Transgender Day of Visibility, a Double Edged Sword
The unbelievable events of changing my legal name - Part III
Today is Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV). It occurs every year on March 31. This day is designed to do exactly what it says, provide visibility to the transgender community. It was founded to be a more positive day for the trans community than the other day dedicated to us. Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) which occurs every November 20, is dedicated to the trans folks that we have lost due to violent acts. I love that we have a day for the transgender community to be visible every March. But we also need to acknowledge that TDOV is a double edged sword. In a world that is more unsafe for trans people than many other communities, visibility is not always a good thing. Visibility to the wrong people can do damage or get you killed. This is my second TDOV being open and out. I will get to how I celebrated the day this year. But we need to start with that second edge of the sword and how visibility negatively impacted my first TDOV last year as an open and out trans woman.
In 2024 I was still finding my way on Transgender Day of Visibility. I was only four months into my social transition. In addition to being a manager in corporate America, I transitioned while being the volunteer President of a non-profit theatre focused on children and teens. Those associated with our program were aware of my transition. With that said, there is a place where I was not openly trans - on the company's website. On that website, one day deadname disappeared and Veronica's profile appeared in its place. There were no references to me being trans on this new profile, because in that online space I did not want the visibility. Yes, it's great when you can be leading from the front as a trans woman in a position that so few folks like me are able to access. But I did not want my being trans to be searchable to internet trolls. This proved to be a prescient decision.
I've written about my name change (Veronica Day, Part I, and Part II). There was A LOT to process when my name change did not go through last year and unfortunately it intersected with TDOV. In March 2024, my name change did not go through due to a judge not letting me waive the public notice requirement. My IL State Representative in the Illinois house led the push to gather resources so that I would not need to out myself in a newspaper as trans. Our team came together and there were multiple organizations helping me, including the ACLU and the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois.
So we enter TDOV, which in 2024 fell on the same day as Easter. The children's theatre had a social media post This post acknowledged Transgender Day of Visibility and said that everyone is welcome. That was it. I knew that we had trans and gender non-conforming performers in the program, and it was really important to me that we had a post acknowledging that. Right out of the gate, we received a negative comment, beginning with "LOL". Yeah, that's pretty gross that a member of the public used that forum to laugh at trans people. Over the coming week, it evolved into what I can only describe as a freighting situation. While an overwhelming majority of the responses were in alignment with our values, the vocal minority can be very scary even when they are massively outnumbered. There were more hateful comments. Then we saw some of these people share our company's original post, calling anyone associated with our company "a nest of perverted groomers." Again, this isn’t for associating with trans people, it was just because the company acknowledged trans people. Remember, our company had not done anything publicly acknowledging that the President was a trans woman. From there, we found evidence that these bigots were taking their hate offline, and people in our program started being contacted by people associated with them about our upcoming show.
This was an absolute mind job for me and a nearly impossible situation to find myself in. The day that a member of our team was contacted about our upcoming show is the first day that my public notice would have appeared in the paper if I had simply complied with the judge’s order. These bigots took their hate offline and seemed to be looking for things against our company and THAT'S the first day that my notice would have run? Like, holy fuck. I am so glad that I had a team of people assembled to help me push back, as I had absolutely considered just publishing the notice. The escalation that we could have seen from these bigots, for a theatre program working with youth, still scares me. I'm not even close to being over it.
So, how did we respond? Some of the folks who were contacted were able to get records of a lot of this. I was able to get in touch with the venue for our upcoming production as I was asking about security protocol. The venue worked with local police. They had to out me in this context so that the police would understand the threat, and of course I could not have the police not understanding the situation in full without being read in. For the first time in my association with the company, all parties agreed that the right step was to have a sworn officer onsite so that we could have confidence that we could do this show safely. Imagine having to have an active police presence so that a show with youth performers can come off safely because of bigotry.
The show ended up coming off fine. I went to preview night, but I stayed away from the rest of the shows until the closing performance. The whole time, I was absolutely petrified that the instigators would find out that the President of the company was trans and that my presence would endanger our 100+ youth and teen performers and our 1000+ patrons. Being trans is who I am, and I am happy to have found myself, but there was so much internal pressure that I put on myself to keep a low profile for this show. At the final performance, there were multiple presentations after the curtain closed. I made sure my team knew that I was not comfortable taking the stage. The reality of the climate in this country makes my existence, and especially any volunteer work that I do with minors, a lightning rod. It's exhausting and takes such a toll on my mental health.
If there is a silver lining, this frightening experience was able to be utilized in our motion to reconsider waiving public notice on my name change. I'm attaching a redacted version of the motion. I'll give you a content warning in the motion for self-harm.
This motion was successful, and it allowed me to become Veronica in the eyes of the law, and I've been Veronica everywhere ever since. This is a picture I took when I got my notarized copies at the courthouse.
I ended up stepping down from the board of the theatre company late last year. I loved my time with them, but it's clear that I’m being called to other places. I've entered into a new season of my life.
To put a bow on this, let's come back to the present. For TDOV, I wanted to do something meaningful. My wife and I went to a rally in downtown Chicago on Sunday, March 30. After last year's turmoil over Transgender Day of Visibility, it was so great to participate with thousands of other supporters for trans rights. We heard from local leaders standing up for trans folks. Then we took to the streets and marched from Federal Plaza to Trump Tower and back. The march went on for block after block. During the march, the skies opened up on us and we walked through a huge downpour. It was as if the rain was cleansing 2024's trauma away. That march is one of the most powerful things I've participated in. It was so good for my soul to do something tangible to reclaim my ability to be visible.