LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back
an essay in solidarity with my queer community
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When I was a kid my mother decided one year that we would ask a neighbor with a small tractor to till up some space in the backyard so that we could plant some cucumbers and tomatoes. I don’t recall if we tried to grow anything else, I only remember the sprawling vines and hidden football-sized cukes and red, ripe tomatoes I sneakily consumed while searching for grasshoppers in the hot afternoon sun. It was probably a ten-by-ten patch, nothing huge. In my memory it spans a quarter acre, but that’s also because I was a tad undersized for a number of years.
We moved.
Once we were settled in Seattle, Mom again felt the desire to grow tomatoes. I was a teenager then, so I grudgingly dug up a south-facing hillside along the fence and helped her plant some starts from the local hardware store. Growing things in the Pacific Northwest was a completely different challenge than the humid Indiana summers. Only the cherry tomatoes survived, but we still feasted on them.
I moved.
I had apartments over and over again, and somewhere during the many relocations of my very early young adult years I got my name on a list to grow in a neighborhood pea patch. It was a small plot, but it was enough. I grew lettuces and beets and carrots and peas. I was entranced. It was so much better than pots on a skinny balcony.
But I moved.
And it was a good thing, right? I bought a house, and I was younger than a lot of people buying their first house. It had an immense backyard, and I dreamt of an overflowing garden of abundance prior to closing. Once I was in, I realized there was no topsoil at all back there. I scraped and dug and added compost and added more compost, and I had a meager garden for one summer. But life got messy, and I ran out of money, and home wasn’t a safe space.
So I moved again.
After a long time—a very long time—I tried again. I bought another house with someone I could really trust, and I dug into the soil in that yard. It was deep and rich and lovely. I built raised beds. I made a chicken coop out of recycled and reused building materials. I learned how to grow some really great carrots for the first time in my life. Seed catalogues became full of exciting challenges. My years-long dream of a pumpkin patch came true.
My first child explored that garden with shaky steps, holding himself up on those raised bed edges while he dug his fingers into the rich loam. We harvested strawberries and apples together there. We hummed with our hive of honeybees.
Grudgingly, we moved.
Even though it was the right decision, it hurt. I had to leave behind a really lovely garden that I knew, and I started over. Again. For what felt like the hundredth time.
More raised beds. More landscaping. More apple trees. More strawberry plants. I dug and shoveled and filled and composted and worked my fingers raw.
And… okay, clearly you can see a theme developing here, right?
We moved.
But. This time was different. This time we arrived, and I took off my shoes, and I settled my toes into the grass and the weeds and the squiggly worms and the warm soil beneath, and I declared that it was mine and that I belonged to it, too. I fought with an epic corner of blackberry brambles. I hacked at laurels. I bought a rototiller, and I tore up one patch of garden and then another. I added new beds almost every year. I built a greenhouse. And then I built a better one after the first one got crushed (along with my soul). I built a real fence. I chased out bunnies. I grew my first cabbage patch (my gen X cohort will understand the significance). My children planted sunflowers and marveled when they grew over eleven feet tall. We harvested dozens of spaghetti squash that tasted terrible. I got way better at growing carrots. I grew so much I gave food away to neighbors and friends.
And then?
And then I stayed. Sure, I could move again. Something wild could change. Like my healthcare could be outlawed or my marriage could be taken away by the courts. But this soil knows me. It expects me to spread fertilizer in the spring when the garlic shoots emerge. And the rabbits know I’ll check for holes in the fence. The squirrels will keep taunting me. The crows will stare from the roof as I plant potatoes. I’ll find more feral arugula and parsley in unexpected places. So many wonderful things are yet to happen here, and for the first time I’m choosing to stay to see them all.
Because I’m not going back, and I’m not giving up. I cannot be chased away or destabilized or taunted into leaving. This is my home. This is where I belong.
I’m not trying to be symbolic, I’m entirely literal. I love my home, and I love my garden, and I love my neighborhood, and I love all the things about this place that frustrate me and piss me off. I even love a country that hates me for being transgender. I love myself and my family so much that I will never go back to any of those other places I have been before that couldn’t support me or provide me shelter or be the safe spaces I needed them to be. I’m not a teenager running away from home or a twenty-something running away from a violent ex or a destabilized young adult who cannot find his feet. I am a middle-aged transman who is proud and resilient and too damn stubborn to give in to hatred and intolerance.
And I’ll be damned if anyone with hatred for me is going to keep me from growing amazing carrots in 2025 and beyond.
LGBTQIA2S+ people are not going back. We’re not giving in without a fight. Our fight might not look the way you expect, but when have we ever satisfied the status quo? Queer people have always pushed the boundaries of what was possible or acceptable or conventional. We are innovators. We are inventors. We are creators. We are resilient. We are essential. And we are staying.
I invite you to stay with me. Come share a carrot. Dig your toes into the soil.
Your trans friend,
Robin
PS – Today’s post is part of a collaborative effort to bring awareness to some intense political problems within the United States Democratic Party. For too long the queer community has been used when we’re cute and fun only to be discarded when times get difficult. Some within the Democratic Party are suggesting the trans community is to blame for the loss of the election and that they should “distance themselves” to be more moderate. Others who had the opportunity to stand with us and for us remained silent at critical points. This collaboration is intended to bring awareness to our voices and our importance.
While my post today was written from the perspective of growing, taking root, and belonging to a place, it’s important to note that many of my relocations and periods of instability were due to my queerness. I was not accepted, and so I ran to protect myself over and over. As a community representing 8% of the US population, queer people should not have to keep running, hiding, and sacrificing our belonging because of a lack of acceptance, or because we are targeted by anti-queer, and specifically anti-trans, legislation. We belong.
I’m posting this early today in case you might also want to post something in solidarity with this movement. You don’t need to be queer to participate; in fact, I’m a huge fan of allies speaking up alongside us, and I would love for you to be engaged in this work on a personal level.
If writing a post isn’t your thing, you can also contact your local lawmakers to tell them how important it is to support their LGBTQIA2S+ constituents. Please tell them that you will not tolerate any backpedaling on LGBTQIA2S+ rights whatsoever, and if they fail to strongly stand up against these attacks on our rights then you will take your vote elsewhere next election.
You can learn more about this movement from
’s post here.
A few other folx have already contributed to this movement. You can find some of their posts here, and the full collection will be listed on Julia Serano’s site later this week.
I really feel the ache and love, intertwined here in your story, Robin. How my heart yearned, as I read, for you to be able to stay on the land that feels like home. How moved I am by the love and sweat you poured into each place, knowing you might need to leave one day. I see your heart, your courage, your firm feet planted. Standing with you, my friend.
What a lovely story and narration you made - your appeal tugged at my own heart, and stirred feelings within me that resonates. I really appreciate how this made such a lovely visual with change after change, and left me wondering where you were going until you tied it all together with a nice neat bow. Very well done! Also, thanks for the mention :)