Montana needs to learn how to respect ALL of her residents

As the Holter Museum opens a new exhibit dedicated to trans, nonbinary and two spirited artists, the discrimination train gets louder

RAE SENARIGHI is, by all accounts, a courageous, talented artist. On his website he’s described as a “fine artist, designer and muralist, an activist, cancer survivor and pursuing accurate and celebratory representation of the trans community.”

To help celebrate the brilliance of Senarighi, the Holter Museum in Helena recently opened a new exhibit featuring work from him titled “Transcend.” It features 21 portraits of transgender and nonbinary people.

Along with work from Senarighi, the museum also has another exhibit titled “Transilience” which features work from “Transgender, Nonbinary, and Two Spirit Artists from in and around Montana. It features the fine work from Cohen Anaya, Bri Mango, Dre Castillo, Moe Butterfly, J.O.X, Julian Keller-King, Radium Woolf, and Paxton McCausland. Each artist is trans, nonbinary or two spirited.

What I most love about these exhibits is that not only are they sharing their personal stories about what makes them humans that deserve a seat at any table in which others are sitting, but it also gives them a platform to showcase their artistic expressions. It’s a marriage between art and a social cause, and I applaud the Holter Museum for taking the risk to bring these pieces to their museum. I strongly encourage you to visit the museum, and check out the Holter website, too, for more information.

It’s moving work that’s undoubtedly tied to the Montana Legislature push to take away rights from trans people this 2023 session. It gives trans and nonbinary people visibility, and remind folks that people can be amazing no matter who they are, where they are along the gender spectrum, or what kind of background they do or don’t have.

But, that’s not the point of this article. No, instead I’m addressing the elephant in the room. The fact that Montana has a problem that many of our residents don’t seem to be any rush to fix anytime soon.

Transgender people are treated as “less than” by many people here, and instead of focusing on the talents of these artists, there’s a contingent of Montanans who seem to care more about what is, or isn’t, between their legs.

This needs to stop.

One commenter under the amazing Helena Independent article about the exhibit, someone wrote, “Mental illness is rampant and untreated in this country.”

Under the IR’s Twitter post with the same article, another commenter wrote, “There are two genders. Men have a penis, women vaginas.”

You could argue that these two comments are from the trolls who criticize everything, but, there’s more to it than that. Do a quick search with the phrases “Trans” and “Montana” on Facebook, and you’ll find a plethora of people disparaging trans athletes, trans teens, and transgender people in general.

From an artist’s perspective, it has to be very frustrating to be recognized not by the work you produce, but by your gender identification. Imagine going to the CM Russell Museum and instead of hearing people viewing the art talking about his talents as an artist they’re instead chatting about his being a straight, cisgender male. They’d never do that, and they never should do it with these artists at the Holter Museum, either.

Speaking up against trans people, for whatever reason, has become the “acceptable” form of discrimination. It’s always done in the guise of “protecting” others. Protecting girls who compete in sports, protecting teens who are “groomed” to be trans, or protecting “God-fearing people” from the immoral trans women who want to corrupt our communities.

I’m fucking sick of it.

Pardon my language, but, you don’t have to be a Republican and have an issue with trans people. In fact, a 2020 poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that “Overall, nearly 7 in 10 adults say they support laws that ban discrimination based on whether a person is lesbian, gay, or bisexual (69%) or transgender (68%.)” Treating people with respect shouldn’t come with a contingency that you must not be questioning if the gender assigned to you at birth is the gender in which you possess. It’s a difficult subject to understand for some, but, it’s not difficult to be kind to people, even those who think differently than you do.

I’ve learned some of the most new things from people who have come from different backgrounds, voted differently than I do, or have wildly different experiences from me. But, I won’t put up with people who carry ignorance and hate in their hearts for trans people.

It appears that Montana is set on passing SB99, which would prohibit public funds and facilities from supporting gender-affirming care. During the testimony phase, one man, Butch Barton of Three Forks, even called transgender people a “fad that is sweeping our country.”

People do not choose to be trans. And if you think about it, why would they? Why would anyone choose to be discriminated against because they wanted to make a “choice” about their gender? Why would they travel down that road that sees more people like them attempting suicide than all other subgroups of people in the country?

If there was a choice between being trans, or not being trans, I fail to see how many people would choose to put those extra challenges into their lives.

We need to do better, Montana. We can do better. Nobody deserves that kind of mean spirited comments, hatred, and/or ignorance hurled their way every single day. Nobody. Hopefully this artwork at the Holter will help people open their minds and see these artists as deserving humans who are just as complex, imperfect, passionate and creative as anyone else. Maybe the haters will even transition into fans. It’s not likely, but you never know. Art has a way of making the impossible seem possible. I, for one, hope it becomes a reality.