They Fear Us Because We Cannot Be Owned
Trans Bodies, Autonomy, and the War on Identity
They Fear Us Because We Cannot Be Owned
Trans Bodies, Autonomy, and the War on Identity
Revolution is Genderless.
They have spent centuries trying to break us. To contain us. To erase us.
Not because we are weak—but because we are free.
Fascists, religious fanatics, corporate overlords, governments—every machine of power feeds on control. They survive by dictating what a body can be, how it must function, whom it must serve. And we? We refuse to be owned.
To be trans, to be nonbinary, to be queer—is to be a walking mutiny against their order. It is to say, “No, I do not exist for your comfort. No, I do not belong to your laws, your church or your manufactured reality.”
That terrifies them. Because if one of us can break free, it means anyone can.
The War on Trans Bodies Is a War on Freedom
They will dress it up in morality, in concern, in the language of “saving children” and “protecting society.” They will flood the airwaves with lies about biology and tradition. But do not mistake their rhetoric for anything but what it is: a desperate attempt to keep us contained.
The State wants to own your body. Religions want to own your soul. Corporaters want your identity.
The anti-trans laws being passed are no different from the anti-abortion laws that force pregnancy. The same politicians banning gender-affirming care are the ones criminalizing bodily autonomy. Because this has never been about “life.” It has only ever been about control.
They do not just want to control what you do. They want to control who you are. Your name, your pronouns, your ability to exist legally at all. If they can erase you in law, they can erase you in life.
But we are a problem they cannot solve. A trans body is a free body. And free bodies do not serve power.
Religion Wants to Own Your Soul
They don’t just want obedience. They want surrender.
For them, gender roles are more than a belief system—they are a weapon. If gender isn’t binary, if love isn’t restricted, if queerness isn’t “unnatural,” then the entire Eurocentric, Puritanical foundation of their control crumbles. They need us to be “wrong,” because if we are not—then they are. Like all colonizers, they resort to gaslighting to make you feel otherwise.
So they use shame as a leash. They tell us we are mentally ill, an affront to God. Because a person who believes they are unworthy will let others define them. They push conversion therapy, forced de-transition, and “corrective” abuse—not to heal, but to erase.
But here is the truth they will never say out loud: a trans body is a holy body. A trans life is sacred. And sacred things do not bow to false gods.
Corporations Want to Own Your Identity
They wave rainbow flags in June and fund our erasure in July. They put trans faces in advertisements but won’t fight for trans rights in court. They love us when it’s profitable and discard us when it’s not.
To them, identity is a brand—something to be packaged, sold, and abandoned when inconvenient. But a trans body is not for sale. And identities that cannot be sold cannot be controlled.
They capitalize on queer culture but do nothing to protect queer lives. They tokenize trans people to push products but stay silent when our rights are under attack. They will always side with power unless we make it impossible for them to ignore us.
And that is exactly what we will do.
Reclaiming Autonomy: Your Body, Your Name, Your Life
They will do everything they can to take control away from us.
So we take it back.
Your body is not a battleground for their laws. It is yours. If gender-affirming care is banned where you live, find underground networks, safe providers, and community support. If public spaces feel unsafe, train in self-defense, move in groups, learn de-escalation tactics. If dysphoria is a battle, seek gender euphoria wherever you can—clothes, voice, movement, ritual. Take. Up. Space.
Your name is yours to claim. If the state refuses to recognize it, use it anyway. Build your world around your truth, even if the system won’t acknowledge it. If your family refuses to see you, find people who do. Name yourself, define yourself. If the world tries to rewrite you, write yourself back. In stories, in art, in history.
You do not belong to them—Not the state. Not the church. Not the corporations.
Why We Will Win
History has tried to erase us before.
They burned our books. They shut down our clinics. They locked us up, exiled us, outlawed our love, our bodies, our names. They have done everything they could to make us disappear.
And yet—we are still here.
Because bodies that cannot be owned cannot be erased.
They fear us because we do not belong to them.
We never have.
We never will.
And we are not going anywhere.
And that is why we will win.
In Solidarity,
—Connor Wolfe
(They/Them) Founder Wayfarer Magazine & Wayfarer Books
Connor Wolfe (they/them) is a writer, publisher, and advocate whose work spans over two decades and fourteen titles, originally published under their dead name. Their literary contributions have earned six Pushcart Prize nominations, the Gold Nautilus Medal for Poetry, multiple Foreword Review Book Awards, and the Nautilus Silver Medal in 2022. Their innovative approach to independent publishing led to two terms on the Board of Directors for the Independent Book Publishers Association, a TEDx talk at Yale University, and a degree in Abnormal Psychology at Harvard University through grant programs.
Wolfe is a lifelong advocate for mental health, trans rights, and radical authenticity—the act of breaking silence to reclaim power. After their TEDx Talk in 2018, they stepped into national conversations on mental illness, trauma, and the intersection of art and survival. Holding a degree in Abnormal Psychology, their work examines how creativity and mental illness shape one another. Their studies in Photojournalism under Samantha Appleton sharpened their ability to bear witness—to capture the unspoken, the unseen, the truths too often buried.
In 2024, Wolfe volunteered in the Collections Department of the Museum of Anthropology at Ghost Ranch, assisting in the preparation of sacred objects for repatriation under the newly updated Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. After wintering along the foothills of Cerro Pedernal, they are now traveling through the San Juan Mountains with their three-legged black cat, momo—documenting, writing, and remaining in motion, as all revolutionaries must.
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