LISA SALAZAR — BLOG

  Why some questions aren’t meant to explore, but to convince. A message amplified as honest questions, with a conclusion already decided. (Image: AI-generated) A Familiar Shape Lately, I’ve been paying attention to a cluster of posts circulating on Facebook from my community here in Vancouver. They come from people who present themselves as defenders of free speech, asking questions others are supposedly afraid to ask. On the surface, that sounds reasonable. In a healthy society, we should be able to question ideas and examine evidence. But when you step back and look at the pattern over time, something else emerges. The posts tend to follow a consistent arc. A study is shared, often framed as groundbreaking or suppressed. A conclusion is implied, sometimes stated outright, that transgender people, especially trans women, are deceptive, dangerous, or mentally disordered. Supporting ideas are then layered in, including references to “autogynephilia,” claims about children being “gr...

In 2015, The New York Times ran a groundbreaking editorial series, The Quest for Transgender Equality. It was bold, urgent, and unequivocal: trans people deserve dignity, legal protection, and full inclusion in society. As part of that series, the Times invited transgender people to share their experiences in Transgender Lives: Your Stories , an evolving collection of personal narratives that reflected the strength, diversity, and challenges of the trans community. I contributed to that series . Like so many others, I believed the Times was genuinely invested in telling our stories, in shifting public perception toward empathy and understanding. Back then, the paper seemed to recognize that trans rights were not just an abstract political issue but a deeply personal, lived reality. That was ten years ago. Last weekend, the Times ran another editorial on transgender rights. This time, it was in response to Donald Trump’s sweeping attacks on trans Americans — executive orders targeting h...