Letter from the Board – October
| Imagining Transformative Change, Even in Darkness It has been a particularly frightening few weeks to be trans in America. Like many other trans folks, I’ve bounced from one doom-inducing article to the next, some of them read without taking a single breath. I’ve had hard conversations with my partner and my family about exit plans. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time—time I don’t have—researching other countries’ immigration laws and bar requirements. After a recent trip abroad, I stood in the Customs line with my stomach in knots as I worried about being singled out and potentially harassed for no other reasons than the gender marker and photograph on my passport. I’m exhausted—physically, mentally, emotionally. Logically, I know this is all part of the administration’s plan—to flood the zone, to use us as a distraction for what is actually going on in this country, to scare us and anyone else who dares to challenge gender norms. But I will admit that logic doesn’t always win out, especially when I’m lying wide awake at 2 in the morning. I also will admit that even in between doom cycles, I’m not exactly brimming with hope these days. That said, I know I’m not alone. We are not alone. And even in the darkness, I’m reminded that there are occasional rays of light, even opportunities for true change. As Chase Strangio put it in a recent post on his Substack, available here, the “wildly transformed federal judiciary” has caused a reckoning that “[o]ne of the perils of movement work in the United States over the past century has been the overreliance on law.” We’ve known for some time that the courts—at least this Court—will not save us, but there is opportunity in that cold reality. Recognizing the reality, Chase writes, “allows us to conceive of new ways to imagine transformative change” and “to remove certain constraints on what we believe to be possible.” What exactly that means for us and our movement is of course yet to be seen, but we all have an opportunity to answer it. In the meantime, many of our members will continue to represent clients navigating a system that increasingly denies them justice. Many will continue to throw “sand in the gears of the instruments of violence to slow them down”—all while some of us, in an effort to maintain some mental health, will avoid reading the court opinions that are rarely surprising anymore but are nonetheless disappointing. But as a Board, we are committed to working together—within the larger movement and within our intersecting communities—to conceive of new ways to imagine transformative and lasting change. We plan to share more after our Board’s annual meetings next month. Until then, I hope to pause my own doomscrolling and try to imagine —and plan for—a better future. In solidarity, Shane McCammon NTBA Board of Directors Treasurer |
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