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A few short days ago President Donald Trump was once again sworn in to lead the United States of America. Almost immediately, he sat down and signed more than 200 Executive Orders and proclamations.
While the price of eggs seems to have not been a high priority, an array of potentially hazardous orders aimed at immigrants and minorities stand poised to create tension and division for the next four years. Among these stands out his order about how the United States will only recognize “Two Genders.” The order is problematic as there are more than a million and a half people who are transgender in the United States and there are thousands more who may not fit into such a cut-and-dried definition.
One such person is trans rocker Venus de Mars. De Mars is no stranger to the issue and has been in the spotlight with her Minneapolis-based band All The Pretty Horses since 1993.
Venus de Mars is more than just a stage name but rather an identity that Venus has spent her life being as a person. We caught up with de Mars to get her take on the “Two Genders” order and what it might mean for her and the trans community in the United States.
Reader: Hey there Venus, I am sure you’re aware of the recent Executive Order on how apparently there are now just two genders. Why would this be at the forefront for a political agenda and why do you think it’s so important for them to make this distinction?
Venus: Those in power who have privilege have been afraid of trans women forever because they don’t want to be seen as gay. Way back in the day before trans people were part of the social dialog there was fear of being attracted to someone who was trans. I experienced it directly from people who would be very kind and nice to me and then suddenly realize who I was, and they would quickly become verbally violent in order to distance themselves from being caught feeling attracted, or having their peer group seeing them being attracted to a trans woman.
I suspect that there is an element of that threading through all these cis men who are in power in our government right now. But then they clothe it with protecting women and protecting children. They are trying to justify that fear and that hatred by coming up with this thing about fairness of sports-related situations where they call trans women boys who have a physical advantage. They don’t, especially if they’ve had hormone blockers. It eliminates that potential. But then they want to regulate hormone blockers.
I have other theories about that; trans women who have been lucky enough to go through hormone blockers are flawless. You would not know if they were trans women. Voices have not changed, their physical stature hasn’t changed, they are actually in this interesting place to where they are living a stealth life successfully, that is unless they decide to come out. That’s frightening to cis men who are afraid of being attracted to a trans woman, again because they might not be able to tell us apart. That might be driving some of this as well. These are just some of my theories, but I’ve been out so long I have experienced that fear.
Reader: So what you’re saying is that a lot of this is to coddle and make transphobic and homophobic people feel better about themselves? What do they really expect for all these people such as yourself to do? Let’s say you agreed and said “you’re right!” Is the end of Venus DeMars and just going back to whoever you may have been even a possibility?
Venus: That’s the thing. I’ve just had to talk a few people off the ledge who have been in despair about their status, this executive order which affects passports, for example. My passport will be expiring before this administration is over and according to the law right now would have me declare my assigned at birth gender for a renewal, which puts all of my documents at risk and also puts me in danger if I travel. In affect it traps me here.
Reader: I was wondering if you knew anything about driver’s licenses? I know some licenses have the option of an “X” for those who might identify as “other.”
Venus: Federally they are no longer recognizing that on renewal. It sounds like they aren’t getting rid of that right now but this all has to do with renewal. With the Real ID, technically thats a federal thing. So they may try to challenge that, but for right now states can determine if you can change your gender. So, Minnesota for example, will continue to allow trans people to adjust their gender marker to their gender identity. I believe a lot of the blue states still have that on the books. That might change with the Real ID push, but that has not been challenged or explained yet, but with passports specifically they have.
My point is that I’ve lived for decades with a male ID and my birth name legally because I couldn’t change it. I wasn’t able to transition physically because insurance wouldn’t cover it. I was kind of economically stuck. I managed and firsthand lived that horror. I was still me, I was still Venus and people saw this. There were circumstances that were difficult. I traveled overseas a lot, the band toured across states, I had to deal with it and it wasn’t easy, it put me in danger and it took longer. But the atmosphere back then is not like it is now. This is a vendetta.
Reader: I was going to say, has there been any past administration that’s had this much hostility toward the trans community?
Venus: No, we were a curiosity at best and we weren’t raised in the social dialog until the Obama administration brought us into a State of the Union Address.
