Efforts to bar transgender people from restrooms are nothing more than an attempt to codify discrimination before our country advances any further on transgender equality.
Sarah McbrideRead
For me, having a gender identity that was different from my sex assigned at birth and that wasn't seen by society felt like a constant feeling of homesickness - that unwavering ache in the pit of my stomach.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the deep emotional struggle of living with a gender identity that differs from one's assigned sex at birth.
Sarah McBride articulates the profound sense of dislocation and longing that can accompany transgender experiences. By comparing this feeling to homesickness, she emphasizes the intrinsic need for acceptance and recognition within society, highlighting the pain of existing in a space where one's true identity is not acknowledged or validated.
In practice
During a LGBTQ+ awareness event, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of recognizing diverse gender identities.
Efforts to bar transgender people from restrooms are nothing more than an attempt to codify discrimination before our country advances any further on transgender equality.
Access to public facilities like bathrooms is important for transgender people. But the fight for transgender rights does not begin and end at the bathroom door.
We can celebrate the speed at which LGBT equality has progressed, but we also have to acknowledge that it wasn't fast enough, because too many people didn't get to experience it. We can never be too impatient.
My whiteness, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, family support, and so many other factors shield me from some of the worst possible consequences - often fatal ones - that result from the toxic combination of misogyny, racism, and anti-trans sentiment.
Too often, when transgender people die, family members or funeral homes will end up dressing a body of a transgender person in the garments of the gender that they were assigned at birth instead of their gender identity. They're often dead-named and misgendered.
I've always been Sarah. My gender identity has always existed. I've always been a woman. Gay people aren't straight before they come out as gay, and transgender people are who they are before they come out and transition.
The mark of a Scot of all classes [is that] he ... remembers and cherishes the memory of his forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation.
The truth is, for me, when I was a young black girl who knew I was different, was watching TV, I would always be staring at the TV set looking for myself, and I didn't see me. And when you don't see yourself, you start to think that you don't matter, or you start to think that something is wrong with you.
I'd much rather people knew me as a good tennis player than as an aboriginal who happens to play good tennis. Of course I'm proud of my race, but I don't want to be thinking about it all the time.
My mama is African American and from Wisconsin. My baba was born in Iran. My parents have stressed the idea of creating your own path, and creating your own identity is part of that. That's why embracing these two cultures is important to me.
I knew that I was trans when I was three years old. Well, I didn't know 'trans' because I didn't know there was a word for it, but I just knew that in my head and my heart that I was supposed to be a girl.
I was always a little unsteady in my self-belief. Then there was the Jewish thing. I love being Jewish, I have no problem with it at all. But it did become like a scar, with all these people saying you don't look it.
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