In Defense of Autistic Trans Self-Determination
image: a square with multiple shades of fractured blue within it. image by annainthefields
On April 13th, 2023, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey put into effect an emergency order barring trans healthcare in his state. In 2023’s onslaught of trans-hating legislation, this is the first ban of gender affirming care for trans adults. This order is a perfect storm, a convergence of anti-trans hate and medical ableism that leaves trans people throughout the United States vulnerable to violence.
His reasons are the same as most anti-trans bigots with power: to end trans self-determination, criminalize trans people and our families, and advance a campaign that seeks to eliminate us from public life entirely.
Their arguments are drawn directly from The New York Times, The Atlantic, and other powerful opponents of trans freedom.
Like these outlets, AG Bailey and his ilk believe that neurodivergent trans people are not competent. They believe we don’t know what our genders, our bodies, and our minds require.
As Erin Reed tweeted the day the emergency was declared we are “firmly in the ground of targeting trans adults now. They 100% intend to eliminate all of our care entirely. Stockpile your medication and be there for your peers.”
We are two autistic trans and nonbinary Black and brown people enraged by last week’s declaration and the ongoing war on our communities. We understand this is an attempt to ban all gender affirming care for trans adults. We also know that this is Bailey’s attempt to play to the United States’ worst and most hateful elements, as he prepares to run for election to a full-term in 2024.
If this attempt on our lives succeeds, other politicians will repeat this strategy.
AG Bailey even attempts to frame this violent termination of trans healthcare as a form of trans mental health care. The wording of the declaration weaponizes existing ableist sentiments about madness and neurodivergence against trans people.
The emergency declaration effectively bans gender-affirming care for all trans adults and youth without a single vote. It also targets mad and autistic trans and nonbinary adults for exclusion from care.
The emergency declaration insists that any provider who gives trans affirming care to someone with “psychiatric symptoms from existing mental health comorbidities” that have not “been treated and resolved” is a criminal.
This is the first attempt to ban gender-affirming care for trans adults. It is a dangerous escalation of facism. It also displays the ableism and trans hatred that fascism requires.
We have been fighting to live as sick, autistic BIPOC survivors since we were born. We know how to fight. We are not going back.
We know that destroying the fascism that trans bans embody requires a militant anti-ableist analysis. It requires us to understand that ableism underpins all attacks on bodily autonomy.
Hidden within ableism and trans hatred is a fear that our self-determination will erode the medical industrial complex, the patriarchy, and the state.
Trans and nonbinary people's resistance to gatekeepimg from the MIC mirrors autistic people's insistence that we are experts on our experience and lives--not cis people, not allistic doctors.
We know we are not a problem to be fixed.
Our assertions of freedom through self determination are terrifying to a state and a Medical Industrial Complex that wants to control our bodies.
If we are seizing our own bodily autonomy, they are less able to control and profit off of us. Free people are hard to control
Any organizing to defeat trans-hating legislation must understand these connections and articulate them if we’re going to win.
Part of why we decided to write this statement was that we’ve seen a lack of understanding and articulation of these connections coming from many who condemned the resolution.
This has to change!
As this progresses, we encourage you to:
Pay attention. If you do not live in the South or the Midwest, do not think that it’s “just Missouri” or “just Texas.” That is racist, classist, and disrespectful to the legacy of radical organizing work happening in the South and Midwest. These bans can happen anywhere unless we stop them.
Form coalitions of marginalized bodies. The NoBody is Disposable Coalition, who brought together disabled people, fat people, and elders early in the pandemic, is a good model.
Continue to build coalitions with reproductive justice workers. They are fighting like hell to defend bodily autonomy. They are pushing back on abortion ban laws. They are working creatively to get people what they need, with or without the law.
Heed the leadership of autistic and disabled trans BIPOC people
Use any skill or talent you may have to work against these laws. We all have something to contribute. As Cyree Jarelle Johnson recently wrote “anything worth doing helps end fascism.”
Become ungovernable. Shut down legislatures where this is happening. Look at Tennesse Two being reinstated when people fucked up shit so hard at the state house and in public. All fascism that was defeated happened because people got loud.
Be aware of the fascists strategy. This shit doesn't come out of nowhere. There was a national organizing campaign on the part of far right organizers to target trans people under the rubric of “protecting youth.”
Use what we have like the element of surprise, creativity, relationships, networks of care, and love. Look at past disabled and allied organizers- from AIDS activists who dumped their ashes on the White House lawn and took over Catholic churches, to disabled protestors who locked down in their wheelchairs, to the K pop stans who jammed Trumpian portals- for inspiration of things you can do. Keep our eyes on where we want to be in four years.
Learn from our elders how we got hormones and treatment before the modern trans movement.
Get a fucking passport if you can. Keep an eye out for what states are passing trans refugee asylum laws.
