Bridging Movements: On Gender, Race & Collective Liberation

The following is a speech I delivered to the Legal Foundation of Washington and the Endowment for Equal Justice, titled Bridging Movements: On Gender, Race and Collective Liberation.

Hi, folks. I'm so excited to be with you today. As they said, my name is Leigh, I use he/they pronouns and I’m a strategist, facilitator, coach, and consultant working at the intersections of equity and justice, movement strategy, and organizational development—work I’ve been doing for over 25 years.

I come to this work as a queer, trans, genderqueer disabled white and Native parent and spouse, shaped by multiple histories and communities, each of which informs how I experience the world and how I fight for its transformation.

First, I want to say thank you to The Endowment for Equal Justice and Legal Foundation of Washington for the work you do, and for bringing me back to Seattle. Seattle will always hold a special place in my heart. I first came to Seattle back in 2004 to attend Gender Odyssey, a trans conference from back in the day.

Now, before we get too far, I want to put a little asterisk on the word “trans”. Tonight I’ll be using trans as an umbrella term for anyone whose gender assigned at birth is incorrect or incomplete. This includes people who are transgender, nonbinary, two spirit, agender, genderqueer, some intersex people and more.

So, back to Gender Odyssey–it was my first trans conference, and I had never been around so many trans people! I’ll never forget how unique that was–I didn’t have to explain myself. Folks used the right pronouns. I could be my full, authentic self without fear of judgment. I was in trans community for the first time and I was seen—really seen–supported and held in my complexity.

At that moment, I felt possibility take root in me: A conference wasn’t enough–I wanted to feel joy like that always. So, when I got home, I realized I couldn’t go back to hiding, and I decided to begin the process of coming out.

Now, to be honest, I got tired of coming out stories long ago–they often dominate LGBTQ narratives. So I don’t typically share mine. But it felt particularly significant for me to share being back in Seattle, and because of the timing.

See, this June I just celebrated my 20th Tranniversary. For those of you not in the know, a tranniversary is a way to celebrate a meaningful milestone in our trans journeys—it might be the first day on hormones, a name change. My tranniversary marks the day I did the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life: June 21, 2005, the day I came out to my parents.

I grew up and lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and I was really close to my folks. I had already started the process to come out–I started therapy, told my friends and partner, I had even started hormones—but I just hadn’t been able to tell my parents. My parents were progressive, but I had no idea what they really knew or thought about trans people.

I grew up in the 80s, in pre-internet days. I didn’t have a wealth of positive representations of trans people available to me. I mostly only saw trans people in popular media–almost exclusively trans women, they were treated as jokes, sideshow oddities, or dangerous predators.

The first time I remember hearing about a trans person assigned female at birth was Brandon Teena, who was a transman who was brutally raped and murdered by men who discovered he was trans. At the time, I was 15 years old, just 6 years younger than Brandon Teena when he was killed in southeast Nebraska—just a stone’s throw from where I grew up. It wasn’t the only example of anti-trans violence that would impact me–trans people are more than four times as likely as cisgender people to experience violent attacks, and that rate is significantly higher for trans women of color.

The lessons hit home and hit hard–There’s no protection available to trans people. Hide, or else be put in your place, punished and erased.

And by 2005, I was already wise from a lifetime of experience of sexism and gender-based policing. I, like most women and other people assigned female at birth, was coerced, coached and corrected my entire life to do gender the right way–this came from the media, teachers, peers, family members, even strangers–especially from strangers.

As a kid, I was teased and mocked. I was too much of a tomboy. I couldn’t like ballet and BMX bikes. My hair was too short. At times when I went to the little girls’ room, I was told to leave. Growing up, I was never ladylike enough; I was a know-it-all and way too loud. I was called a dyke if I wasn’t sexually available to men.

In the workplace, I was told I was too bossy, to smile more. And, at an office Christmas party, the CEOs–in front of the entire staff–gifted me pantyhose and SlimFast. I learned that to be accepted, I had to be the right kind of woman–thin and pretty, unopinionated, and deferential to men.

I know I’m not the only one here with stories like these–although bonus points if you also received underwear at an office party as a gift. These examples aren’t specifically about me being trans, but demonstrate the way that we are all acculturated to gender norms. The way that we are all taught to restrict our lives to a rigid and narrow set of acceptable behaviors or be punished.

So, by the time I was coming out, I had internalized that I would be not be accepted for gender transgression, and that, plus my desire for my parents’ love and approval, delayed my coming out process to my detriment.

Again, I rarely share my coming-out story, partially because I don’t want to revisit this part of my life. It was a really hard time–I felt like I was lying to everyone. I was uncomfortable all the time. I retreated inward; I had become sullen and struggled at work and in my relationships. My parents wondered why I stopped coming over for dinner.

