By The Catcall Team

For Trans Day of Visibility in 2026, we wanted to do something special. Not only is Catcall full of trans folks and people who love trans folks, but this is undeniably a heightened time of vulnerability for the trans community. 

Here at Catcall, it’s important to us that trans people are more than visible. We want to make it clear that they are also loved, and that there is a powerful community that will stand up and fight back if you come for them. 

That’s why we’ve invited our trans friends and allies to show visible support for the community, sending a clear message: If you come for our loved ones, you’ll have to come for us too.

Shelby Faulkner, Staff Writer

About a year ago, I wrote an article defining what it means to be trans. With Trans Day of Visibility approaching, I have been thinking a lot about the headspace I was in when I wrote it. Being visible has become increasingly difficult since then, but it matters now more than ever. As a trans person, it can mean shouldering some risk. But it also shows other people out there that they’re not alone, we exist, and we can have happy, fulfilling lives despite everything that tries to prevent us from doing so.

While this day is about highlighting trans people, I want to shine a light on what it means to be visible as an ally. In particular, what it has meant to me. If you read my previous article, you may recognize that I struggled with being “visible” for a long time. Without any trans people in my life, the small acts that gave me the courage to be who I am all came from allies. This is an extension of what I wrote before, but this time it’s about what visibility and support look like when it comes from people around you.

It was being in a meeting and hearing someone say they had a trans sibling without the slightest hint of shame, and then educating their boss on trans people without fear of what they might think.

It was seeing people put up little trans flag emojis on their profile at work when the attorney general decided to suddenly put an emergency rule into effect, banning gender affirming care overnight in a state you were planning to move to.

It was coming to the meeting with me when I told my bosses my identity for the first time, even though they clearly didn’t have to. 

It was showing me so much support and encouragement when I announced my identity on social media. 

It was someone putting up trans flags around the office at work when I felt like my world was falling apart. It was every person who decided to place them at their desk in solidarity.

It was someone setting up a meal train for me and telling all their friends about it. It was all those being there for me when I had surgery. 

It was someone walking with me as I was recovering, so I’d feel less alone.

It was joining Catcall and finding out that everyone has a trans person who has touched their life in some way.

It was writing this article together.

It was these and so many other countless moments and gestures by so many people that I’ve left out.

This is me, a trans person, telling you that all of it matters. Every small gesture. Every little trans pin you put on your clothes, every little flag you own, every little word of encouragement. Every ounce of support you give. All. Of. It. Matters.

Being visible as a trans person means showing up as the person you wish little you had seen. Being visible as an ally means holding our hands as we walk through the hard stuff together. And yes, we need people fighting for our rights, writing letters, and doing everything they can. But we also simply need people to let us know we’re not alone, not in our saddest moments or in our most joyful ones. 

Reflecting on my article from a year ago now, I still believe everything I wrote. Being trans still means joy. It still means hope. And it still means you’re not alone. For Trans Day of Visibility, I want other trans folks out there to know that there are people willing to love you, fight for you, and be there for you in your hardest moments.

Kelcie McKenney, Editor-In-Chief

Nine years ago, at our first one-on-one hangout, my friend Sav and I both came out to each other—me as bisexual and him as transgender. We’d met on a 48-hour film set, making a silly spy movie, and had bonded quickly. Enough so that I felt comfortable enough for the first time to mention I didn’t think I only liked guys, and enough for Sav to mention he felt he wasn’t cisgender. I don’t remember who came out first, but that night in 2017 solidified in my brain as pivotal. 

The years after that evening, I got the honor of watching Sav come out and come into himself. He got louder. He grew a beard and got really into Forged in Fire. He took up more space. His voice deepened. Hell, he made a whole documentary about his identity and journey as a trans man. He was confident and joyful and fully himself. And witnessing that pushed me to reflect inward. What was my unapologetic existence? What did it mean for me to be my true self like Sav was? That’s the real gift of having transgender people in your life. They demand space and stake claim to the life they know they deserve. Resilience. Joy. Radical honesty.

Watching Sav’s journey helped prepare me when, a few years later, my sister Victoria came out as a transgender woman. I watched her walk the same path as Sav—one of growing boldly into who she was always meant to be. She loves to twirl and laugh and bake, and now she smiles so big her eyes twinkle. Witnessing her journey is trans visibility. That unapologetic embrace of life is one we can all learn from; that living as your authentic self is the greatest reward.

