DALLAS — In May of 2020 we handed over our platform to Black voices in our North Texas community through a series called “While I Have Your Attention.”
Those courageous souls spoke out against racial bias, race based violence, and systemic racism.
Now, as we mark another Pride Month that celebrates the LGBTQ+ community, we are, once again, turning our platform over to our family, friends, and neighbors to amplify even more voices in the struggle for equality in America.
Here is the story of Callie Butcher:
When stories are told in the mainstream media about the trans community, they focus on struggles on the fact that maybe the trans people are having trouble finding jobs or they're being murdered. All of this, you know, presents a certain image of what people expect the trans experience (to be) like.
Now that I have your attention, I think everyone should know that it's OK to celebrate -- and we should celebrate -- trans joy and trans success.
Hi, my name's Callie Butcher. I'm an attorney here in Dallas, and I identify as a transgender woman right now in Texas.
Trans people in particular are under attack from the state legislature in a way that we haven't seen in years. I think that puts a pressure on you regardless of whether you're directly affected or not by the laws that are being pushed or the rhetoric that's being stated. It creates a kind of baseline anxiety that you live with every day, and that goes into how you interact with the world. I grew up in Plano. It was conservative then – more conservative even than it is now. And I think that there was an expectation that someone who was born into the upper middle-class family was a white male who played sports. This is what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to be athletic. And I think any deviation from that oftentimes people view as something scary.
My life now is so much better than it ever was before I transitioned. My life isn't that far from the norm, right? I have two kids. I have a dog and two cats and a house and a pool. We live the life that I think is the typical American life. The only difference is, you know, that I'm trans and I'm married to a woman. I think that what we really need are more stories of the people in my community who are trans but living a normal life. They have a job. They have kids. They have a significant other. They're volunteering in our community. They're doing all these things and they're just trying to get by like everybody else.
Something that I would like my kids to know and that I try to impart and that my spouse tries to impart to them is treating people with respect. Understanding that everyone comes from a different lived experience. Even people you may think are like you, if you really dig in and talk to them, you understand that their life and who they are is shaped by everything that they've gone through.
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