It’s Trans Awareness Week. Here’s how we can shift narratives in pursuit of true gender equity.

It’s Transgender Awareness Week, which began on November 13 and will conclude with Trans Day of Remembrance on Monday. In the trans community, there is debate about whether awareness is really what we need right now—considering how the majority culture seems plenty aware of trans people as we’ve become the center of a culture war—but nonetheless, this week is an opportunity to amplify the perspectives of trans people, rather than discussions about us.

As the Trans Journalists Association puts it, “Communities of trans people are diverse across such dimensions as race, ethnicity, age, ability and disability, nationality, location, political party, religion, tribal membership, economic background, and more. It’s inaccurate to treat the experiences of one person as being representative of ‘the trans experience’ or ‘the trans community’ on any given issue.”

While I, the author, have referenced other resources while putting these lists together, I am one person, and want to be clear that some of these things may not be universally agreed upon by the entire “community.”

With this in mind, here are three narratives about trans people that are inaccurate and unhelpful, and five things you can do to avoid perpetuating them.

#1: Mandating the sharing of “preferred pronouns” is helpful and inclusive.

We should strongly encourage people to share their pronouns, but pronouns can be an extremely fraught topic for some trans people, and forcing them to engage can provoke further distress. There are infinite reasons why, but there are two common ones I’ll call “ignorance is bliss” and “people are closeted sometimes.”

In an environment like my cardiologist’s office—somewhere I spend about three hours a year—I’d rather let them assume wrong than tell them my gender and pronouns, have them inevitably forget during the same visit, and get misgendered anyway after taking the time to make myself vulnerable and come out to them. It’s just easier to let them be wrong.

And in the case of closeted folks, forcing people to either lie or out themselves in an unfamiliar environment isn’t helpful. Since I use they/them, I come out to strangers in unfamiliar environments constantly or don’t come out at all. I never came out to anyone at the Better Life Lab during or after the application process—I’m assuming my now coworkers looked me up at some point, and my pronouns are on my social media and website. I decided early on in my job search that I’d prefer to stay unemployed longer over taking a job in a hostile environment, as I went back into the closet for grad school (long story), and it wasn’t worth it. From that point of view, though, it’s usually easier to just let others assume incorrectly instead of making an active choice that is marginalizing no matter what.

Also, stop saying “preferred pronouns.” We don’t ask people about the “preferred spelling” of their names; we ask them what’s correct.

#2: Trans people know they are trans from a very young age.

This is a tricky one, as this narrative does benefit trans kids, who are overwhelmingly under attack right now. Unfortunately, it’s just not true, and spreading this idea marginalizes trans adults.

When we say that everyone realizes they’re trans as a kid, it gives skeptics, “gender critical” folks, and other transphobes permission to be skeptical of adults who realize later in life, and this is especially weaponized against transfeminine people. If all the legitimate trans people realize as kids, the trans woman who realized at thirty has to just be a sexual predator, right? (To be clear, that was sarcastic, but it’s the type of rhetoric that’s easy to find on Twitter or Reddit, and then at the conferences that have sprung up to center these discussions.)

I am only one person, but to my knowledge, none of the trans people I know realized before the age of 18. I was 20 and three months into a grant-funded research project about queer representation in media when I figured it out. Many of us can look back and go, “Hah, remember that thing I said to my parents when I was 12. I should have known,” but that’s a very different thing than knowing you were not your gender assigned at birth at the age of 12.

#3: Children are medically transitioning.

This one is just untrue, and the idea that young kids are medically transitioning is part of the conservative attack on trans people. (It’s not possible to describe this fully in a few hundred words, so you can read more about it here.) But the only medical transition options available to children 12 and under are puberty blockers, which are 100 percent reversible for any child who changes their mind down the road. Additionally, puberty blockers are generally prescribed to children between 10 and 16. Young children cannot medically transition at all. Instead, they are likely to socially transition young, which includes things like going by a name that is more aligned with their experienced gender, dressing in a way that aligns with that gender, etc.

#1: Read Shon Faye’s (provocatively named but) essential text, The Transgender Issue. Faye explores how race and class intersect with trans issues in the UK and the US, giving special attention to the way that social issues tied to racism, xenophobia, and poverty disproportionately impact trans people.

#2: Watch (or just listen to) trans people talk about their experiences and dispel assumptions. YouTuber Anthony Padilla has interviewed groups of non-binary people, trans women, trans men, intersex people*, and genderfluid people on his channel, along with hosting a round table for trans athletes to discuss the explosion of politics around their competitions. There are trans folks who guide the researching, writing, and editing of these episodes, and it’s evident in the content.

#3: Subscribe to the Trans Journalists Association’s newsletter and check out their style guide, even if you don’t work in media. Language changes fast in this space, and while it can seem nit-picky, borderline language (eg, “transgendered” or “MTF”) plays the role of a dog whistle in a political environment where being vehemently transphobic is no longer acceptable on one side of the aisle.

#4: Look into anti-trans legislation in your state, and write your representatives if needed. While writing this, I learned that my oh-so-progressive state of Massachusetts had an anti-trans bill introduced earlier this year. It died in committee, thankfully, but with so many aggressively threatening bills under consideration, sometimes the less intense ones can slip under the radar. And if there’s nothing in your state, there are also 36 federal bills that are causing concern at the time of writing.

#5: Spend some time with the National Center for Transgender Equality’s Remembrance Report. Collecting the stories of trans people from around the country who we’ve lost this year, this project plays an essential role in honoring people’s true selves, and it’s extremely common for trans people to be deadnamed and misgendered in obituaries and news coverage. Also, note that of the domestic cases where the cause of death is known, the number one cause was suicide, followed by gun-related homicides.

We have a lot of work to do in creating a world that is not just equitable but safe and tolerable for trans folks. We hope you’ll join us in trying to make that world possible, and the resources linked above include many great places to start.

*Not all intersex people classify themselves under the “trans” umbrella, but some do.