Get your surgery and scripts as soon as you can. Here is a link to Erin in the Morning’s map of places doing informed consent gender affirming treatment
The lines of united ableism and trans hatred are crystal clear. We must inform ourselves and our communities. We must come together to resist. And we will.
Signed,
Cyree Jarelle Johnson & Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Signed as supporters:
Signed as supporters:
Sandy Ho, Disability and Intersectionality Summit
Dr. Sami Schalk, University of Madison Wisconsin
Ali Blake, genderqueer educator and teacher educator
Rev. Anne Dunlap
Casper Carver
Kate
Katie Meyer, Boston University Graduate Workers Union BUGWU-SEIU 509
Jané Mackenzie
Muna Mire
Noel Barrera
Melissa Marver
Marcia Belsky
Neuro Cosmos, Drag Artist
Nicole McAfee, Freedom Oklahoma
Audre Wirtanen, Hyp-ACCESS
Rasha Abdulhadi
Sarah Kurchak
Simon Shieh
Amrita Chakraborty
Rob Newman, Concerned grandparent
Elly Fireside
Meredith Bartley
jay besemer
Kelly Hayes, Lifted Voices
Joselia Hughes
scantima
S.J. Barone Shannon, Tucson, Arizona
M. Téllez
Spencer Frank
Emily Iknayan
Ruth Sangree
Madeline Townsend, National Lawyers Guild
Amaranthe Rae Zinzani
ang williams
Mollie Holmberg, University of British Columbia
Rebecca Liss
Lauren Mitchell
Jillian Zdepski
Skye Johnson
Kemi Alabi
E Young
Harris Lockard
Alex Hobbs
Jen Lowe
Tina Zafreen Alam
Vanessa Bretas, Domestic Workers United, Survived and Punished NY
Owen Marciano
noam keim
Gur Keer
Danez Smith
Hannah Harris-Sutro
Atia Haq, Registered Psychotherapist
Josh Klopfenstein
Megan Groves
Camellia Grass
Sydney Goldman
Maya Schenwar
Courtney Gray
Nancy Yang
Lo b
Mack A. Thompson, Applied Anthropology MA student at the University of Kentucky. Multiply-disabled Autistic and Trans/Nonbinary self-advocate who has ALWAYS been acutely aware of my bodymind and my relationship to it
Tannara Yelland
Mia S
Jason Bowen (they/them), IDHA NYC
Victoria Rowe
Chandler
Sam Armbruster, MPH
Dean Boland
Rosen Ferreira
Chris Lester
Raevyn Emrick, Trans and neurodivergent
Megan Shaughnessy-Mogill
Leigh Hendrix, psychotherapist
Eli Kean, Ph.D.
Rowan Peterson
Nael French
Lawrence Wilde
Co Clark
Dr Syrus Marcus Ware
Dianne Brunelle
Sharon Arnold
Coco Wilder
Marriah Ferguson
Theodora bell
Jules
Kelly Ward
Tam J Guy
Wendeth Rauf
Lillian Pink
Adrianna Schuh
Melody
Katherine Nicole
Caitlyn
Braxton Wallace
McKenzy Green
Danielle F
Rachel Cockrell
Kristene
wren ❀
Cyn Gonzales
Michelle Hoxie
André J Daughtry
Katie B.
Milo Samudio
Hannah Ciesil
Jacks McNamara
Jaylynn Tomko
Claire
J May
Madeleine Williams
Jolene Beatty
Autumn Hanna
cam carter
Lücién Reubens
Rebecca Traquair
Victoria Hutchinson
Shewit Zerai
Tara Salamone
Blake McCreery-Cullofer
Russ Montiero
Demitra Olague
Avery Anne Johnson
Aviva Galpert
Petra Floyd
Isa Smith
Tikeah Miller-johnson
Joan Co
Neve Jahn
Ellie Taylor, Ellie Wolfe Taylor Psychotherapy
Jacqueline Brooks
Anne
Stephanie Doig
Sofie Benson
Adele Turner
Nicole Thomte MS LMFT
Katherine Greenstein, St Louis, Missouri (National Disabled Students Coalition)
Elliot Tetreault
Emma Specter, Newsguild
Katherine Dullea
Zoraida Ingles
Tiffany Rossmoyer
Serena Pineda
Hannah Ramsey
Ashton Yount
Alysse Reanne
Jennifer Owens
Satchel Owens
Jolie Siegel
SJ
Miranda J. Stinson
Gina Velasco, Haverford College
Grace Byron
Jennifer Ferreira
Quinn Rivenburgh, Full Spectrum Therapy
Aryn Ellis
Cynthia Gorsuch
Caitlynn Thompson
Patrick MacDonald
Jaden F, Mirror Memoirs
Rider Alsop
Lindsay Eanet
Naima Lowe
Brianna