Max, Community Manager

Being trans(gender) is an elaborate tapestry of community, love, identity, and acceptance of all of the things I’ve been made to feel I needed to hide when I was younger. Coming to terms with my gender identity opened the door for me to seek out the people who have made me realize that I was always enough.

I now love another non-binary person, and this past year has been a wonderful discovery of how to show up better for each other, how to affirm each other, and how to support our own evolution around our identities. Despite the uncertainty that faces the transgender community, I’m buoyed by not having to face it alone. 

Being trans is finding joy in the little things: my parent group referring to me as “mapa bear,” having folks remind others of my correct pronouns, creating and consuming art that describes our experiences, and giving compliments on how I chose to express myself that day. Little acts every day mean so much to know that others see me just as I am.

Sophie, Senior Staff Writer 

As I sat down to write out my thoughts and feelings surrounding the transgender people in my life and the world that wants to hurt them, my phone lit up with a notification. Earlier that day, an old coworker had shared a post about Kansas revoking the IDs of 1,700 trans people, and she had replied to my comment. As I’m friends with many queer people and allies, this post shouldn’t have come as a shock, but her caption threw me off. She was making a joke out of something serious and harmful. If you know me, then you know I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut, especially when I’m close to a keyboard. As I read her reply, I realized yet again that no amount of counterarguments will get transphobes to see the other side. I could list off fact after fact, but that does nothing when what’s lacking is empathy. It’s not based on logic or reality; it’s based on hate. Both sides have already been discussed to death by people smarter than both of us, and our debate in the comments on a Facebook post wouldn’t be the thing that got through to her or anyone else laughing along.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe there are people who disguise their judgments and hate behind the idea that trans people should just learn to accept themselves as God made them and not change a thing. Acting as though your outdated views and disgusting opinions are deeper than they are is actually mind-blowing. I can’t fathom the amount of mental gymnastics these people have to do to actually think their views are the kind ones. Transitioning improves people’s lives and their mental health, and it’s not something that’s taken lightly by the individual navigating it. It’s difficult for me to understand where transphobes are even coming from because when I grew up, I was just taught to love and accept people, never even giving gender or sexuality a thought. I can’t imagine what it would be like to grow up being taught the opposite. Being instilled with hate at a young age and realizing, as you get older, that the only way to cope with yourself is to double down and close your mind even more. 

I am grateful to have grown up with a gay uncle on one side of the family, and a lesbian aunt on the other. It was never something that was talked about at all. Back when they were coming out, I’m sure there were judgments in the family, but as far as what I was exposed to, there was nothing but love and acceptance. They shared a similar background of marrying someone of the opposite sex, as I’m sure they were expected to do at the time, and then coming to terms with their actual desires, ultimately leading to divorce and finding partners of the same sex. It was never that deep for me. I loved my two aunts, my uncle, and the two men he brought into my life in my past 29 years. Simple.

The same feelings I had about gayness easily applied to my understanding of transness. Thinking back on the people I surrounded myself with in middle school and high school, many of them have come out as trans. We were all just figuring ourselves out. The same is true for my college best friend, now proudly out as non-binary. Nothing changed about that friendship, apart from what naturally comes when two friends move states away from each other. They were in my wedding, and I feel so blessed to call them a friend. I also have beautiful trans friends here on the Catcall team.

The most important relationship I have with a trans person is with my little brother. Our parents worked long hours, and the seven-year age gap between us meant there were many nights when I made him dinner and watched shows with him. I can’t say that I raised him, but I did take care of him and got to watch him grow. I had a vision in my head of what being a big sister would look like, as anyone with siblings can relate to, but when he came out to me, that had to shift. Switching the pronouns and name I used to refer to him was easy, but switching those deep visualizations of our future was a little trickier. 

Before coming out, he battled with depression and attempted to take his life more than once. It was hard to watch, but there wasn’t much I could do but love him and be there for him. What I got to see after he came out was someone who faced some real darkness in their journey to adulthood and self-discovery, and how quickly that weight lifted after he was comfortable expressing himself as he is. Celebrating life became the norm. Some idea of what I thought life would be like in our 30s and 40s could not carry any less weight. He’s happy now, and nothing else matters. These days, he’s just a weird grandpa, and I love him so much. He’s a Buddhist, he likes birdwatching, he’s a writer, he carries a briefcase, he wears sweater vests, and he minds his own damn business. I wish other people would, too. 

