My Existence Is Not a Both-Sides Issue

There is a format the media loves: two guests, one of whom thinks I should have rights and one of whom thinks that is up for discussion, talking over each other for six minutes while a host nods neutrally in the middle. It is presented as balance. It is not balance. It is staging a debate about whether a category of people gets to live their lives, and calling the staging itself fairness.

Some questions have two legitimate sides. Whether trans people are real, or deserve healthcare, or should be allowed in public, is not one of them. Putting it in the debate format does not make it a debate. It just lends a settled question the costume of an open one.

I will argue all day about tax policy or which database to use. I will not perform uncertainty about my own right to exist so that a segment can feel even-handed.