I’m Supposed to be Visible Today — But Why?

Almost exactly a year ago, I was sitting in the audience at an awards show in a bleak, sparsely decorated conference room in Chicago. The Ambies, or "the Oscars of podcasting," as they like to call themselves — a phrase that somehow becomes even more cringe-inducing each time you hear it — were being handed out. (Technically, there was only one Ambie on hand, so winners had to give the trophy back as soon as they exited the stage so that it could be presented to the next awardee; if this is not symbolic of the state of podcasting, I'm not sure what is.)

A show I’d created about the long, sordid history and present of sex testing in sports had been nominated for some awards, and we’d won one. On stage, I read my little speech — calling out the fact that it was Trans Day of Visibility, and that trans people were under sustained attack, while the crowd clapped dutifully. A week later, a large queer publication wrote up the night. A famous cis man, who later in the evening also shouted out Trans Day of Visibility, was thanked in the piece for doing so. I, the only trans winner that night (as far as I know), was not mentioned at all. "So much for Trans Day of Visibility," I joked to friends. "Honestly," one of them replied, "this is a perfect example of what this day is actually about."

A year later, I am once again awash in trans flags and press releases and enthusiastic Instagram posts about how important it is to see trans people, for us to be visible and proud. There are readathons and livestreams and dance parties and meetups. “Trans existence is resistance!” the Instagram posts say. “There is power in being seen! Show up!”

This year in particular, I can't help but ask myself: why?

Trans Day of Visibility was founded in 2009, in part as a counterpoint to the only other trans-related day on the calendar: Transgender Day of Remembrance. Rachel Crandall wanted a holiday that wasn't purely about our death. "I went on Facebook and I was thinking...whenever I hear about our community, it seems to be from Remembrance Day which is always so negative because it's about people who were killed," Crandall told Pride Source in 2009. "Isn't there anything that could focus on the positive aspect of being trans?"

It's a great point. No community should be defined purely by the frequency with which they are being killed. Trans joy is powerful. But every year I wonder if visibility and joy are the same thing, and every year I am more and more convinced that the answer is no.

We are living through a huge resurgence in attacks on trans people at all levels. Those attacks are made easier precisely through our visibility. In Kansas, trans people who made themselves visible to the state had their drivers licenses revoked overnight. Texas is similarly using drivers license information to make a list of trans people for surely benign reasons. Tennessee just moved forward a bill that would create a registry of trans people using their medical records. The DOJ is subpoenaing hospitals and doctors, demanding lists of patients who have requested care. Transphobes generate their own, crowd-sourced lists of athletes (including children) who they feel unfairly won a track and field race and harass them endlessly. Anti-trans activists are continuing to lobby that trans kids who are out at school be made visible to their parents even if it's unsafe for them.

Yes, some say, it's bad out there, but this is all the more reason to be visible — to push back on the transphobes and fascists who want to deny our humanity. To declare: "Your hate can't contain my joy! Look at me thriving!" And sure, but I am mostly left wondering who all this visibility is really for.

It often seems like the loudest calls for us to be visible are coming from those who have done nothing to protect us. They buy Harry Potter merch that directly funds attacks on trans people; they badger us about how important it is to somehow pre-emptively vote for Gavin-I just don’t think trans people should have access to public life-Newsom; they create Substacks despite the company's long history of paying and platforming virulent TERFs. And then, today, they celebrate Trans Day of Visibility and encourage us to "live our truth" or whatever the fuck. Why? Why should I be visible, when you refuse to have my back?

Visibility without protection is a trap.

I'm far from the first person to say this. In fact, there was an entire anthology on the topic published in 2022 called Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility. More recently, Parker Molloy wrote an essay at The Verge called "How Trans Visibility Became a Trap.” "Across the country, trans people who spent the last 10-plus years living openly online are grappling with the same terrifying realization: the visibility we thought would save us might be exactly what endangers us now," Molloy wrote. Every year, trans folks online wonder aloud why it is that we're offering up visibility when the stakes are so high.

And of course, trans people are not the only community with this problem. All marginalized groups grapple with the balance of making themselves visible and legible to the dominant culture, while protecting themselves from the sharp and ceaseless brutality of that culture. The poet Édouard Glissant made the "right to opacity" a core piece of his work, arguing that the very opposite of visibility is necessary to protect diversity. "I claim for everyone the right to opacity," he wrote in Treatise on the Whole World, "which is not the same as closing oneself off. It is a means of reacting against all the ways of reducing us to the false clarity of universal models."

Personally, I'm not interested in making myself or my people visible to allies who do nothing for actual, living trans individuals. But I am interested in what Glissant talks about: the celebration of opacity as a joy, as a way of rejecting a simplified narrative. (I'd love to have heard his take on "if you can see it, you can be it”). 

And so I'd like to know what trans people want to see COYOTE feature. What is missing in media coverage right now? What questions do you have? What do you want us to be writing about, investigating, highlighting? How can we make COYOTE more useful to you? Let us know below.