You’ve likely met a nonbinary or transgender person. All they ask is not to be harmed | Opinion

On my way home from work, I sometimes see yard signs that say, “Drive like your kid lives here.” The hope is to give drivers pause and remind them that they too might have young kids riding bikes or crossing the street. With Nov. 5 now in our rearview mirrors, signs for political candidates are disappearing from many yards. While the signs are packed away, my conviction to protect gender-diverse young people remains.

Your vote last week impacts not just your life, but the lives of your neighbors, including those across town you’ll never meet but whose roads you may travel at top speed. For that reason, I am asking you to remember the values that led you to the polls and not pack away your advocacy along with your signs.

By most accounts, my nonbinary child and their transgender friends are typical American teens. When not spending inexhaustible hours in their room, they go to concerts, dress up for prom and complain about unfair grading. In other words, you know their type. You may not know my teen personally and may think you don’t know anyone who is trans — but the fact is, you don’t have to in order to respect them.

Further, it’s likely that you do know or have met a nonbinary or trans young adult. Regardless of whether you live on the coasts or in the Midwest, rural or urban, or red or blue state, gender-diverse individuals represent 5% of the under-30 population.

Growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, in the 1980s, I knew butch lesbians who played the accordion and made a mean tater tot casserole. At the time, living a stealth life was essential for their survival, meaning their sexuality (and possibly their gender identity) was closeted. It didn’t matter that they sported a buzz cut. I liked them because they were fun and interesting people.

After college, my friendship circle included individuals who described themselves as gender fluid, queer and trans. While their identities and presentations presented new territory for me to understand sociopolitically, the heart of our connections was built on the common struggle of sorting out careers, relationships and ourselves as 20-somethings on the verge of a new millennium.

In the same way that as a kid, I didn’t need to know the accordion player’s sexuality, you don’t need to know others’ gender identity in order to do business with them or to be neighborly. You treat people with kindness and civility because they are fellow humans doing this crazy thing called life alongside you.

As we usher in a second Donald Trump presidency in January, as well as open the 2025 legislative calendar, I want you to remember the neighbor, coworker or friend who has a trans family member or is gender-diverse themselves. You may feel defeated and wonder what’s the point. Or you may be tempted to believe that the trans community is out to steal your daughter’s athletic medals, or that respecting an individual’s gender journey is radical. On both counts, I encourage you to consider that gender-diverse kids and adults alike are just trying to live their healthiest and happiest lives. They not only deserve but they desperately need the Midwestern values of family, decency and mutual respect in order to defend against anti-trans legislation and rhetoric.

It isn’t too much to ask Midwesterners to maintain their advocacy by actively and vocally resisting policies that explicitly intend to harm the people I love most. Just like it isn’t too much for me to ask my neighbors to slow down and obey the speed limit when driving down my street.