Apr. 27—ROCHESTER — Ten years ago, Rochester resident Michael Hughes, a transgender man, set off a social media firestorm when he posted a selfie of himself in a women’s bathroom.
At the time, debate was breaking out across the nation about whether trans people should be allowed to use public restrooms that align with their gender identity. States were passing laws limiting which bathrooms and restrooms trans people could use. Thirteen states now have such bans in place. Minnesota is not one of them.
Driving such restrictions was a fear that allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice would give male sexual predators license to enter women’s bathrooms.
Hughes, 55, sought to discredit that fear and turn that argument on its head. With his white-speckled beard, tattoos and cowboy hat, Hughes looks unambiguously male. The point of his selfie: Do you really want a trans man who looks like me in a women’s bathroom?
His phone blew up.
“You don’t plan to go viral,” Hughes said. “I just wanted (to add my voice) because Minnesota was starting to have those conversations.”
Hughes’ viral moment earned him a mention on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” on HBO: “There are many places that Michael would fit in — a tattoo parlor in Reno, playing steel guitar in a Johnny Cash tribute band or on the label of his own barbecue sauce, but in a woman’s bathroom, not so much.”
If things were bad for the transgender community then, they are much worse now.
Many believe, including Hughes, that President Trump’s election victory last November turned on his attack on Kamala Harris’ support for trans people (“Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you”). From the moment of taking office, Trump set about marginalizing trans people.
Trump’s first order, signed on his first day in office, said the government would recognize only two sexes: Male and female. Trump has sought to boot transgender people from the military, though the move has been blocked by the courts. Requests for new or updated passports with gender markers that don’t conform with the new federal definition of the sexes are no longer honored.
“I feel like they’re trying to erase us and maybe eradicate us. When he got elected, we knew he was coming after us,” Hughes said. “He made it very clear that we were high on his list.”
After the online furor created by his bathroom selfies a decade ago, Hughes became a celebrity of sorts, accepting invitations from universities and high schools nationwide to talk about his experience.
But soon after Trump’s election for a second term, Hughes felt an instinct to be cautious. He was reluctant to go public or use social media to blast Trump’s edicts against the trans community. It felt safer to hunker down. He was afraid. He felt hunted. And for the first three months of the Trump presidency, Hughes decided to go back into the closet and stay there.
And then he changed his mind.
The response to Hughes’ bathroom selfies underscored the spectrum of diversity within the trans community. Although the T in LGBTQ refers to a discrete population, it belies the varied nature of the community.
And within that community, there were varied reactions to his bathroom selfies — and not all positive. Hughes was accused of showing off his “passing privilege” — a term that refers to Hughes’ ability to blend in with cisgender men without them knowing of his trans identity.
“I used to watch Luke ‘n Bob, Texas play at the North Star Bar. I could just belly up to the bar with a guy in Rochester. And nobody knows the difference,” Hughes said. “Obviously, that’s not most trans people’s experience.”
Hughes’ reply to his trans critics is that he didn’t have to go public with his concerns about anti-trans laws and the climate of hate against trans people. He could have easily navigated the world in which he lived without anyone being the wiser of his trans identity. He could have retreated to his “safe, little bubble” and stayed there.
Yet Hughes has found it impossible to stay silent. He knows the anguish and vulnerability that trans youth are experiencing. He went through it himself when he was younger. Back then, there was no trans community, no forerunners in Houston to guide and counsel him, to help him understand what he was going through.
“I’m one of the — I hate the term because I don’t like getting older — trans elders,” Hughes said.
“I just feel like I’ve been doing this for 25 years. I transitioned a long time ago, and I have a lot of knowledge I’ve gained along the way.”
Born and raised in Houston, Hughes later moved to a small East Texas town and found himself “bullied horribly” in high school. He said his own parents were “amazing” but also conservative and old-fashioned. His mom was raised on a farm in economically straitened times. Transgender was a concept entirely outside the ken of her experience.
The sense of being an outcast was offset by the embrace of a strong family. Growing up, Hughes was allowed to self-express, even though there were occasional rows with his mom. In school, Hughes cut his hair short, played with boys and wore sports jerseys and cowboy boots.
When Hughes came out as a lesbian at 19, it just “wrecked” his mom. “She didn’t handle it well,” he said.
But even then, Hughes couldn’t shake a sense of non-belonging. Through his early 20s, Hughes didn’t feel like he fit in with any particular group. Though assigned a female at birth, Hughes didn’t relate to women his age. Neither did he fit in with cisgender men.
“I felt like a fraud,” Hughes said. “I never liked calling myself a lesbian. I never felt like it fit me. I just kind of went through my early 20s feeling like there was no place to fit in.”
That feeling of being disconnected dissipated somewhat with his growing realization that he wasn’t entirely alone, that his experiences and search for identity connected him to a community. In his own way, that’s the message he tries to tell young people going through what he went through.
“I felt a sense of responsibility. There’s all these young people, and I mean, it’s still so hard.”
Transgender and nonbinary youths face extraordinary mental health challenges. One study, released by the Trevor Project last year, found that suicide attempts among transgender and gender nonconforming teenagers increased by as much as 72% in states that passed anti-transgender laws.
If there is cause for optimism, the history of cultural and social attitudes is that they can change relatively quickly. Decades ago, there was widespread opposition to gay marriage and homosexuality until there was a sea change in attitudes. The progress was halting, and there was backtracking. But advances in understanding occurred nonetheless.
One challenge the transgender community faces is that there are so few people in the cisgender world who personally know a trans person. They don’t know a transgender person who can humanize them for them. And that void is often filled with hate. Estimates suggest that there are only between 0.6% to 3% of the population that identifies as transgender. And many are afraid of speaking out.
Hughes knows the feeling. Soon after going viral with his bathroom photos, Hughes received an invitation to speak to a class at Byron High School.
He was hesitant at first. Though he had given talks at universities, the thought of speaking in front of high school students terrified him. His memories of being bullied in high school were still fresh. Still he resolved to do it.
A few days before the class, the teacher warned him that a couple of male students had asked whether attendance at the trans discussion was mandatory. They didn’t want to be part of it. She told them that if they felt uncomfortable, they could opt out
On the day of the discussion, Hughes showed up to find nearly all of the students congregating near the front of the class, except for two boys who were sitting at the back of the class. Hughes could tell from their body language that they were uncomfortable.
Hughes started his talk and then began taking questions. The students were “super-inquisitive.” Their questions tumbled forth.
As the back-and-forth progressed, Hughes noticed that the two boys had moved up chairs closer to the front of the class. Soon, they were asking questions of Hughes. After the class ended, one of the boys approached Hughes and told him he had thought about not coming to class. But he decided to attend and was glad he did.
Hughes seemed like a “regular guy,” the boy told Hughes.
“I said, ‘I wasn’t born one, but, you know, I’d like to think of myself as just a regular guy,'” Hughes said.