Pennsylvania in the midst of a national pandemic. She has no time for this nonsense.”
– Nate Wardle, spokeswoman for Dr Levine
Her office was friendly enough to respond to her, and yes, she does what she would do.
“Dr. Levine is laser-focused on supporting Pennsylvania in the midst of a nationwide pandemic, ‘Health Department Secretary Nate Wardle said in an email. “She has no time for this nonsense.”
That’s a damn good retort; the kind of support Americans need right now, more than ever.
We have an ongoing military ban with one exception we know of; we have instructed the federal government to stop trans student athletes from competing in at least two states, one of which now has a law on the books to do just that. We have a president whose supporters are launching a new campaign to re-elect him based on fears that children will be abused by allowing transition.
And after a year in which at least 27 trans-Americans, most of them women of color, were murdered, the death toll this year stands at 26, and it’s only August.
Calling one of our women “men” is an act of violence.
.
