The Scars of “Wait Your Turn”: Reflecting on a Piece of Trans History and Hope

Reading John Casey’s recent piece in The Advocate regarding Barney Frank’s painful, final public interview from hospice care left me deeply conflicted, grieved, and flooded with memories.

For me, and for so many other trans siblings of my generation, reading about Frank’s renewed assertions that Democrats need to “rethink” transgender rights felt like re-living a significant, painful portion of my own authentic life. It brought back the visceral sting of a history that many would rather forget, but which we carry in our bones.

We fought every single day for a seat at a table that told us, on so many occasions, that there simply wasn’t any room for us.

Watching the interview, I couldn’t help but think of the rollercoaster ride that was the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the mid-2000s. It took years to get the tire marks off our collective backs after being repeatedly thrown under the bus. Trans people became the sacrificial lamb, left at the side of the road so that “equality” could be won by and for the rest of the broader community.

We were told, “Oh, we’ll come back for you.” But we knew then, and we know now, that it was nothing more than an empty, hollow promise designed to placate us.

Perhaps the hardest part of this journey has been feeling the scorn from within our own broader LGBTQ+ community. There are some who have historically looked at me as if I had horns coming out of my head—as if human rights and equality were a zero-sum game, where granting trans people safety and dignity somehow diminished their own hard-won progress.

But as Casey points out in his article, these outdated, exclusionary views are fundamentally “of a certain generation.” The landscape of politics has moved past the closed-door pragmatism of twenty years ago. The world has changed because trans people refused to stay hidden.

And that is where my hope lies.

I refuse to let the painful echoes of the past cloud the hopeful reality of the present. The younger generations of queer folks give me immense joy and profound hope. They don’t view equality through the lens of incremental political deals or fractional compromises. They don’t see the “T” as an optional add-on or a liability. To them, inclusivity is foundational. They have built a much more welcoming, fiercely protective, and beautifully cohesive community where we all stand together.

Barney Frank’s legislative legacy is historic, and as he faces his final days, he deserves peace. But his final commentary belongs to a bygone era.

The future belongs to the generations who understand that none of us are free until all of us are free.

We survived the days of being pushed aside, and because of that resilience—and the fierce allyship of the youth coming up behind us—we are finally making sure the table has room for everyone.