Religions du monde :: forum religion

We just live our lives and win elections and do the same things everyone else does. But until you see someone doing that, it's hard to imagine it for your own kid. And I think that's true of all of the queer people who got elected, right? It's expanding the vision of what it means for people who are LGBTQ to participate in our society.

What is your definition of courage?
Courage is just doing the right thing. Knowing what the right thing is is not courage, but doing it in the face of hardship is. That to me seems like what it means to be courageous.

Do you have anyone who inspires you?
There are many people that inspire me. Of late, this past year or two Bayard Rustin is the person I've been thinking about a lot. If you're not familiar with Bayard Rustin, he was a civil rights leader through the 20th century. He was also gay and was arrested in the early '50s. He was a seminal figure in the Black civil rights movement and pretty much dedicated his entire life to that and modeled the civil rights movement for LGBTQ people.

https://nmaahc.si.edu/bayard-rustin

Our movements for justice are lifelong. These things, they're not elections-based. The work that we're doing is not about "does Leigh win another election," right? We're trying to build a future and we commit our lives to that work. And I just think about this person who was an out gay man in the '40s and he just spent his whole life in movements for justice. He got very little recognition because he was gay. Sidelined, because he was gay. He was not given the credit for the work he was doing, but he just kept fighting for the future.

How do you overcome adversity?
I have a future-oriented vision of what the work is, that is how I think of it. I think about what we're doing for our children's sake, for the next generation, for 30 years from now.

Many times in the campaign I've talked about how I have a pretty optimistic future for the trans community starting in about 25 years. I think it's going to be actually very difficult for a little while, very difficult. But that is partially because we are on the road to our own liberation. There's going to be pushback against that, but I think that we will be victorious, we will see a future in which trans people are living fully and hopefully without fear, but it's going to take some work to get there. But when I think about that future I overcome my adversity.

Do you have any advice you would give a younger version of yourself or other young transgender women today?
I would tell them listen to yourself. The world can't tell you who you are. You know who you are, and you should be true to that. Find people who see you and support you, and listen to them. Don't listen to the people who don't. Lots of people in this world do not want us here, so we need to find people who do.

What else do you want readers to know?
The trans and LGBTQ community, we have to expand our understanding of what it means to be successful and happy and thriving, but also how to be creative and expansive in how we want the future to look for everyone. I think trans people are on the leading edge of that. We are here creating a path forward for everyone, and everyone will benefit from the work that we're trying to do for our young people.

Trans liberation is upward flowing, all liberation movements flow outwards. Everyone will benefit from it and it's worth committing yourself to.