Trans Truth Telling

Logan Rozos sparks a meditation.

Screen grab from the NYT featuring a picture of Logan Rozos below a headline reporting his diploma was withheld for speaking about the war in Gaza without pre-approval.

There is something uniquely difficult about every form of oppression, something that doesn’t define or limit the character of the marginalized, but that can’t be ignored and that on a population level exaggerates certain traits. When I saw this headline about trans man, artist, and truth teller Logan Rozos I immediately thought about what he had sacrificed for this moment. Such sacrifices to tell important truths are always rare, but this particular type of courage seems more common in trans communities and I thought it would be helpful to meditate on why.

I don’t mean to romanticize trans marginalization or the trans community as a whole. I am trans, I know we have assholes and fuckups (including me in at least one of those categories), but also there are very few modes of being where you are forced to tell a truth about yourself even though it risks violence. Black skin is visible, women are taught to silence ourselves, but through our use of bathrooms, presenting ID, and even through the coming out process without which the world is constructed to see us as anything but ourselves, trans people tell the world truths that the people of the world do not want to hear. We do it repeatedly. We do it publicly. And we do it at great risk to ourselves.

This sea of threat washing over our gills can lead to the invisibility of the omnipresent, the too-familiar. And that can lead to what appears to be a sort of bravery-of-the-familiar. It's not that we trans people are inherently heroic, but when the time comes to tell a difficult truth, we've been there before. Earlier that day. The night before. Every day since the last time we went backpacking alone in the Cascades.

Maybe this is true bravery, having faced the threats against us for speaking one truth and survived we are braver in the face of the next threat provoked by the next truth. Or maybe it manifests as contempt for the people who need sugar on their truth to help it go down. Our community, after all, is known to be rough with others for whom certain truths are still uncomfortable. Maybe we are not always as generous to the ears in the room as we could be. Maybe we could tell that difficult truth but with a little more compassion. We are not perfect. This process is not perfect. We have not alchemically transformed oppression into goodness and light.

But yes: We tell the truth. More often, more powerfully, and seemingly with more bravery. I don't wish our community to be threatened for telling the truth, but if you are one who believes in silver linings, this is it: We who are trans will speak truths to power, speak in times of danger. We will speak louder, more confidently, both because we've had the practice and also, maybe, because it's easy to devalue one risk when you face so many.

This does not make Rozos’ speech less brave or less valuable. He still made a choice, in my opinion one for which he should be praised: the relentless bombing in Gaza is a genocide and Trump’s proposal to remove one million Gazans to Libya is an historically illiterate suggestion that if only we repeat the Nakba everything will be fine. We must talk about these things, and we should thank Rozos for his efforts.

But if being trans makes his speech no less brave or valuable, it does make it less surprising. The gender binary presses trans people from two sides, a frighteningly powerful trap of almost incomprehensible pressure. Yet while we are held, the crush often produces something miraculous and beautiful: a flawed but infinitely durable gem of audible honesty.

May we learn to treasure the jewels that Logan Rozos, other trans persons, and all brave speakers give us; we will need as many as we can find in the years to come.

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