Fighting Erasure in a Social Climate Determined to Say “You Don’t Exist”
By Elysian Alder | Assistant Editor
I am none of these things: a monster, a predator, a plague, a groomer, a pedophile, a villain, a snowflake, an attention-seeker, a liar, a danger to children, an eyesore. I am none of the other dehumanizing and stigmatizing labels that staunch conservatives are insistent on placing on me and my community. I am a lot of other things, though: a writer, a Pisces, a friend, a sibling, a nature-lover, a QA specialist, a student— and, according to TikTok, a “geriatric Gen-Zer.” This year, it’s difficult to reflect on all of the other things that I am because one part of my identity has been on trial since the beginning of 2023. I am queer, I am transgender, and I am spending this Transgender Day of Visibility with mixed emotions about everything that my community has had to endure just to be able to exist.
