Today, Congress voted on a resolution condemning the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Sarah McBride, the first transgender Member of Congress, voted yes. While that vote is sparking anger in some corners of our community, I believe that it was the right choice.
Kirk once called trans people “a throbbing middle finger to God.” I watched him for years, and what always struck me wasn’t just the words but the glee. I will never forget the way that he heaped names and scorn on one young trans college student in particular, a 21 year old trying to find her place at the University of Wyoming.
I understand people’s anger. I’ve felt it too. When someone spends years trying to turn the world against you, it’s tempting to feel satisfaction at their downfall. But Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be executed in front of a crowd for the words that came out of his mouth. Nobody does.
Hatred is seductive. It gives you energy. It makes you feel powerful. It’s not an accident that large swaths of our society seem to delight in hatred at a time when too many of us feel like the world is out of control, hurtling towards something dark. But cloaking yourself in hatred is not liberation. When we adopt the hate of our oppressors, we become little more than their mirror.
Even if hate were not so insidious, cheering on political violence would not be a winning strategy for trans people. Violence breeds violence. When a society allows the idea that the proper response to free expression is assassination, it is trans people who will suffer most. Too many of us already pay a terrible price for who we are. One in four of us has already experienced a violent assault. Once violence is normalized, it is the vulnerable — not the powerful — who bleed first.
That’s why Sarah McBride and others were right to support the resolution. Not because Charlie Kirk’s life or work deserved celebration, but because the fragile norms that should have kept him alive are the same ones that shield us. To abandon them would be to abandon the idea that we can survive disagreement without bloodshed.
It’s tempting to imagine that force is the only language our opponents understand. But we are not speaking only to our foes. In the past weeks, I have seen an outpouring of support for the dignity of trans people in the face of a media frenzy determined to label us killers. If we descend into the frenzy, that sympathy will vanish, and so will we. Violence doesn’t silence hate. It fuels it, justifies it, multiplies it. The only way forward is to be the love and the light that we hope to see in this world. It will not always be like this.
I agree with Sarah and Ari.
Ari you say it so well.