The Big Q&A With Charlotte Clymer

Army veteran, activist, feminist and writer Charlotte Clymer answers five questions from George and Team Takei.

Activist and Army veteran Charlotte Clymer. Charlotte Clymer/Instagram.

The Big Q&A is a series where we sit down with some of the most important voices of our times to ask them the big picture questions. Today’s interview is with United States Army veteran, feminist, writer and trans activist Charlotte Clymer.

The Republicans have targeted the trans community with particular viciousness and ferocity in the past two years and we want to understand what’s behind it a bit more deeply. At a more fundamental level, we want to hear from trans people like Charlotte about common myths and misconceptions and what it’s like to be trans in America today. 

Importantly, those of us who are horrified by the legislative attacks on trans identity and hate crimes against trans people want to know how we can best be allies in this struggle.

This is a not-to-be-missed interview, which is why we've decided to share it with all of our subscribers, without our normal guest post paywall. I hope you share it far and wide and help us push back against this assault by the GOP.

— George Takei and Team

1)  There is currently a rush of legislation across GOP-controlled states to ban what’s known as “gender affirming care.” But for many, it’s unclear what that term even means. 

What is gender affirming care, what common myths surround it, and why are bans on it so harmful, especially for trans youth?

This year, more than a dozen GOP-controlled states have passed various bans on access to gender-affirming health care for children. Many Republican officials are moving to ban it entirely, like Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who announced “emergency restrictions” against gender affirming care in the state for anyone, including trans adults. 

Being transgender is not a mental illness, nor is it a choice. Every major medical association has unequivocally endorsed gender-affirming care as a treatment for “gender dysphoria,” or the anxiety (and often depression) that arises from the incongruence between someone’s gender identity and their sex assigned at birth.

For children, this does not mean surgery or hormones. That’s the biggest myth, one which the GOP pushes every chance they get. In consultation with medical providers and with parental consent, a trans young person may start hormone therapy no earlier than 16 years-old and surgical intervention no earlier than 18 years-old in the vast majority of cases. 

There are some trans boys and nonbinary young people who undergo breast removal surgery in consultation with a medical provider (and parental consent) before the age of 18, which is recommended only after the patient has been on hormone therapy for a year. 

This is extremely rare in population context; although there are an estimated 300,000 trans adolescents in the U.S. (according to UCLA's Williams Institute), only a few hundred surgeries in the U.S. are performed every year and align with the strict medical recommendations for trans adolescents.

Compare that to the 3,200 teenage girls who are not transgender and received cosmetic breast implants in 2020. Oddly enough, there are no efforts by Republican legislators to ban cosmetic breast implants for minors.

Also: as the above stat implies, surgery and hormones were inaccessible to the vast majority of trans adolescents even before this year’s avalanche of legislative bans.

So, if a child is experiencing gender dysphoria and isn’t yet mature enough to receive hormones and surgery, what then? Well, medical providers may recommend “puberty blockers,” a treatment that delays or pauses the effects of puberty, giving trans young people, their parents, and medical providers plenty of runway to consider those decisions before they reach maturity.

Contrary to the vile propaganda spread by anti-LGBTQ extremists, the effects of puberty blockers are reversible. If an adolescent ceases using them, the effects of puberty proceed without issue.

But the most surprising–and least reported–thing about puberty blockers is that children who are not transgender have been prescribed them for decades as a treatment for other medical conditions. Republicans never cared about this long-accepted treatment until their moral panic over trans children and adolescents.

Look, I know this is new for most folks who are not transgender. It’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I get that.

I’m not a medical provider. You should not take blind faith in me when it comes to medical issues. Instead, you should ask medical experts, and on this, they are abundantly clear: gender-affirming care is aligned with best medical practices. 

From the American Medical Association to the American Psychological Association to the American Academy of Pediatrics to the National Institutes of Health, literally every major medical authority has professionally validated gender affirming care.

But here’s the best reason to support gender affirming care: we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that it is lifesaving. 

Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study that found gender affirming care led to 60% lower odds of moderate to severe depression and 73% lower odds of suicidality for trans adolescents after a year of access to these treatments.

If this were any other medical issue and the experts said “we can save at least three-quarters of these kids by doing these specific things,” it would be hailed as a remarkable achievement in public health. 

2)  Many liberals and progressives feel caught off-guard by the rush of attacks and the level of vitriol and hate directed at the trans community. 

Where is all this coming from, in your view?

I don’t blame them! If I weren’t trans, I would imagine this would all feel new. But I would also say, with love and respect, that this is nothing new for our community. 

The severity and frequency of attacks on trans people have dramatically increased, but the hatred and ignorance now seen on full display has been simmering beneath the surface for a long time.

Republicans have been aggressively attempting to weaponize transphobia in the public square for well over a decade in some way, shape, or form.

So, what makes this moment different? Well, in my humble opinion, there are a number of things at play here.

First, the trans community has never been more visible, and with that increased visibility has come greater pushback and scrutiny. There was always going to be pushback. Every marginalized community is unfairly scrutinized as they gain visibility.

Second, our country has never been more divided in the modern political era. Every issue has become vulnerable to weaponization by bad faith actors. Pundits refer to these bad faith engagements as “culture wars,” implying that both sides have valid perspectives. 

But there are not two valid perspectives. There are extremists who seek to oppress marginalized communities, from white supremacy to misogyny to anti-LGBT actions and rhetoric, and there are marginalized communities who only wish to exist in peace and happiness.

Third, the vast majority of people in the U.S. do not personally know a trans person. They may be aware of a trans public figure like Laverne Cox or Elliot Page, but they do not personally know a trans person in their day-to-day lives. This makes it much easier to accept, without challenge, the flood of anti-trans propaganda in the media landscape over the past several years.

