C. N. Lester

By claiming that our words are too hard to understand, the media perpetuates the idea that WE are too hard to understand, and suggests that there__ no point in trying.

Some critics of trans people have told us that we shouldn__ feel this pain of being denied the legitimacy of our own selves; gender is, of course, just a social construct. I wonder if these people also tell widows not to bother grieving their husbands, because marriage is also just another social construct.

Trying to take away someone__ language is usually the first step in trying to change them.

If we start preemptively cutting out parts of who we are because they__e __ot feminist enough_, then we__e failed before we__e begun.

When we are surrounded by such diversity - in nature, in culture, in human spirit - how can we stand not to acknowledge it?

We assume that anything that is new to us is new to human society as a whole, and that if we don__ see it reflected in history textbooks and in recent memory then it cannot have existed for long.

Even when we are confused about someone__ gender, and don__ have a greater awareness of what it means to be trans, we have a choice to respond with kindness rather than cruelty.