How to Resist Without Going Crazy
And help allies resist, too
Stalwart reporter Erin Reed put out a piece today going line-by-line through the opening-day executive orders targeting trans people. I see no reason to think that these attacks will stop any time soon. While I personally believe the new Chief Executive himself does not actually care one way or another about trans people, I also think that he understands the usefulness of transphobia to drive the singular thing he actually does care about: keeping as many people paying attention to him as possible.
So long as following the Project 2025 playbook gets him attention, he’ll keep doing it, without thought or concern for the impact it has on the very real lives of very real trans people and our families.
It’s up to us to resist
Make no mistake: we’re playing defense now. Now is the time to prioritize damage reduction. To prioritize minimizing losses to the gains that trans people have made. It’s a big job, and we all know how critical it is.
Thankfully, we don’t have to do it alone. We have people in our lives we count as allies. Maybe they are close friends. Maybe they are our life partners. Maybe they are parents or children or cousins. Maybe they are co-workers. Whoever they are, they can help.
But they probably won’t help on their own. A few might, but most won’t. Not out of any malice or lack of care for us, but simply because people are busy. They have lives. We can’t realistically expect our allies to pay as much attention to the assaults on trans rights as we do.
But if we ask them to help, they’re more likely to.
The challenge, then, is to build up a network of allies you can tap when the next attack du jour comes along, and to make it easy for your network to take action.
How big are our networks?
Or put another way, is there any point to building up such a network? Does it matter?
Obviously, I have no idea how big your network is. But let’s do a back-of-the-envelope estimate of just how much of a difference it could make if every trans person actually did ask their allies to help.
The U.S. currently has about 335 million people. How many are trans? That’s a matter of some debate, since of course you can only measure the trans people who are both aware that they are trans (the eggs who have hatched, as it were), and are out enough to be willing to be counted. I’ve seen a lot of numbers thrown around in the 1% to 5% range. Personally, I suspect it’s around 1.5%.
1.5% works out to about 5 million trans people in the United States. That’s roughly the population of Alabama, per the 2020 census, or of the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. Give or take.
How many allies you have obviously depends on a lot of things. How big was your family, growing up? Are they supportive? Are you outgoing with a lot of friends, or are you a quiet wallflower with few? Are you married or in a committed relationship? are your in-laws supportive? How many people to you work closely with at your job? Are they supportive?
I can’t answer any of that for everyone, but just thinking about my own life, at different stages where different of those factors would have been dominant, an average of 10 people seems reasonable. Put your mind to it and I suspect you could list 10 people who are Not Ok with you having your civil rights taken away. Personally, I think the average would be higher than that, but let’s keep things simple.
So, 5 million trans people, plus 10 more people each. That’s 55 million trans allies available to speak up for our rights. Obviously there will be some overlap between people’s lists, but still, 55 million feels like a reasonable estimate.
That’s roughly California plus Pennsylvania. That’s a lot of people. It’s almost one-third of the U.S. electorate who voted in 2024. That’s enough to make a big difference
Building Your Network
I said above that the first part of the challenge was just in building your network. By that, I mean creating a way to easily reach out to your 10 allies when something needs to be done. If you have to make 10 phone calls every time, or write 10 e-mails, it will become a chore. A drudgery that even you will have trouble summoning the energy to face. It won’t to be sustainable.
You need a quick, one-shot way to notify everybody, and I’m sure you already know what it is: Texting.
Reach our to your allies once to invite them to a group-text thread. Let them know what you’re asking:
Hi Mom. I’m starting a group text to alert my family and friends when there’s some new attack on trans rights happening in D.C. or in our state. I want to make it easy for people to know when to call their senators and representatives to remind them that trans rights are important and people are watching. Would you like to participate?
Start your group text with whoever agrees. Not everyone will, and that’s ok. Not everyone has the time or bandwidth or spoons to engage in political activism. It’s important to respect people’s boundaries.
For whoever says yes, take the time to look up the office phone numbers for their U.S. senators and representatives, as well as whatever state-level legislators may represent them. Send this information to your allies:
Hi Mom. Thanks for joining my group text! Here are the people to add to your contact list so it’s really easy to call them:
Senator Alex Padilla — 202-228-3864
Senator Adam Schiff — 202-224-3841
etc…
Put them in your phone as “TR Sen. Padilla”, “TR Sen. Schiff”, etc., they will all sort into a nice group in your contact list so they’re really easy to find. TR for trans rights!
