I had hope at one point that the spate of trans autobiographies, celebrities, politicians, children's and YA books, improved representation in media, and a growing trend toward the informed consent model meant the tide had turned in our favor.

I underestimated conservatives and the religious right's commitment to destroying LGBT+ people, obviously.

What I also failed to consider is how many cis people, of every political persuasion, came to accept trans people only on an individual, case-by-case basis, that one trans friend of theirs, while balking at the fact we exist everywhere and deserve rights as a group.

Especially in the case of trans children.

Cis people who called themselves allies because they supported trans adults, often in a pitying, condescending way, suddenly got squeamish about helping trans children avoid the misery they claimed to be so sympathetic about with us.

There are so few trans people, our issues were seen as strictly personal, individual, not something they had to think about or take seriously outside of the few trans people whom they knew and were willing to make exceptions for because of our sob stories.

Because as soon as we felt slightly safer, as soon as we started to trust you and came forward in greater numbers, and trans children started receiving the care we all desperately needed, cis people collectively said, "Oh, no, that's too much."

Pundits framed our lives, children's lives, as a radical threat to civilization as we know it, and when the right mobilized the current wave of brutal anti-trans legislation using their words and their arguments, cis people collectively said, "Oh, well, that's a shame."

There aren't enough trans people to stand up to the right's assault on our lives, and it increasingly seems we've been abandoned even by cis queers, who seem to think respectability politics will protect them when it's their turn on the chopping block.

So it goes, I guess.

So while I used to think cis people had learned to see trans people as human, I see now our humanity was always conditional on us being these rare model minorities whose struggles, while individually tragic, of course, could be compartmentalized without changing things one bit.

We are expected to suffer silently, thankful for the scraps of acceptance and recognition doled out to us ("you're *valid*"), our bodies and our minds scarred by adversity, which cis people forced upon us ("so sad, so tragic"), and nothing more.

"Good luck with your Go Fund Me!"