'Together we won't be erased': Brevard marks Transgender Day of Visibility | Opinion

For some, the gathering was a chance to share stories with people who've lived similar experiences — stories of questions, struggles, fear, triumph.

For some, it was their first time as their proud, authentic self at a public event.

For speakers including Jenna Ramsey, International Transgender Day of Visibility, marked in Brevard Saturday at Eau Gallie Square Park and sponsored by Space Coast Pride and PFLAG Melbourne Space Coast, it was a day for messages of hope and awareness amid celebration. A clarion call, too, to be vigilant in the midst of legislation and mindsets that would deny LGBTQ Floridians the right to simply ... be.

To the next generation, Ramsey told a crowd of more than 400, she'd say this: Be visible. Be present. Be pretty, weird, bold ... whatever you need to be, as long as you're always being 100% you.

"Visibility is power," said Ramsey, entertainment director for Space Coast Pride: "And that power is yours."

Yours. The collective "you" represented across the park: people from a myriad of backgrounds, gender identities, lifestyles, family situations. Singles, spouses, partners, parents of gay and lesbian and transgender and queer children. Friends and strangers. Those who transitioned in midlife, now living a life they couldn't have imagined before the first Transgender Day of Visibility, celebrated on March 31 since its inception in 2009.

Brevard resident Kathryn Hagen told me, pre-event, of knowing she was trans since she was a teen, but being 50 "before I had contact with an actual, living, breathing trans person that I could talk to."

"All that time I basically suffered in silence," she said. "I was in the closet. I couldn't come out; didn't know what would happen. Didn't know how to go about transition or anything like that."

Hagen can tell you now, though, about happiness. About the date and time she made the decision to transition. That came after meeting a group of trans people at a conference, people who had transitioned successfully. Learning that "they're not freaks, they're not monsters or anything like that. They're actual beautiful human beings with a soul, with a heart ... learning that and experiencing that was life changing. Life-affirming."

"A motto that I live by is 'visibility is life," said Hagen, an engineer and a SPEKTRUM Health board member.

"The closet is such a claustrophobic environment. People literally die in the closet. Because they don't have a role model ... they don't have a lighthouse. They don't have a beacon."

Those beacons were shining across the grounds on this sunny, story-filled day.

Allies, friends, family

Music reverberated from a stage ringed by signs with messages like "The world is a better place because you exist." A tribute to Nex Benedict, a non-binary Oklahoma teen who died by suicide a day after being injured in an altercation at school, was lit up with candles as the sun set.

Allies were on hand to offer information on suicide awareness; pass out free banned books; to talk politics and community resources and join the march on the Eau Gallie Causeway later in the evening.

And to literally reach out.

Mai Miller of Merritt Island was among those offering "Free Mom Hugs." She's been doing it since 2018, after a conversation with a co-worker about a friend whose child was coming out, and having a hard time.

"As parents, we couldn't imagine what it would be like to turn away our own child," said Miller, co-chair of an LGBTQ employee resource committee at NASA.

"So 'Free Mom Hugs' was in the news at the time, and we decided, let's try it out."

Now, Miller goes to Space Coast and Orlando Pride events yearly.

The hugs, it was evident, are appreciated on both sides of the embrace.

'Together, we won't be erased'

Speaker Gina Duncan, a Merritt Island native, transitioned in 2006, "supported by my family, my employer and my Orlando community."

"Coming out as transgender is never easy, even if you have a supportive tribe," said Duncan, Equality Florida’s strategic partnerships manager.

"But what we have faced in Florida over the last five years has been willful ignorance and overt discrimination. I did not risk everything in my life, my family, my career and my quality of life, to be denied my happiness by a nationally orchestrated culture war against me and our trans community."

Rallies like this are important, "especially now, in this difficult time in our state," Duncan said.

She speaks these days of battles won and lost over her years with Equality Florida. Of bills defeated but also, new legislation that has ripped at the daily life and health of LGBTQ Floridians: denying trans participation in sports. Teachers' ability to speak of gender identity. Denying trans health care; restricting medical care for trans youth.

"Denying our ability to use the bathrooms that align with our gender identity ... and most recently, making it illegal to obtain a driver's license with our correct, affirming gender marker," she said. "Something I fought for, for 10 years, to make happen ... that's now been reversed."

The power gained through solidarity must continue, Duncan said.

"People fear what they don't understand ... we must forge a society where everyone is seen and heard. Together, we won't be erased," she said.

"We cannot make changes alone but together we are so powerful. You know, statistically we make up about only 5% of the population. And that's a debatable figure.

"But look around. Remember how many of us are here today. Look around and see how many people here want you to know that you are loved. And you are seen."

Loved. Seen.

Openly, proudly visible.

Britt Kennerly is education/breaking news editor at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact her at 321-917-4744 or bkennerly@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @bybrittkennerly Facebook: /bybrittkennerly

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: 'You are seen.': Stories from Brevard's Transgender Day of Visibility