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Today is Transgender day of Visibility! Which is great, its rlly nice for trans people to share their selfies and experiences and to celebrate that, and hopefully some cis people will see this as something other than inspiration porn, and maybe one or two will learn something.

But for a lot of trans people, visibility, or increased visibility is either impossible, unfeasible, dangerous or deadly. Trans women/transfeminine people especially, are arguably more visible than they’ve ever been in contemporary western society, but it certainly hasn’t helped in many respects, we’re getting murdered more frequently than ever, governments and institutions are still trying to deny basic rights, like the right to use bathrooms, to be included in educational curricula, the right to not be discriminated against in employment, housing and education, and we’re still being sent to prison facilities that don’t match our gender, and having our murderers get excused because of ‘trans panic’ defenses.

So shoutout to trans people who aren’t out in fear of violence and discrimination, shout out to trans people who can’t be out because they depend on their abusive families for food or shelter, and especially shout out to all the young people who are sad and confused and haven’t figured out that they’re trans, or are scared of admitting that they’re trans, even to themselves, because we’re demonised in the media when we do have representation, and because the existence of trans people, and the possibility that kids might be trans is apparently not an appropriate topic for children.

So shoutout to past me, and all the trans kids like past me, to whom trans people existed only as cruel, sick jokes, not as people. Who knew only that there was something deeply wrong about them, that they were deeply uncomfortable with some aspect of who they were, that they were certainly going to hell, and who had absolutely no one to turn to, to talk to. Whose confusion and suffering could have been prevented if they lived in a society were it was safe for trans people to be visible.