Reader: Do you think that perception, that “woke” is some new thing that popped up during the Biden administration? To my understanding trans people and homosexuals go back quite awhile. Maybe even before recorded history.
Venus: That is the rhetoric they’re pushing. I can attest to growing up in the 60s that there was not social media, there wasn’t peer pressure to “be cool” because to be trans wasn’t cool back then, there wasn’t any kind of pressure...that’s who I was and who I became. I am living proof that that rhetoric is not valid.
Reader: I was just thinking that David Bowie and songs like “Lola” by The Kinks go back 50 years now, it seems there was trans culture going back before the 60s. So, this has in a way been in the mainstream, but all of a sudden it’s a problem.
Venus: I have no idea, but there is vitriol in their hatred. I will say they (trans) were the group of people that were attacked in the late 30s in Germany. The famous book burning, those books were from a gender research department that was doing trans-focused exploration, psychological and scientific evaluations. Those were the books they chose to burn.
Reader: On that note, people who are applying for driver’s licenses and passports right now, is there any danger?
Venus: I really don’t know. I don’t know where this is going. I was just talking to my spouse the other day, “what could they do?” It makes my life difficult, if I just stay in my little circle, my little bubble, then I can survive. But I’m in a band, I go on tour where I have to go across states. There are states now that I won’t go into – Florida, Texas. We’re in Minnesota where I have to travel across very anti-trans states to get to my destination.
Reader: I wanted to keep this on the trans issue, but there was another thing Trump signed eliminating DEI hires, is there potential for even more discrimination with that?
Venus: Well, lost opportunity and the facade is down. Target just just announced that they won’t be doing that anymore and they have removed themselves from being part of the Pride festivities in Minneapolis. It shows how corporations have pretended to embrace diversity but when it comes down to the dollar, they’re going to change.
Reader: I’ll bring up Bud Light for example, do you think they did more harm or good for the trans community.
Venus: They certainly brought dialog up and raised the temperature, but I would say they certainly tried to do the right thing. I applaud them for that. Stepping back from the pressure shows that the dollar does speak louder than their conscience and their morality, which is unfortunate that our administration right now is using that leverage to force people into compliance. I think that’s extremely dangerous for a Democracy to be experiencing.
Reader: I wanted to bring up under Trump’s definition of gender, it basically makes us all female? Did you get a load of that one?
Venus: I did see that. That is the process of human development. We don’t become chromosomally on the track that end up being until later in development. Technically that would be the case, of course they’re going with “assigned at birth.” It’s ridiculous, they are ignoring science, they are ignoring inter-sex people, they’re ignoring that trans people have a different brain wiring, which probably has to do with your physical make up. We have been around forever, look at older documented culture, Native and indigenous cultures had recognized trans individuals going way back. We are a part of the human fabric.
Reader: I also wanted to mention the Algerian boxer (Imane Khelif) from the Summer Olympics. I’m inclined to believe that she is a biological female as it’s illegal to be trans in Alergia. It seems that there was some hypocrisy in that uproar as they brought up that gender can be more than just someone’s piping.
Venus: They are basically bending backward to try to justify their definition. There are so many conundrums and conflicting things, they simply can’t come up with a clean definition that holds any water. So they counter any argument we come up with some other argument to justify it and continue their oppression and frankly, they want to take away our ability as trans people to exist in public. I really don’t think they care if we’re going to exist in private because they’re not going to know and we were there before. But now that we’re out in public, that is the threat and that is what they’re trying to eliminate.
Reader: Is there any thing you’d like to say to perhaps the younger generation or people who are figuring out who they are with this facing them? Any words of encourgement or possible silver lining?
Venus: You are who you are. You are your authentic self and always have been. Even before you came out, because all of us who have transitioned, we knew way back. We were just too afraid to admit it to ourselves because of social shaming and the environment created to frighten us. We will always be here, they cannot legislate us out of existence, we are part of the human fabric. I suspect we will have very difficult times ahead but that doesn’t mean we are going to disappear. And for those of us who grew up with the freedoms and afraid of a time when we didn’t have that, we survived it, we figured out how to get through it, we navigated it, we will get through it no matter what. The important thing is to stay connected, stay together, find your allies, find your community and hold on tight.
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