I had a wonderful time last weekend at the Lynnewood United Methodist Church in Pleasanton, California. What a delightful group of people, and how incredibly responsive they were. I hope I have a chance to return. The weekend was a reminder of how much good there is in America.

I flew home from San Jose on Sunday evening, and on Monday I spent about seven hours  in meetings at town hall. The town board meeting included a lot of residents who wanted to speak about concerns in their neighborhoods. They were civil, though I’d have to say not very trusting of the town board or staff, which I find puzzling. Under the circumstances, however, I was happy to have civility.

I have served on the Board of Trustees for three and a half years. For the last eighteen months I have served as mayor pro tem. I’ve had a lot of people angry with me over that period, but far more who have expressed support for me and for the rest of the board, grateful for our willingness to do a job that takes a lot of time with little return on investment, other than knowing you’ve done the best you can for our residents. Come to think of it, that is actually a very good return on the investment of my time.

I have been very cognizant of the fact that not once in three and a half years have I heard anyone in town attack me because I am transgender, or even acknowledge it. I think that is wonderful. What I like most is when my gender identity is incidental to the work I do. It is that way in Lyons, but in the rest of the nation, not so much.

Transgender opponents have been greatly emboldened since the 2016 presidential election. In 2024 over 700 anti-trans laws were introduced in the United States with 51 passed into law in 17 states. I tried to see the good news in that – fewer than eight percent actually passed.

All of that now seems almost quaint. On his inauguration day the president signed an executive order that said transgender people do not exist. He has since signed six more executive orders targeting transgender people. That does not include his offer to nine universities to receive preferential treatment for government funds if they will stop teaching “gender ideology” and recognize only two genders, biologically determined. Nor does it include the almost countless number of additional inflammatory statements and threats that have been made by the president and other federal employees about transgender people.

Knowing they are supported by the federal government, conservative states have also been emboldened. The number of anti-transgender bills signed into law has grown from 51 in 2024 to 122 in 28 states thus far in 2025.

Other than losing speaking engagements because corporations are dropping DEI events, I have not personally felt the increase in transgender attacks, until now. Personal attacks are on the increase, enough that I am going to have a conversation with the head of the sheriff’s department in our town. I’m not sure if the attacks I’ve received are at the level of threats, but they are significant enough that I feel the need to have a conversation about them.

I know that the vast majority of you who read my words are supportive of me, even if you remain in the evangelical world. Your support means more than you can know.

Here’s the thing. If I’m getting nervous and a little frightened about how I might be treated as a transgender person, we’ve got a major problem. I mean, I don’t know any trans person who has more privilege than I have.

If I’m starting to feel the heat, how about that trans teen at your local high school, or the trans woman who does not pass as a woman in public, or the trans child whose first phrase was, “Mommy, I’m a girl” and has a lifetime of difficult choices ahead? Those are the people I fear for most.

Is it right to compare what happened in Nazi Germany to the experience of transgender people in the United States today? At this point I still think it is alarmist and not particularly helpful to do so. But when I see the kind of rhetoric and actions accelerating as they are, I am definitely paying attention.

In 2015, when trans acceptance was rapidly increasing, I thought today we’d be seeing broad acceptance of transgender people, not far less acceptance. If things get as bad over the next ten years as they have over the last ten, we will all be in trouble. Not just transgender people, but every freedom-loving American who believes there is more that unites us than divides us. We will all be in trouble because in making that generous assumption about America, we will all have been dead wrong.

And so it goes.