And what, pray tell, could a transgender ex-firefighter possibly have to say about Easter Eggs? Unless, of course, those Easter Eggs are filled with Peeps. This transgender ex-firefighter absolutely loves Peeps, but, to be honest, that has nothing to do with being transgender or being an ex-firefighter. It has to do with having abysmal taste in candy. I don’t care though. I love them anyway. Maybe even more than tacos.
But, back to the point, why would a transgender ex-firefighter bring up this topic? Neither transgender people nor firefighters are typically associated with Easter Eggs… or Easter, for that matter. Oh… uh…maybe I should reconsider part of that statement. Not the Easter Egg part mind you. If there is an association between either of these groups and Easter Eggs, I have never heard of it. But the Easter part…
Now, historically, there has been no association between firefighters and Easter. I think that is still true today. Firefighters are more often connected to holidays like Thanksgiving, when people drink too much and eat too much and then need our emergency assistance to stay alive, or Christmas, when people overload their building’s circuitry or improperly use candles thereby setting their structure on fire, and then require our emergency assistance to save their homes, or, most famously, the Fourth of July, when people drink too much, eat too much, AND improperly set off pyrotechnic devices, and then require our emergency assistance to save both lives and property. I probably sound like I am being flippant here, but I am being deadly serious. One of the only things, certainly the primary thing, I liked about most holidays when I was firefighting, was the surety that I would get the opportunity to test my skills, my dedication, and my courage on these days. It was a shame that, all too often, our skills, our dedication, and our courage weren’t enough. Holidays were hard.
Not Easter though! People don’t tend to drink as much on Easter. They don’t tend to light off fireworks or put candles in trees, windows, or pumpkins (Yeah, Halloween was rough too) on Easter. They tend to behave because there are children and elderly relatives present, and they are usually aware that there’s supposed to be something vaguely religious about the holiday though they’re seldom aware exactly what. They smile a lot and nod a lot and try to look like they have some idea of what’s going on. Between the uncomfortable clothing they can’t wait to get out of and the uncomfortable conversations they can’t wait to get out of, the closest they come to feeling celebratory during the entire day is the moment they get back home and can be done with it all. There IS that highlight of the day, the Easter Egg Hunt, but that event quickly loses its charm when the adults realize that the children are simply unable to find any but the most obviously placed of the eggs and that no one remembers where the others are hidden. This is a day for going home early! And then the Easter Eggs themselves? As items that represent a holiday, they are among the most benign. It IS possible to injure yourself with an Easter Egg, but it takes far too much effort for most people to bother. And, you know? I am completely fine with that. I am completely fine with all of it. From a firefighter’s point of view, I am completely fine with the entirety of the Easter holiday. Unlike most every other holiday, the odds are extremely good, I’d go so far as to say overwhelming, that nothing of particular interest to a firefighter is likely to occur all day! If there were only football to watch on the TV in the day room (or, even better, rugby, but no one would watch it with me), Easter would be the perfect day to be on duty at the station.
BUT… there’s the other part of my earlier statement. While it is true that there appears to be no connection, historical or contemporary, between firefighters and Easter, what about between transgender people and Easter? If you think that transgender people are not usually associated with Easter, I suggest you reconsider… actually, no, don’t bother, you are absolutely correct. Historically, transgender people are not associated with Easter. We aren’t usually associated with ANY holidays because most people don’t associate us with much of anything. Anything good at any rate. But… remember last year? Oh yeah, most people don’t. We do. We don’t want to, but we do. We and the most vehement, virulent transphobes.