Travis Young, Contributing Photographer

I loved my sister-in-law before I knew she was a trans woman.

Her existence was kept so incredibly tight and to herself. She seemed so stuck in her life and unsure of the next steps. She was undeniably brilliant. Always the smartest person in the room, and I remember thinking that she was such a massive garden of potential.

One Christmas holiday, she pulled my wife and me aside and told us she was a trans woman. I quietly had so many questions. How will I rewire my brain to call her the correct pronouns? How will I break my muscle memory and call her by her new name? 

Will I ever understand her right? 

Can I let go of who I thought I knew before this transition? Is this a new person? What do I do with the “old person?”

One day, I watched her spin in a long skirt. She looked down at her skirt, giggling to herself as it flowed around her. I don’t remember her smiling like that before. It was such a quiet little moment, but who I saw then was so undeniably present in a way I had never seen in her prior. 

She was fuller, brighter, more chatty, and so much more loving. The spark in her existence was so starkly different from how she was before coming out that my worries of misunderstanding her melted away in the warmth of this deeper love.

I realized this process isn’t about replacing someone old with someone new. It is watching a garden blossom with diverse flowers and honey bees. There is so much more to love, so much more to understand, and so much more to witness.

To love a trans person is to watch a garden grow and tend its many flowers.

Maddy Best, Designer

If you’re reading this (yes, you), just know I love you.

Where I grew up, the (out) LGBTQ+ community was essentially non-existent. If you were lucky like me, you could count a small number of queer people among your friends—even if they weren’t out yet. Trans people, though? A needle in a haystack with a million reasons to hide. 

For all the stigma that surrounded me growing up, where your clothes or choice or hair could easily earn you an unfriendly glance, I’m fortunate to have been raised by parents (and an older sister) who enabled my self-expression. Whether through music, art, clothes, or dying my hair every other week, they celebrated every version of me. Maybe that’s why, when I moved to Kansas City for the first time, the diversity of self-expression didn’t shock me. It didn’t intimidate me. It enabled me to live freer and begged me to love bigger. As my found family coalesced, I would liken it to the forming cosmos (because I’m a romantic like that). For once in my life, I was surrounded by a nebula of color and identity. 

Nothing will teach you about love like loving a trans or non-binary person. For me, that lesson came in the form of a Bumble match one fateful night in September. 

We had been dating for about two years when my partner first disclosed to me that they had previously explored their gender through clothes. In that moment, I knew something significant had just shifted between us. Even if they said it lightly, maybe even disparagingly in the moment, I recognized it for what it was: a crack of light shining through. A piece of them they’d tucked away, letting themselves be seen for the first time. And I desperately wanted them to show themself. Even writing this, I’m breathless at the memory. It was the beginning of so many things. 

All my life, I had seen myself as a safe space for people, and here was the manifestation of what that meant: a level of trust that’s hard to feel worthy of, and something I will do literally anything to keep. A lesson in love, yet again. 

My relationship with my partner and their journey is deeply personal, so I won’t disclose much more of it here. IYKYK, it’s beyond special. Since our first talks, my partner has explored all sorts of expressions through clothes, hair, and jewelry. They’ve gone through seasons and will go through more, I’m sure. I can’t wait to see them all. 

Loving a trans or non-binary person is to witness—not influence—a personal journey. It’s giving them space to use as they see fit. It’s having no expectations. It’s letting them come to you, and recognizing when you need to go to them. It’s being unwavering and unrelenting in the face of hate. It’s showing up, even when they’re not watching. It’s being the shield and the sword in a world that seeks to demonize the most authentic and expressive among us. 

It’s understanding what you risk losing if you’re not ready to protect it.

If you’re reading this (yes, you), just know I love you. I love you as you have been, as you are now, and as you will be. You deserve peace, safety, joy, and freedom. We’re not going to stop fighting until you have it. 

In the words of Careful Gaze: “You are not a label or a liability. You are a ray across the sky, don’t forget your strength. Rethink.”

---

By The Catcall Team. Check us out on our About Us page.