Is it tedious to have to do that for everyone in your whole network? Yes. Absolutely. But you only have to do it once. Also, it’s a lot less tedious than losing your civil rights. Do it anyway because the easier you make it for your allies, the more likely they’ll take action when the time comes.
Once you have gathered everyone who wants to help, and given them their start-up information, send a welcome and thank you text to the group, and remind them just what this means for you and the other 5 million trans people in the country.
Hey everyone. Thanks so much for joining my group text. This is a really scary time for me, and for everyone in the trans community. It is pretty terrifying and infuriating to be singled out like this, to have the federal government striving to strip me of my humanity and civil rights, when all I’m trying to do is live the best life I can. It really helps me to know that there are people like you on my side, who aren’t buying into it, and who are willing to help me fight back. Your support means more to me than I can say.
Do all this in your own words, of course. Make it your own. You have your own feelings about all of this. Honor that. Voice that. Let your allies know how all of this—the persecution and their support—makes you feel.
Making Action Easy
It’s your network. You started it. You are the leader of this group of people. It’s important to recognize that by establishing the group, you are also taking on the responsibility for staying aware of what’s going on in trans politics, filtering out the noise, and identifying the important things that your network really should do something about.
Suppose some new atrocity comes along. How do you make it easy for your network to help?
Learn about the issue. Read reliable sources (Erin Reed, linked above, is an excellent one) to understand what the issue really is and isn’t.
Understand how the issue would affect trans people generally, and how it would affect you specifically.
Send a message to your group, in which:
You name the specific program or piece of legislation or whatever it might be. Include any deadlines that might apply, such as the date of an upcoming House vote or what-have-you.
You quickly describe how it would affect you. Don’t exaggerate, but don’t sugar-coat it either. This sh!t is getting pretty bleak, and people need to know.
End with a call-to-action that is sensible for the issue; no use people calling their state senators if the atrocity is something being debated in the U.S. House of Representatives, for example.
Draft a sample script your allies can use when making their calls:
Alert! Marjorie Taylor Greene just introduced the Drug Abuse Identification and Reduction Act which would authorize police to enter people’s houses without a search warrant to search for and confiscate “illegal drugs” which the bill defines to include HRT medications. If this is enacted, the cops could literally break into my house and steal the medications I have legally obtained and paid for, without any due process whatsoever. Call your representatives today to insist that they vote No on this bill.
(Obviously, that’s just an example. Don’t anybody go giving MTG any bad ideas…)
Some people in your group will probably reply to say that they have called, or signed the petition, or whatever other thing you asked them to do. This is good! It is not noise. It is not just virtue signaling. Maybe they do just want a pat on the head, but that’s fine, because what they’re also doing is creating an environment within the group that normalizes actually doing the things you’re asking.
So thank them! Thank them publicly, in group. You appreciate what they just did, right? So make them feel appreciated.
Thanks Mom! I knew I could count on you! 💖
Taking it Further
All the above is just the core idea and my suggestions. But here are some other things you could layer on top:
Track your calls to action and people’s responses. Make a spreadsheet. Every so often, maybe give the group some stats and bonus appreciation: “Wow, we made over 200 calls in the past two months! You all are awesome!”
Encourage people to write to their elected officials too. It’s more work, but they are obligated to read all the correspondence from their constituents.
Start a Substack, a bsky.app account, a YouTube channel, or whatever the hot new social media is this week and also post your calls to action there.
Branch out to other activities, like joining protests and marches, writing to your local paper’s op-ed column.
You can probably think of other things as well. Ultimately, it’s your group. Your network. So make it your own! And to any allies who stumbled upon this article, nothing’s stopping you from making your own network as well! Please do!
And please, remember to take care of yourself, too. This is all a lot for us to be handling right now, even without learning the skills of political action. It’s ok if you don’t ping your network for everything. It’s ok if you sit one out sometimes. You have limits, too, and your own self-care is also important.
But to whatever extent you can, please make some time for this in your life. Find a way to carve out a regular time every day or every week to do something. We’re on defense right now, and we have to be prepared for whatever play they call next. No matter how underhanded it might be.