romham pàdraig gallacher, Radical Access Mapping Project
Matilda
Neyla Drink
Karly A Grossman
Amara Scheitlin
D’Andrea Lattier
Gretchen Maune
Jennifer Ritz Sullivan
Vicco Naylor, Northwest Film Forum
Han Olliver
Mathieu Leger
AJ, St. Louis, MO
Tanuja Devi Jagernauth
Hartrich Zack
Heather Goddard
Vani Natarajan
Dominic DeRamo
Sydney Schalk
Eikki Rune
Francisco Eraso, Whitney Museum of American Art
Toni Sun Prickett, NYC Department of Education
Heather Freeman
James
melissa baldwin
Lauren Frey
Satya Lopez
Sage Avery
Lyon
Jennifer Gates
Levon McKenzie
EG
Albee Horowitz
Harron Walker
Sara B Milly
Stef May
Tamara Bransburg
Katherine Rose Wolf
Troi Tran, Spoonie Uni Project
Mae Eskenazi, Disability Debility and Form Group
Naomi Extra
Sarah Krause, Becoming Better Neighbors, Evansville, WI
Julie Cloutier, Full Spectrum Therapy LLC
Jalasia Aytch
Sarah Wolfe
Joe Beima
jackie torres
Laurel McAllister
Jae Sherman
Ozzie Pace
Rayna Buckley
Saffron Turner
Marie
Charlotte
Sekai Wynn
Rae Wiest, Family Nurse Practitioner
Nerissa Osby, Chi Masks
Ari Binsau
Steph Ban
Katy Kopnitsky
Li Shandross
Zenah Baker
Harley Maher
Aliza Greenberg
Oriol Zemko, multiple healthcare organizations
Aisling Landrigan
Meaghan Desilets
AmyBeth Willis
Theo Kolbrener
Kimani Johnson
Bel Iles
Charlie Hodges
Ace
Danielle Mireles
Katie Walsh
Fiona Gordon
yiming roberts
Zefyr Lisowski
Niamh
Psyche Ready, University of Connecticut
Augustine Angel, Juniper Bone Herbals
Maria Sibanda
M. Aragon
Elizabeth Sherwin
Rachel Rovinsky
Lauren Smith
Sorana Nance
Alexa Lee-Hassan
Deborah Rosenstein
Bonnie Stegemann
Gwyn Hill
Mre. Morgana Harp
Liza Wemakor
Chloe Prasinos
Delia H
Ellen Perry, ASW
maya finoh
Carrie Hawks
Jenn Grubb
David Downes, Retired US Navy
Joseph Singer
Jocelyn Hallman
Susan Stinson
Alex Dolores Salerno
Gowri Koneswaran
Wren Hanks
Krish J. Bhatt, MPH
Margarita Ren
Eva Lewis
Zeyn Joukhadar
Gryffin
Dakin Fuller
Sonia Ramanathan
Riva Tunoa
Blue McArthur
Juliana Pino
Brandon Roiger
Barrak Alzaid
Lexie R
Daniel A. Shockley
Cas Johnston
Jodi Lin
Brenda Lao
Asher Pandjiris, Kintsugi Therapist Collective
Bazz Bazzetta
Caitlin R. Williams
Kristen McHugh
jj skolnik
Helen Rottier, Chicago Coalition of Autistic and Neurodivergent Students
Paloma Andazola-Reza, University of Washington School of Social Work
Emily Watson
Cedric Tai, Otis College of Art & Design
Jordan Lome, Partners for Youth with Disabilities
Cailin Hollis Potami
George Abraham
Glenn Shaheen
R. Neubivko
Seren Bortell
Andrea Richardson
Christina Watkins
Sabina Ibarrola
Rachel Reardon
Tony Caraveo Jr.
Janessa JB
Gracen Brilmyer
Pauline MIZON
Tracey Carswell
Nikolas Leasure, From Ohio
Athena Zeiter, Partners for Youth with Disabilities
Esther Choi
Jesse Rice-Evans
Dani Sullivan, LCSW, Intentions Therapy
Mariah Rigg
Emily Sara, cripple
Feile oconnell
Joy Messinger
Simon Crow
Lewis
J.L. Guarch
Tess Domb Sadof
Hannah Walker
Lucifer Lynn Kay
Maranda Elizabeth
Paul S Ukrainets
zaynab shahar
Dskisak, Planet Earth
Jzl Jmz
Eli Hadley
rosza daniel lang/levitsky, Survived & Punished NY; Rooted In This World network
Lucas Scheelk
griffin epstein
Lisa Ko
Matthew J.
tahnee simone
Sophie Walker
Jay Grant
Amy Gaeta, UW Madison
Allison Schubauer
HB Lozito, Out in the Open
18 Million Rising
Ariana Martinez
Shelagh Johnson
Jaime M. Grant
Muriel Leung, Apogee Journal
Avantika Shenoy
Eva Szoboszlay
Mushroom
Mollie McLeod
Selamawit Tegene
aline kohler
San Alland
Cameron Awkward-Rich
Marg E.
Michael Orsini, University of Ottawa
Raechel Velouria
Sarah Bloem, Linköping University, Sweden
