What’s Really Behind Homophobia And Transphobia?

The person to be wary of is the one who’s the most frightened — frightened of confronting something buried deep within themselves

Martie Sirois
9 min readAug 13, 2019

“No one, in the history of the human race, has ever been angry, without that anger being a direct response to fear. The two things are always directly proportional, anger always a reaction to fear, without exception.” — Louise Carole Sumrell

Photo by Denin Lawley on Unsplash

One of the many serendipitous benefits of trans advocacy is the amazing trans people you end up meeting. While learning how to best support my own trans kid, it seems about monthly that I end up with even more incredible trans folks in my life who I’m proud to call friends. Frequently, from both trans and cis people, I’m told how “lucky” my trans kid is to have me as a parent, but from my perspective, just the reverse is true:

I’m lucky to have my trans teen. I’m lucky I get to be her/their mom (my child was assigned male at birth, but uses both female and non-binary pronouns). I’ve grown as a person more in the 13 years that I’ve been mom to a trans kid than I have in my entire 45 years on this planet.

I haven’t done anything special; I’ve simply loved unconditionally. Isn’t that what all parents should do? Letting go of expectations —…

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Martie Sirois

Covering the intersection of culture, politics & equality. Featured in Marker, HuffPost, PopSugar, Scary Mommy; heard on NPR, SiriusXM, LTYM, TIFO podcast, etc.