It had to happen. So I wrote on my desk calendar–June 21, 2005: Folks’ D-Day. We went to lunch, we had a conversation, and in an instant, it was done. There was no way I could unsay what I had said. I told my parents I was trans. I’m not going to get into the details of the conversation that ensued–really this story is not about them.

But I was done hiding–I was so relieved! My feelings of shame were replaced the joy of authenticity! And in that moment, I made two commitments. First, that I would live authentically, because I never wanted to hide again. And honestly, it's hard for me to hide anyway—as I routinely say I’m always OUT because I don't know how to be "IN." And the second–now that I was out, I would be as public and visible as I could be to advocate for our community, and to provide the trans representation that wasn't available to me growing up.

For me, being visible and outspoken as a trans person is a political act. It’s a form of resistance, a tactic to invite understanding, and a living demonstration that it's possible for us to live unapologetic, full and joyous lives.

Not long after, I moved east and continued my life’s work to build community and advocate for justice—not just for trans people, but for the dismantling of all oppression, because, as Audre Lorde said, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” And so I've worked with activists, educators, legislators and organizational leaders across the U.S. and internationally—on gender, race, disability, sexuality, class and the deep, complex intersections of systemic power, privilege and oppression.

I wanted to root my talk in that moment 20 years ago, so that I could spend a moment to look back and think about how far trans people have come. When I came out, I did not imagine that two decades later, the trans community would have the recognition and visibility we have today. We have trans elected officials. We’re on magazine covers—not just for being trans, but for being spectacular humans doing spectacular things. We are artists, educators, athletes, parents, organizers, innovators. We are here. We’re getting shit done. We’re making a difference.

And that, friends, is exactly why we are in the conundrum we are in right now.

You must know by now that the trans community is under attack like never before. We are on fire right now. We are in the middle of a political and social smear campaign and experiencing unprecedented attacks and state-sanctioned violence.

To be real, despite the strides we’ve made with visibility, the material conditions of our lives haven't changed significantly. Trans people still experience disproportionate rates of houselessness, unemployment, poverty, violence, and suicide compared to cisgender people. And not all trans people are impacted the same. The most severe impacts fall on trans women of color, especially Black trans women. And yet, conservative lawmakers, media pundits, and white Christian nationalist groups have made trans people the collective boogie persons and have vowed to eradicate transness from public life.

And they’re working hard at it, too. Over 1000 anti-trans bills have been introduced this year alone. These bills are concentrated in 5 main categories: access to bathrooms and gender-segregated facilities, healthcare and gender-affirming care, sports participation, identifying documents, and school procedures and curriculum. The majority of these attacks are particularly aimed at our young people.

One hundred and twenty of these bills have already been passed, and we’re only partway through the year. These bills threaten body autonomy, give strength to reproductive restrictions, and increase surveillance and policing by officials and by civilians alike.

Over 1000 bills.

The far-right policy machine wants you to think that trans people are a threat and that these legislative efforts meet that threat. But where’s the threat? Trans people make up only 1 to 2% of the population. These bills are not responding to any actual crisis. There was no surge of trans athletes dominating sports. No wave of trans people committing fraud with their documents. No widespread harm in bathrooms. They claim to be fighting dangerous gender ideologies, and yet they boldly enforce the ideologies of patriarchy, misogyny and sexism. And the recent surge of legislative attacks is not because transness is a new thing, as they would have you believe–we have existed in time immemorial, throughout history, in cultures around the globe.

So, we have to ask–why this legislative frenzy? For real? Why now? Because trans people are being used, plain and simple. We're the latest scapegoat in a long, rich US tradition of scapegoats. Our existence challenges the systems of power that benefit from conformity and obedience. We don’t fit in the boxes they want to put us in. And the entire system of supremacy, of power and control, is built upon those little boxes.

We don’t fit. And so we are easy to target. This is Not. New.

In the 1600s in early colonial US, in some areas, poor European and African laborers experienced similar working and living conditions. They began to unite in labor, worked together to escape, and joined forces against ruling elites. This freaked rich people out. In response, they scapegoated Black people for inciting insurrection, and colonies–beginning in Virginia–passed laws giving white indentured servants a path to freedom if they toed the line, while enslaving Black people for life.

This is key, because it’s the first time that “white” was used as a racial category, and was done so to drive a wedge in cross-racial organizing and to protect the wealthy white elite. These slave codes served to encourage poor whites to align more with ruling elites and entrenched race-based slavery, creating the foundation of the racial caste system that the US was built on.

And there are so many more examples–

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were targeted and imprisoned in internment camps to solidify white loyalty and to stoke support for WW1.

During the Red Scare, anyone working for racial, gender or labor justice was labeled un-American and blacklisted to threaten coalition organizing and maintain wealth.