Fourth, and I say this with the acknowledgment that some trans folks don’t want to hear this (and I don’t blame them one bit), there is a profound discomfort with trans people that is motivated by a larger discomfort with a rapidly changing society. 

From climate change to possible wars with Russia and China to chronic financial instability, we live in an era in which people are far more likely to cling to things that feel certain, almost like rafts in a stormy sea. For an overwhelming percent of the U.S. population, gender identity being voiced as something that’s far more complex than we were taught as kids is troubling. 

Should it be? Of course not. Is it fair to trans folks? Absolutely not. But it’s important to recognize that mainstream transphobia is one symptom of a much larger sickness in our country.

Finally, Republicans are shameless, and they have never hesitated to fill an information vacuum with their propaganda. Currently, other than President Biden and some congressional Democrats, there aren’t many in the party who are speaking out about transphobia. 

Some moderates have avoided the issue entirely, mostly out of fear of saying the wrong thing or failing to understand trans issues (probably both in most cases). Despite being the only major party that affirms LGBTQ equality, it honestly feels like trans people have been largely left behind by Democrats outside of President Biden. 

But the President can’t do it all. That man has to run an entire country in a very uncertain global environment. The fact that he has already done so much for trans rights in his first two years in office is nothing short of remarkable.

We need Democratic officials to call out this nonsense for what it is. We need them educated on the issues and ready to stand beside us.

I am quite proud to be a Democrat, but I often lament the undeniable truth that so many in our party have abandoned trans folks. Until that changes, progress cannot be achieved.

3)  What can the average person who wants to help fight back against the anti-trans hate and support trans lives do, right now, to help?

There are the usual things that I’m sure folks have already heard: educate yourself on trans issues, register to vote, run for local offices (like school boards), donate to trans rights organizations, etc.

But I’m gonna ask for something far more uncomfortable because it’s essential.

Like any marginalized community, there are spaces trans people can’t access. Most of these are dinner tables in tens of millions of households across the country for families that do not have trans relatives or friends or colleagues. It is imperative that folks who are not transgender speak up for us when we’re not there.

That means Thanksgiving. That means birthday parties. That means any gathering of family in which a beloved relative says something hurtful or untrue about trans people. If you’re in such a space and hear that, you have an obligation to speak up.

It’s uncomfortable, I know, but if you’re even a little uncomfortable doing that, imagine how trans folks feel hearing such things without challenge by those who claim to love and care about us.

4)  You are an outspoken advocate, writer and activist on this and other issues and you have many aspects to your individual identity—veteran, trans woman, lesbian. You even have found time to publish your own Substack! 

Where are you focusing your attention these days and how do you keep your balance and sanity in such a precarious world?

Oh, goodness gracious, I wear many hats these days. I’m on several boards (LPAC, Running Start, Voices for Progress, etc.), and when I’m not supporting those orgs with fundraising, I’m doing all sorts of panels and speeches online and around the country. 

These things take up 90% of my time, and they’re almost always unpaid labor. I do them because they’re essential, and I am the beneficiary of countless others who do (and have done) that labor in countless ways.

My day job–how I pay my bills–is writing a Substack newsletter called “Charlotte’s Web Thoughts.” I write about politics, religion, and culture. I’m a Christian and military veteran from Central Texas. 

I’m also a progressive trans woman who lives in D.C. I don’t feel these are mutually exclusive; they are the same person. I write about these intersections as a way of bridging gaps between differing perspectives. 

I intentionally make my blog free to read, but I also lovingly ask that folks support my work with a paid subscription.

Keeping my balance and sanity is honestly a struggle. It’s tough, y’all, I’m not gonna lie. 

But I try to do two things in response to the stress and anxiety of public advocacy: 

1. I remember that so many activists have come before me and struggled in ways I can’t begin to understand.

2. I surround myself with folks who love and care about me.

5)  If you could tell cisgender people just one thing about what it’s like to be a trans person in America today, what would that be and what lesson would you like them to take from it?

Trans people are constantly forced to move around the discomfort of people who are not transgender. Every day. All the time. I wrote an op-ed for USA Today several years ago that talks about what it’s like to move in the public square. Here are some highlights:

When I travel out of state, I look up nondiscrimination protections for where I'm going, including airport layovers. Just to know what's available to me. God forbid I have a layover in a state unfriendly to trans people and get assaulted or arrested for using the restroom.

If I'm out in another city, either for business or pleasure, I watch how much I eat and drink. I don't want to be in a position where I'll need to use a public restroom and feel uncertain whether it's safe.

Even in places where we have legal protections, I worry about being a burden. I don't want to cause headaches. I have faced discrimination in places where it was illegal and let it go because I wasn't sure whether it was worth it. And I feel terrible about that. I feel guilty.

Transgender and nonbinary people are constantly adjusting and revolving our lives around the preferences and feelings of cisgender people, not because we want to do that but because there aren't enough hours in the day to fight every battle and not enough rights to guarantee our safety.

And I have a considerable amount of privilege. I'm white, able bodied, doing OK financially and not a religious minority. And here I am, still worried about my safety in cisgender spaces, which are basically everywhere outside of queer establishments.

Imagine what it's like for Black and brown transgender and nonbinary folks. Or trans people with physical disabilities. Or trans people who are religious minorities. Or trans people without a steady income. Or trans people who are sex workers. Or homeless. Or with severe health issues.

It is so easy to do the right thing, the kind thing, and it’s tragic how many folks in our country intentionally make it hard.

You can subscribe to Charlotte’s Substack, Charlotte's Web Thoughts, by clicking here.