7 March 2026

I recently created this short silent video about the ways transgender people are silenced.

As a trans person, I spend a lot of time making myself invisible in order to avoid making cisgender people uncomfortable. In this video, I chose not to do that; I chose to speak from my experience. If you want to use the video in your Trans Day of Visibility resources, you have my permission.

When I first started creating the video, I wrote it in the third person, using phrases like “Trans people are human beings.” But as I worked on the piece, I realized that third-person language has often been a way for me to hide. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I first came out socially as transgender as a teenager and medically transitioned in my early 20s. I have been living as the man I am for more than half my life, and I carry a great deal of privilege: people never question my gender, which makes it easy for me to hide.

In this piece, I set that privilege aside and spoke in the first person, naming my transness.

Trans people are often accused of making things “too personal” or “too political.” So in this video, I embraced both. In the silence of the piece, I allowed my own voice to be present as a trans person. Many of the statements in the video reflect experiences shared by many trans people, though of course no single person can speak for everyone.

It begins and ends with a simple declaration: “I am a human being.”

When I was much younger, and early in my transition, I learned about Tyra Hunter, a Black trans woman who was severely injured in a car accident in 1995. When paramedics cut away her clothes and discovered that she was transgender, they mocked her and delayed treating her injuries. She died that day, naked, in public, to the sounds of first responders laughing at her.

Her story stayed with me.

It frightened me deeply, and it also shaped my life. Early in my transition, I got a tattoo, hidden under clothing, that simply says “human.” I wanted it there so that if I were ever unconscious and injured and someone had to cut away my clothes to treat me, they would see more than just surgical scars and a body that might not conform to cisgender norms; they would see that word and remember something essential: I am a human being.

Over the past 27 years, since coming out as trans, I have faced many moments that felt dehumanizing. That phrase, I am a human being, became something of a mantra for me. I suspect many people who live at the margins of society know what it feels like to need that reminder.

In recent years, transgender people have increasingly become political talking points. Our lives are debated in legislatures and courtrooms, over bathrooms, sports, identification documents, access to health care, and even basic civil rights.

On this Trans Day of Visibility, I want to return to something more fundamental: a celebration of the humanity of trans people and our right to bodily autonomy.

Trans bodies are often treated as suspect or invalid, especially because of how our bodies sometimes do not conform, and for many of us, because of the scars from gender-affirming medical care. For me, those scars are not something to hide. They are markers of survival and transformation. They map the journey of my life.

Trans people are also often told that our stories are tragic, or strange, or “too political.” The silence of this video is my response to that. Silence can be a form of resistance. It can also be a way of saying that our lives do not need to be explained or justified.

The video closes with a message that feels both simple and urgent:

Trans rights are human rights.

Even in silence, that truth speaks clearly.

Rev. Jakob Hero-Shaw, Director of the CLGS Transgender Roundtable