Here's my cis person's take on transphobia: transphobia isn't what you are, it's what you do. Living in the United States, you will absorb transphobic attitudes automatically. It is the baseline state of our culture. You must actively work against it. And it is work.

It is work, and you should do it, and do it gladly and humbly. Untangling unconscious biases is tough. But it can and should be done. To steal a line from David Lynch, you have to fix your heart or die.

Many years ago, I became friends with a trans person, long before I knew anything about what trans people experience, long before I began taking steps to be pro-trans and anti-transphobic. I didn't even know this person was trans at the time.

When I learned that they were trans, I tried to do the "liberal colorblind" thing. To say that nothing had changed. But I was wrong. My perceptions had changed. This person was still the same wonderful person they'd always been. I was treating them different. I was the asshole.

I had a choice: I could still love and support this person, or I could act like this revelation about their life and their experience was somehow all about me. I could fix my heart, or I could die. I chose the former. I don't regret it.

Nowadays, I have many transgender people who I have the privilege of calling my friends. And I love and support them, and I work to dismantle the systems of transphobia that my culture has programmed into me. It's an ongoing process. There is no "ally prize".