When I was growing up in the 80s, I didn’t encounter any healthy depictions of women like me. Women who were trans were the stuff of either terror or mockery. Like that horrible person in Rocky Horror, we could be horrific, pornographic, or comic. This was the range of the trans experience as I had access to it.

I had never heard of Marsha P. Johnson or Sylvia Rivera. I had never read Julia Serrano or Janet Mock. My town didn’t have a bookstore, and neither the school library nor the public library contained anything that acknowledged the contributions of women like me. The Internet didn’t exist yet, so there was nobody to ask. For all I knew, I really was exactly as movies and TV depicted me.

I quickly came to understand that my community, friends and even my family would probably think I was just like all those bad caricatures on TV if they knew about me. As a child that was too much to bear. With no model of possibility to outweigh the trashy falsehoods heaped on me … I opted to stay in the closet. I couldn’t bear the idea of being a lonely, cast-off laughingstock. I was ashamed to be trans.

Indeed, it wasn’t until I was much older and living in a world where I was well-supplied with beautiful and brilliant transgender women to look up to that I even thought about peeking out of hiding. And I found that 30-odd years in the closet had done its share of damage. The emotional burden of carrying that secret for so long left me to fight decades of untreated depression and a long battle with alcohol abuse.

So – that brings us to today. It’s LGBTQ+ History Month in 2021, and a little girl who happens to be trans might reasonably expect to see a healthy representation of herself in one of many books she could pick up at the school library. There are TV shows, and films starring celebrities who are trans. Politicians, scientists, lawyers, activists, journalists and athletes.

Of course, not everyone is OK with that. There are still people who think that a little trans girl should only be able to see stories that depict her as shameful and disordered. They want books about her pulled from library shelves. Or placed in a back room so she’ll feel the stigma of having to ask a librarian to get her one of “those books.” They want trans girls to continue growing up in an environment of shame and secrecy.

When asked why – they say that this must be done for the "safety” of girls and boys who aren’t trans. See the message there? She learns that stories that depict her as normal and healthy are a threat that other children must be shielded from.

By extension, she learns that her existence is somehow a threat, and the cycle of shame continues.

It’s LGBTQ+ History Month and across the state of Indiana, people who know nothing of the history this girl is a part of are asking school librarians to erase it. If we learn anything from the past, it’s that this diminishes all of us. It limits our collective imagination’s ability to dream of a better world where all youth get the love and belonging that they deserve.

Trans youth deserve to have their story told, and to have their story heard.

But trans folk are nothing if not resilient. This community will never stop fighting to make sure our children have a chance to know and be proud of their history. We will not allow it to be erased.

People who are incarcerated are protected against cruel and unusual punishment according to the Constitution. Individuals in jail or prison must receive life’s basic necessities—such as food, shelter, and medical care.

However, officials at Miami Correctional Facility are consistently failing to meet these needs. The ACLU of Indiana has filed twenty-one lawsuits since July against this one facility, as men have shared horrifying stories about the isolation unit.

The brutal and dangerous conditions that men are living in shock the conscience and violate the Constitution.

This is a pattern of cruel and unusual punishment practiced inside the facility's restrictive housing unit, but it is also a pattern inside the incarceration system across the country, in which individuals and their rights are seen as expendable.

Imagine being trapped in a small, pitch-dark room for 50 days, or longer.

Imagine that in this room, every time you attempted to move in the darkness, you were subject to painful shocks by live electrical wires. Electrocuted in the arm, hand, head, or even the eye.

Imagine you are only able to leave this room for only 15 minutes at a time, a few times a week.

These are the conditions these men are living in. This is torture.

Imagine that the window in this room is broken, with temperatures plummeting to 30-some degrees at night, with snow and rain entering the cell. It’s painfully cold.

Imagine how your mental health might decline.

The men in these conditions face serious psychological problems including hallucinations, anxiety and suicidal thoughts which at times have led to self-harm.

This is torture.

The United States Constitution requires that the safety of people who are incarcerated be protected. These men have been living in prolonged, isolated darkness, and prison officials subjected them to these brutal conditions knowing full well the pain and trauma they were inflicting.

Places of detention are inherently closed environments, but external oversight is critical to guard against mistreatment and abuse. Far too many prisoners are held in conditions that threaten their health, safety, and human dignity.

The ACLU of Indiana has long fought in the courts for the protection of these individuals’ rights and we aren’t backing down.

This must end in the Miami Correctional Facility. It must end in Indiana. And it must end across the country.

Today on voter registration day, the Biden administration has a crucial opportunity to promote voting access. This past March, the Biden administration issued an executive order instructing federal agencies to put together plans to promote voting access through voter registration. The federal agencies will submit their plans to the White House this month. Especially with the innumerable attacks on the right to vote — more than 400 anti-voter bills have been introduced in 48 states during the 2021 legislative session — the Biden administration must ensure federal agencies propose and implement plans to provide robust and effective voter registration services.

The purpose of the Executive Order on Promoting Voting Access is to “protect and promote the exercise of the right to vote, eliminate discrimination and other barriers to voting, and expand access to voter registration and accurate election information” and to “ensure that registering to vote and the act of voting be made simple and easy for all those eligible to do so.” The order encourages federal agencies to embrace the original intent of the National Voter Registration Act, which dictates that the federal government be actively involved in providing voter registration services. When enacting the NVRA, Congress declared it the “duty of the federal, state, and local governments to promote the exercise of [the] right [to vote].”

Congress passed the NVRA in 1993 to address the discriminatory role voter registration plays in our elections. In the last 25 years, the NVRA has helped address this discrimination and close gaps in registration rates, particularly by requiring states to offer registration opportunities to eligible individuals who interact with state and local agencies such as DMVs and public assistance agencies. But rates of registration among Black and Brown people and low-income people are still disproportionately lower, preventing them from exercising their fundamental right to vote. President Biden’s executive order presents a great opportunity to better achieve the goals and intent of the NVRA by engaging the federal government’s many existing programs to offer eligible individuals a meaningful opportunity to register to vote.

Still, the executive order does not replace the need for federal legislation to protect the right to vote. In Shelby County v. Holder, the Voting Rights Act was weakened by the Supreme Court. The court’s 2013 decision struck down the formula used to identify which states were required to obtain prior approval from the Justice Department, gutting the heart of this landmark legislation. Then, this summer, the Supreme Court substantially weakened another part of the VRA in Brnovich v. DNC, making it more difficult for voting rights advocates to challenge racially discriminatory voting laws in court.

Biden’s executive order does not rehabilitate the VRA or address the lack of pre-clearance for states with prior records of voting discrimination — that must be addressed by Congress. We urge Congress to act now to cement the legacy of the VRA and protect the rights of all Americans by passing the John Lewis Voting Advancement Act. In the meantime, amidst voting rights attacks happening across the country, the administration’s executive order provides an unprecedented opportunity for the federal government to provide meaningful opportunities to register to vote, and expand access to the ballot for millions of Americans.

In issuing the order, the Biden administration demonstrated its strong commitment to ensuring unfettered access to the ballot. But it must see this step through. Given the lack of Congressional action thus far protecting the right to vote, it’s crucial that the administration implement this order expansively and comprehensively. Ensuring our federal agencies do all they can to expand access to voter registration is not only easy, it’s the right thing to do.