M. Dru Levasseur, Esq.

m. dru levasseur: Your Authenticity Is Your Power—Tales from a Trans Lawyer

This was my wake-up call. Like mainstream culture, the 1990s to 2000s LGBT community was (and often still is) a caste system based on race, class, gender, ability/disability, socioeconomics, and many other factors based on an assimilationist goal of hetero/cisnormativity and of fitting in with conventional society. Many gay leaders openly questioned why trans people were included in the movement, and some were unabashedly transphobic. Cisgender leadership prioritized the issues of white, wealthy gay and lesbian people in positions of power with the (unfulfilled) promise to come back for the rest later. This tension caught the public eye in 2007 when the community divided over a gay-only version of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) introduced by openly gay Congressman Barney Frank and supported by the Human Rights Campaign, the most influential LGBT organization of the time. The trans community’s response was a campaign of four hundred organizations supporting a trans-inclusive United ENDA, politicizing many of us in the community, spurring us into action.

I was also deeply moved while marching in the first Trans Day of Action in 2005. It was pivotal for me to feel the safety and power of numbers. We marched to call attention to the violence, discrimination, and institutionalization enacted on trans and gender-nonconforming people, and we connected this to the broader struggle for justice for all oppressed people. Led by trans leaders of color and protected by legal observers, we roared, “Whose streets? Our streets!” I was emboldened by the community building and action.