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A Transgender Ex-Firefighter Talks About Tacos [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-04-01

You might be wondering what of value a transgender ex-firefighter could possibly say about tacos. That’s not exactly what we are known for. If anything, firefighters are not generally thought of as the wisest of creatures, what with our habitat of running into places everyone else is running away from. And transgender people, if thought of at all, are… well… not very well thought of. So, why should you pay attention to me on tacos? Why pay attention to me on anything when it comes right down to it?

In truth, I can’t, with any degree of honesty, give you any particularly strong reasons. Now, it’s true that I learned to make tacos from a Mexican firefighter who taught me his grandmother’s recipe; but, over the years, I have adapted it, altered it beyond all recognition actually. Perhaps you are thinking that’s the trans woman in me. Nope, it’s the firefighter in me who would rather substitute an item already at hand than admit I forgot something at the grocery store. Do that enough times and you may have something wonderful, but it will bear little resemblance to the original. Okay… maybe that’s the trans woman in me after all…

Still… why on earth should a transgender ex-firefighter be talking about tacos, especially on a political website? Why now, when I have lurked here on Daily Kos since the Obama era but never submitted so much as a single comment? Why now, when we are at step nine of the Ten Steps of Genocide in much of the U.S., when the Idaho legislature is considering a bill to ban us from all public places, when the Democratic governor of California has joined with far-right figures in condemning us, when several states are rushing pell-mell to implement those parts of Project 2025 that label us as sexual predators and then demand the death penalty for those so named, when Republican elected officials from several states were recorded last year saying that the only solution to the “Transgender Problem “ is euthanasia, and when substantial numbers of our “allies” in the Democratic Party blame us for the 2024 election losses and think that throwing us to the wolves will somehow lead to electoral success?

And why tacos? Ah… there’s the meat of the problem (sorry, I couldn’t resist that one. I think those of us who spend almost every waking moment wondering when, not if, we will become the next Mathew Sheppard can be afforded the occasional bad joke). So, why tacos? That’s what I was thinking all Monday actually: why tacos? It IS true that Monday was National Taco Day, or at least something like that. I know because I read it on Daily Kos. It was also Transgender Day of Visibility. I didn’t read that on Daily Kos. Maybe someone mentioned it. I had a day off though, and I spent all day looking but never found anything. To be fair, I didn’t see it mentioned on Journal of Uncharted Blue either. Nor much of anywhere else. Ironic that… on our day of visibility we were invisible.

Now, I understand that tacos are much more interesting to talk about than transgender people, much less controversial. I mean, there certainly are controversies about tacos: corn versus wheat tortillas, lime or radish, cheese or no cheese, carnitas or burria or, god forbid, chicken. There’s even that whole soft versus hard thing. I’m an openly trans woman living in a blood red area working in a very public position, but even I will only approach THAT argument with the greatest trepidation. Still, even Taco Bell tacos, even Jack in the Box tacos, are less controversial than we are.

A few words though, just a few words, would have been nice. Even just a picture of our flag. I’m biased, I know, but I do think it is the prettiest of all flags. I wish I could fly one, but I get enough death and rape threats as it is. It would have been nice to see one on Daily Kos though. I admit, I may have missed something, but…

We trans people aren’t entirely stupid. We know we’re not popular right now. We haven’t been popular since the early days of Christianity, maybe not even since the early days of agriculture. We’ve been around since the very beginning, remember. And we know we confuse people, probably have since the very beginning as well. We wish we didn’t, but, hey, we confuse ourselves so what else can we really expect? We know we will never be as beloved as tacos, or firefighters for that matter, but…

We didn’t plead for a speaker, or even recognition, at the convention. We didn’t threaten to withhold our votes if we didn’t get our way. We didn’t demand anyone stand up for us against that onslaught of vile ads even though we knew that, by NOT standing up for us, the Democrats would conclusively prove to everyone that they were fair-weather friends, not to be trusted when things got rough. We did none of those things and even managed to increase our votes for Harris over our votes for Biden. (You probably won’t see that in any of the regular surveys; we don’t trust people to keep our information private, so a lot of us either refuse to take part in surveys or just lie. When your life is on the line a lot, you tend to lie a lot.) Did we ask for too much? We didn’t ask for anything. We kept quiet, knowing that calling attention to ourselves would only hurt the Democratic and the democratic causes. And yet, here we are.

I won’t bother quoting yet again that Bonhoeffer poem that we all see all over the place. It means something different to most cis-people than it does to trans people though. You see, they didn’t come for the socialists first; they came for us first. We just weren’t worthy of mention. Invisible again.

I’m not saying don’t talk about tacos! I like tacos. I do. I think they are fun to talk about. (I love talking about firefighting too, but I won’t bore you with any of those stories, at least, not this time.) I think the world would be a much better place if people were more concerned with eating tacos (and fighting fires) maybe even chicken tacos, than with trying to increase their personal wealth and power at the expense of others. But… maybe… if there even IS another Transgender Day of Visibility, you could, you know, acknowledge us.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/1/2313961/-A-Transgender-Ex-Firefighter-Talks-About-Tacos?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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