Voices

I was so ashamed of being transgender that I held out for years, thinking if I waited long enough, this part of myself would retreat into the dark spot of my mind – the trapdoor where all the bad memories fall in and disappear.

Much of the world is now either aware of or has seen the disturbing video of a police officer brutally grabbing a young Black teenager by the neck, pulling her backward, yanking her out of her desk and slinging her across the classroom.

When I left the hospital the night that he was admitted, I sat in the parking lot gasping with big ugly sobs and looking for someone to blame — beginning with myself. I'm his mother, and I'm the only consistent parent he's ever had. As I finally made my way home, with tears streaming down my face and my mouth open in a silent scream of pain, all I could ask myself was "what have I done?" How could I have allowed my son to be hurt so deeply, and in so many ways?

So why are we still talking about this? Because the fight against Planned Parenthood is really about something much greater. It is, as it always has been, another attempt to police women’s bodies, their experiences, and their sex lives. It confuses voters with emotional rhetoric and then strips women of their rights through shame.

A part of me gets it. If you’ve never had any mental illness, who wants to date a crazy person? Many people think of mental illness in extremes and stereotypes, i.e., depressed people never get out of bed or those with OCD will never leave the bathroom.

Even though I've suffered from clinical depression ever since I was 15 years old, my depressive episodes have a lot more at stake as I’ve gotten older, especially since I’m dependent on my own productivity in order to survive.

The list on the board filled up with words like “ambitious,” “curious,” “intelligent,” and “dedicated.” And as my professor was wrapping up the activity, I sighed and raised my hand.

You see abortion, whether you believe in it or not, is a thing. Abortion, whether it’s legal or not, is a thing. Abortion, whether it’s safe or not, is a thing. In all of human history, there have been women who were pregnant when they did not wish to be and they found ways to end the pregnancies.