Most everyone is aware that Easter falls on a different day every year. Last year, it fell on March 31. It shared that day with another event. Those of you who read my previous piece for Daily Kos know where this is going. Yeah, March 31 is International Taco Day… oh, and yeah, Transgender Day of Visibility… yeah…
Some Daily Kos readers may remember that day now. Most of us trans people do. The right wing in this country, and many other people too, were up in arms because we were suborning, subverting, and corrupting their holy day (even though most of them couldn’t begin to explain what was holy about it). Some of the most aggressive demonization of our community began with that co-mingling of events. The 2024 Republican Presidential nominee made a huge to-do about it. The media piled in and piled on. Many moderates and all too many “concerned” liberals expressed their displeasure that we would try to force our way into the public eye on this sacred day. That it has been our day since 2009 ( not quite as old as International Taco Day which started in Mexico in 2007, but I have not yet heard anyone complain we were trying to displace tacos in the heart of the public) seldom was mentioned. That most of us stayed in the background on that day in 2024 in order to avoid provocation didn’t get mentioned either. We knew we would get minimal to no support, so most of us stayed invisible on our Day of Visibility. Not only for physical safety, though that is always a consideration for us, but because we knew how this was likely to affect the upcoming elections. And affect it it most certainly did. This helped set the stage for the vitriol of the attacks on trans athletes. They were already occurring; this just proved to the right that they had chosen their wedge issue well; no one was going to come to our defense. If they did it right, the only attention most of both the middle and the left would pay to us would be annoyance that we kept making a spectacle of ourselves by continuing to exist. Everyone would agree that we probably deserved SOME rights, maybe, but certainly not as many as real people. We would have entered the world of the poem (“First they came…”), and, as was seen in the 30s, everyone would be clamoring to help with the selections. The division of our coalition would have begun, and our own allies would be doing the dividing. We saw it would happen. We said it would happen. It did happen. Its still happening.
Firefighters may have enjoyed last Easter; the transgender population most assuredly did not.
Alright, I admit it, in the overall scheme of things, considering the current attempt by the right to end the American Experiment and replace it with a far more invasive and pervasive dictatorial surveillance state than either Hitler, Stalin, or Mao could have envisioned, the fact that firefighters generally had a good day last Easter and transgender people generally didn’t… well, it doesn’t really matter. Heck, egg prices hadn’t exploded yet; we could afford Easter Eggs last year! Wasn’t that great? So, what’s the point of even bringing this up? The point is that the right blatantly tried to split our coalition, and we let them. They are still doing it. Will we, the left, still let them? Remember, “First they came…”
But… back to Easter Eggs… Remember? This was supposed to be about Easter Eggs. I’ve scarcely mentioned them for quite a while though. Believe it or not, I AM actually getting back to them. Not now though… soon… really… trust me…
For all of my complaints about being a firefighter on most holidays (no, trust me, I WILL get back to Easter Eggs), I tried to work them all. Every single one. People brought us cookies, and brownies, and, dare I say it?, Easter Eggs. People came by to thank us for something we had done, or at least tried to do, to help them in their extremity. Other people came by just to thank us, to thank us for being there, to thank us for wearing our red suspenders and air packs and being willing to do… whatever…whatever was needed. That was almost as good as getting to risk everything in order to help someone in desperate straits. Feeling appreciated is a heady feeling for anyone. But for me, for me as a trans person, closeted and continually fearful of discovery, working the holiday shifts meant something more, something it is very hard for cis people to truly understand about us. You see, I have never met a trans person who liked holidays, at least not until after they transitioned. I’m sure there are some; I’ve just never met one. In my case, I abhorred holidays. A holiday is supposed to be a time of festivity, of celebration, of sharing your best self with those about whom you most care. My reality was a tad different. I spent the evening of every single holiday growing up praying that I would wake that holiday morning and actually BE the person I knew I was. I spent the day of every holiday growing up hoping no one would discover my truth while I despaired seeing everyone else being happy being themselves. I spent the night of every single holiday growing up lying in bed wondering why God had done this to me. And once I had grown up, become an adult? Same thing, just with less hope that prayer would make any difference. Most trans people I know felt, and feel, something pretty similar unless or until they finally get to transition.
I loved being at the fire station on holidays because I might get a small respite from the normal hell of a normal day for a trans person and maybe even a small respite from the special hell of those special days called holidays. The odds were good that I would either spend my time in an adrenaline-driven rush trying to mitigate some disaster (or possibly die trying; I was okay with that) or I would be basking in the praise of people who only saw my uniform and would never imagine the me inside. They might bring cookies and brownies too. And if it was Easter, though we might run fewer calls, we also had the chance of getting Easter Eggs. I would never get the chance to wear an Easter dress or an Easter Bonnet, something that sounds silly but that I prayed so desperately for every, every, every year; but I might receive an Easter Egg, something I didn’t have to be ashamed of desiring. And there was a chance, not much of one but still a chance, I might be offered an egg filled with Peeps.
