With a torrent of anti-transgender bills and executive orders since President Donald Trump’s election, those in the transgender community are working to keep their heads above water. Veronica Esposito, a marriage and family therapist, journalist and transgender advocate, shared her experience in her field and as a transgender woman.
“In California, before the Trump administration, we did not feel so directly attacked by government,” she said. But Esposito said transgender people are having more adverse experiences after Trump’s election.
“People are getting medical care at an increased pace, stockpiling hormones. People have genuine fears about having access to that stuff (being) cut off,” she said.
Esposito said she’s feeling the weight of these concerns. She’s still helping clients but noticed more challenges recently, including more hopelessness among those in thecommunity and slower progress. This hopelessness is not helped by rapidly spread misinformation, particularly around transgender participation in sports. Studies like that of the Canadian Centre of Ethics in Sport in 2021 provide evidence that transgender people (particularly transgender women) lack any particular biological advantage in sports. Esposito said despite this, myths are perpetuated by hate groups.
“There’s such a relentless drive to dehumanize us,” she stated. Other myths include transgender people coming after women or children, but Esposito stated this is far from the truth.
“I’m just a person,” she said. “I just want to have a life like everyone else.”
Esposito also said anti-trans talking points against transgender women using women’s bathrooms are often misguided and there is evidence that transgender women are at the most risk of being targeted in bathrooms. Esposito also noted efforts to protect cisgender women – women whose gender aligns with their sex assigned at birth – have created the opposite effect.
“We have a lot of cisgender women assigning themselves as the gender police,” she said. “You are starting to see a lot of stories in the media of cisgender women getting harassed and (into) fist fights…because someone has decided that (those cisgender women’s) presentation isn’t correct for their sex.”
She also described myths that there are no transgender children or children don’t know what they want.
“I guarantee you if there was any way to have persuaded me otherwise or beat it out of me, or converted me into a cisgender person, it would have happened because gosh, everyone tried so hard to do that to me,” she said.
Medically transitioning through hormones or surgery is important to many transgender people, Esposito said. Gender dysphoria – distress and discomfort one feels when their gender identity doesn’t align with their sex assigned at birth, according to Mayo Clinic – is like other maladies, Esposito said. If people can do something to make parts of their body feel better, they will. Esposito shared her experience working with youth who medically transitioned.
“I can attest to how much their lives change when adults start to believe them, when they start to get this medical care,” she said. Medical transition can also help socially, she added.
“When I was early in my transition I would present as female and I was not passing for a cisgender woman at that point and people stared at me every single day,” she said. “…That’s not a small thing to go through, to experience that for years of your life.”
Many raise concerns about transgender people later regretting surgery or taking hormones. Esposito states this has not been the experience for her or her clients.
“I’ve talked to people whose surgeries did not go as they hoped. I’ve talked to people who have transitioned and lost their families, lost their jobs, people who have been unhoused,” she said. “No one’s ever regretted it.”
What people do regret, she said, was not transitioning sooner.
“I’m one of those people. I do feel the pain of all of those lost years. There’s nothing I can do but grieve those years,” she said.
Many assume gender diversity is a modern phenomenon. Esposito said gender diversity has existed globally throughout history. Archaeologists found evidence of people not matching categories of male or female in the earliest human settlements. Given humans’ long history of gender diversity, Esposito noted the transgender community needs empathy and curiosity from others, not judgment. Instead of questioning transgender people, she recommends others reflect on if her existence ever directly harmed them.
Despite discrimination against her, Esposito celebrated her gender transition.
“It’s crazy that I can be living through this whole legislative hurricane of hatred for me. I mean 800 anti-trans bills in this year alone…this is really awful to be living through,” she said. “And I’m still so much happier now than before I transitioned.”
Esposito noted although many clients feel hopeless and demoralized since Trump’s inauguration, she also witnessed them finding their courage and resilience. People are not taking this legislation lying down.
To learn more, contact Esposito at [email protected].
Susie Driscoll, LMFT, is a licensed psychotherapist. For information on her practice, email [email protected].
