Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to bar “transgender individuals” from serving in the U.S. military because in his mind, they “burden” an institution that “must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory.” This year, the U.S. Department of Defence appeared to reiterate this odious assessment when it wrote in a memorandum to the president that there are “substantial risks associated with allowing the accession and retention of individuals with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria and require, or have already undertaken, a course of treatment to change their gender.”

Both parties, it turns out, couldn’t be more wrong. They aren’t just wrong in a strictly moral sense. They are wrong, according to a new study published by Cornell University, in a practical sense, too. It turns out that contrary to what many lawmakers appear to believe, transgender people are not basket cases unable to function in difficult jobs. They are human beings who lead happy, productive lives, not in spite of the “course of treatment” they may undergo but, often, precisely because of it.

According to the Cornell study, “gender transition is effective in treating gender dysphoria and can significantly improve the well-being of transgender individuals. Among the positive outcomes of gender transition and related medical treatments for transgender individuals are improved quality of life, greater relationship satisfaction, higher self-esteem and confidence, and reductions in anxiety, depression, suicidality, and substance use.”

The study analyzed 56 individual peer-reviewed studies about gender transition dating back to 1991 and discovered that 93 per cent of those “found that transition improves the overall well-being of transgender people,” while only 7 per cent “report mixed or null findings.” How many of the studies concluded that gender transition causes overall harm? Zero. This makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Living a lie hurts. Living honestly helps.

The Cornell study is extremely important for obvious reasons. For starters, its results fly in the face of the Trumpian view that transgender people are mentally ill outcasts who can’t find peace of mind, let alone keep their cool in the military. But the study is extremely important for another, less obvious reason. Simply put, it’s good news. And good news is hard to come by when it has the word “transgender” in it.

Bethany Grace Howe, a writer and PhD student at the University of Oregon’s school of journalism and communication, knows this well. “What we see in media is well intentioned,” says Howe, who is transgender herself. “But it’s about the battles — the movement. Even positive coverage tends to be wrapped around ‘transgender person rallying against the world.’”

She’s right. News stories about transgender issues typically take on two narratives, both of them grim or serious. One is the announcement of a new study or survey indicating transgender people are in dire straits. The other is an account of an activist’s uphill battle fighting a discriminatory policy. Both stories are invaluable. But they’re usually downers.

And chances are, if you’re a transgender kid, they don’t make you particularly hopeful for the future. Howe, who is currently working on a study of her own about how transgender people react to prejudice, says that when she recently gave a talk at a school, a student approached her afterward and said something to the effect of “You’re so normal. Every trans person I’ve ever seen is either miserable or a celebrity.” It’s comments like these that compel her to advocate for more positive, ordinary stories about transgender people in media.

Howe doesn’t want to sugar-coat the sad stuff. She just wants to read more about the joyful stuff. And she puts her money where her mouth is. When journalism students at the University of Oregon asked if they could profile her for their assignments, she told them:| “I’m happy to have you do a story on me, but no more stories about my battle with the world. No more stories about my struggle to live. Please don’t ever ask me my opinion on the bathroom again because the only one I’m going to give you is that I think more public institutions should be required to use Charmin.”

Apparently they got the message.

“What students do now,” says Howe, “is they’ll do a story on me and my daughter — how we live our everyday life. Being transgender is an aspect of that, but it’s a story about my relationship with my daughter.”

Another student chose to write an article about Howe’s difficulty driving her convertible after she grew her hair long for the first time. She tried to tie it up in a scarf on windy days like a Hollywood starlet, alas, to no avail. “I never did figure it out,” she says. In the end, she sold the car.

Stories of political activism and research must be told. But so too must stories of human interest. They’re more important than we give them credit for.

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