During the HIV/AIDS crisis, when gay and lesbian people were beginning to eke out a modicum of recognition, the government passively executed a genocide of neglect, as one in 15 adult gay men died, while the media painted them as deserving of disease.

And after 9/11, Muslims and immigrants were harassed and detained without charges to build a narrative of U.S. dominance and to increase domestic surveillance that continues to this day.

It’s a pattern. To exercise control, make a marginalized group with less institutional power seem scary or dangerous, then propose policies to supposedly deal with the threat, which more effectively function to expand the authority of those on top and restrict rights for everyone.

And now, trans people are the target, but we’re not the only ones impacted. For instance, laws like bathroom bans don’t stop at policing trans people. They deputize civilians to surveil everyone’s bodies and to interrogate anyone who doesn’t look “correct.” As a result, cisgender women, trans women and everyone who isn’t meeting restrictive beauty norms are targets for harassment, showing that the real agenda is enforcing gender conformity through fear.

It’s strategy. Divide us. Distract us. Keep us fighting each other while power remains concentrated at the top. It’s not new, and it’s not about us.

But, here’s the real tea: trans people–we’re kind of a threat. Not because we’re dangerous—but because we are free. We expose the lie that gender is fixed, binary, or natural—and in doing so, we challenge the system of power that relies on conformity and obedience. We embody self-determination, embrace body autonomy, and prove that freedom is possible even under constraint. In a world invested in domination, our existence models another way to live: with authenticity, with joy, and with liberation at the center.

That is power. And that’s a threat.

But the real beauty–trans liberation is not just for trans people. It’s for everyone. When we challenge gender norms, we free everyone from the lie that there is only one way to be a man, a woman, a parent, a worker, a leader. We expand what’s possible for everyone.

Our fight is an intersectional fight, because we don’t live single-issue lives.

There is no version of trans freedom that only includes white trans people, or abled trans people, or U.S.-born trans people. There’s no world where I’m truly free if my liberation depends on someone else’s continued oppression.

The fight for trans liberation has to be expansive. It must be for immigrants, disabled folks, BIPOC folk, queer folk, rural communities, low-income communities, occupied communities...

That may seem daunting, showing up for all these struggles. And it is, if we continue to approach these as separate issues.

But there’s an easier way to do this. The one issue we can and must all fight is supremacy—the belief and practice that some people are more deserving of rights, dignity, care and basic humanity, and that they have the authority and responsibility to control the rest of us.

Supremacy divides us to keep power in place. It draws lines between us, and them, and says we’re all better for it.

So our job—our sacred responsibility in response to division—is to unite. To connect. To choose each other. Because when we choose solidarity over separation, when we fight supremacy instead of each other, we all get free.

This isn’t easy. Supremacy is such a pervasive ideology that even our progressive movements lean on tactics of domination: division, exclusion, finger-wagging blame and exile. We have been misled to believe that punishment equals justice, that harm heals harm–and we internalize this domination through self-policing and feelings of inferiority, shame and guilt.

And so we must hone our compass to point us in the direction of liberation–and liberation is in the direction of joy.

Bringing joy into our practices helps us to build stronger movements–that aren’t mired in saviorism, capitalistic overwork or martyrdom–and help us move closer to our audacious vision of freedom for all.

And we can start right now. Shall we try? Take a moment to think of a time when you felt pure joy. How did that feel in your body?

For me, it’s when my kid starts laughing so hard that I start laughing, and then we’re both laughing uncontrollably together. That feeling rings so clearly. I evoke that feeling in my work, so I can assess if I’m moving in the right direction. How far am I from joy?

When you know what joy feels like for you, deep in your body, in your spirit, then you can align your compass to point towards the world we are creating. It is a strategic practice.

And there is radical joy in solidarity. When we build solidarity across our differences, we don’t just resist oppression—we imagine and build something better, and that brings a fullness that domination cannot replicate.

There is joy when we come together in shared community, when the only sameness that is needed is our commitment to each other and the liberation we seek.

It is powerful to erase lines where divisions were created. There is beauty in being able to connect with others as our full and authentic selves without fear of judgment. To be seen–really seen–supported and held in our complexities. That’s the world we’re building—where all of us are free to be our complete, joyous selves.

And yes, there is additional material and immediate actions you can take to disrupt the violence trans folk are experiencing right now–we’ll get into more of that in a bit.

But in the immediate, I implore you–know what joy feels like for you. And begin to track when you’re out of alignment with that feeling, so you can recalibrate and reconnect with the audacious vision of liberation. When you align yourself with that joy, you’ll know you’ll want to feel this way always. And you’ll start to build the world where it is possible.

And that brings us back to where I began. The joy I felt of being in trans community for the first time. I wanted to feel like that always, and so I try to bring my trans joy to all the spaces I’m in.

To build a world where all of us can be free.

That’s the promise of trans existence.

Let’s keep building it–with radical joy–together.

Thank you all.