Isaac Amend

In 2025, what is often treated as a civil rights conversation for one marginalized community is rapidly becoming a battlefield of national policy for the trans community. From identity documentation and healthcare access to non-discrimination protections and youth policy, the stakes have never been higher — and the terrain never more volatile. At the federal level, the redefinition of government posture toward transgenderpeople is unmistakable. An executive order issued in January stated that the U.S. “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.” Meanwhile, the legislature has introduced parallel bills, such as the Equality Act, […]

The trans identity has been written about extensively from a political perspective. Many columns in the Blade, and other outlets, speak of gender ID laws, barriers in trans healthcare, pronouns, trans representation in state legislatures and eventually Congress, and the legality of offering trans children hormone blockers, among other treatments.  While speaking of politics can be good, it’s equally important to understand trans lives from the perspective of someone with a social work degree — or, in other words, from an emotional and therapeutic perspective.  Trans people, simply put, face many emotional barriers in life that others usually don’t have to […]

In the tail end of National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution” documentary, Katie Couric interviews Hari Nef, a trans model. Hari Nef is a beautiful trans woman, who has debuted at New York Fashion Week and acted in the TV show “Transparent.”  “So what are you hoping the future will bring,” Couric asks Hari.  Hari says,“I want a gender chill future. I want a community, a society, a world, that just chills out. About the freaking gender thing!” Hari Nef couldn’t be further from the truth.  The more we expect young people to conform to a male or female, the worse their […]

Lately, there has been a wave of online commentators who mock nonbinary people. Bloggers, TikTokers, and other posters make fun of an entire population of well-meaning people who lie somewhere “in the middle” of the gender spectrum.  On TikTok, @feelinmiz2.0 does a mocking dance in a fake doctor’s suit, stating “Notice how the Pr0n0uns in your bio do not alter your genitals.” In July 2020, Elon Musk tweeted “pronouns suck.” In September 2020, Canadian commentator Debra Soh wrote an article titled “How the Nonbinary Trend Hurts Those with Real Gender Dysphoria.”  Defamation of nonbinary people is everywhere in the media.  […]