Seriously, who cares?

[Ms. Toad]

32. I'm betting you don't feel the need to make that point in conversations

about heterosexual relationships and cis-gender individuals.

A female friend of my daughter's wore a T-shirt that proclaimed, "I love my girlfriend!" She was suspended by the vice principal. My daughter, along with a bunch of her friends, decided to wear the same T-shirts in support of her friend - and were threatened with suspensions if they did so. I had a pre-emptive chat with the vice-principal to let him know exactly what he would be walking into if he suspended my daughter.

His response: It's not appropriate to wear T-shirts advertising sexual activity. This vice principal wears a wedding band, and has a picture of his wife on his desk at work. My daughter's friends' T-shirt was no more about sexual activity than his wedding band or the photo of his wife. Especially as to the wedding ring, the wedding ring is arguably even more about sexual activity, since marriage, traditionally, marked the transition between abstinence and procreative sex).

This conflation of identity with sexual activity for gay and trans individuals, but not for heterosexuals and cis individuals happens extremely frequently, and is an integral part of their attack on us as purported sexual predators. And - it creeps into even liberal concersations and - sometimes when it is pointed out - the conversation shifts to the equivalent of "all lives matter," as you've shifted it here. It is crystal clear to those of us who are targets - but typically not even recognized as offensive when used by those who call themselves allies.

And it drains the energey we need for focusing on survival, and fighting the attacks on our lives when we have to spend so much energy educating our allies.