Hello Bentonville City Council members,
I am a resident of Benton County and a 6th generation resident of the Ozarks. My uncle, Sgt. Jimmie King, gave his life in service to the U.S. Army in 1944 overthrowing Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany with the sincere belief that he was protecting my future right to exist, to be free, to be happy, and to be welcome here in Northwest Arkansas.
I have spent my career serving the community—working in social services, domestic‑violence and homelessness programs, 911 dispatch, bilingual tutoring, and training new truck drivers. My presence benefits Northwest Arkansas.
Until last year, I excelled as a driver trainer and then became a Walmart truck driver, passing rigorous tests and ranking among the “best of the best of the best” to achieve that job. But this year, I was “let go” from my job due to anti-trans laws making it impossible to perform my duties without bathroom access in many delivery locations. My biological sex is neither male nor female, so I cannot legally use either restroom under modern anti-trans laws.
I recently applied for a job at the University of Arkansas, where I was more than qualified — but during the interviews, Gov. Sanders decided to make it illegal for me to use bathrooms unless they are single-stall now.
The governor’s removal of my gender marker from my license threatens my health coverage for essential care, including hormones that keep my bones from randomly breaking. Judge James in Little Rock determined last June that this anti-trans law would cause me irreparable harm. She was right — it has, and I’ve been struggling to survive ever since.
Can you imagine if the Governor just suddenly decided males don’t exist and have no protected rights? Imagine having no power to change it, too. Imagine having no workplace protections anymore. Imagine your neighbors filing complaints that men dare to think they should be included among “all” people who are welcome in an organization.
Imagine my life, if only for a moment.
Legislative actions have made it clear that some people do not want me to exist, in Arkansas or anywhere. They are fighting for the same ideals my uncle gave his life fighting against. They are now petitioning you to uphold the ideals of a Nazi regime my uncle fought to prevent here. If you need a quick refresher on how today’s anti-transgender arguments are all rooted in Nazi-supremacist gender ideology, here’s a starter citation list:
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-research-reveals-how-the-nazis-targeted-transgender-people-180982931/
- https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/central-european-history/article/transgender-life-and-persecution-under-the-nazi-state-gutachten-on-the-vollbrecht-case/0779A24B130C4F0CA64DB639FA6DBF46
- https://www.teenvogue.com/story/sex-testing-at-the-olympics-history
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/
- https://academic.oup.com/past/article/260/1/123/6711458
- https://mjhnyc.org/blog/transgender-experiences-in-weimar-and-nazi-germany/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_people_in_Nazi_Germany
At a time when gender non-conforming people are being threatened with “eradication” from society and legislative steps are being taken to make that really happen, we depend on our local neighbors to affirm our right to life and liberty in the face of fascist threats. We depend on YOU to defend our freedom and human rights, and to tell the bullies we belong here just as much as they do, and to stop harassing our community.
When I see a mural that simply acknowledges “all are welcome,” it is a small kindness that a few people believe my life matters, that I deserve to be alive, and that I deserve to feel welcome and work in Arkansas, just like my family has for 5+ generations. It’s a little sign of inclusion that simply implies, “When we say ‘all lives matter’, we do not mean ‘except yours‘.”
But some people believe one of the highest priorities for our tax dollars, and for our government officials, is to make sure that no matter who has to go hungry, no matter who has to become unemployed for it, no matter who becomes homeless because of it, the most important priority we need to address is to ensure that I do not feel welcome here; to ensure I don’t mistakenly get the absurd idea that I belong in or around Bentonville, Arkansas.
Why fix potholes, or feed our children in schools, or make sure everyone has clean water to drink, or house people, or address gun violence on our local campus — when we could instead use those tax dollars to really make sure I don’t ever, for one second, imagine my uncle’s death had purpose or meaning to it; to make sure I don’t ever get to imagine that I belong here, that I deserve to be alive, that I am loved and supported in this community, that I’m welcome to show up at the same public events as anyone else?
They have certainly made their point that they do not want me here and would rather I suffer or die than to feel at ease being their neighbor. That’s gonna be between them and God.
Your part in this will be between you and God, too.
I am leery of anyone who insists on being a vessel for God’s wrath but not for God’s mercy; anyone who treats those unlike themselves as unworthy of life or neighborliness. Those exclusive ways of treating others unkindly are what caused Sodom and Gomorra to be burned to the ground.
The controversy over this mural makes me wonder: When these anti-trans nay-sayers used to respond to Black Lives Matter by saying “All lives matter,” but now they assert that “All bikes welcome” excludes White people — are they confessing that they never truly meant “all lives matter,” to begin with?
What do you, as Bentonville’s leaders, expect this growing city to become if you affirm their exclusionary ways to make sure minorities do not feel safe, nor welcome, nor loved, here in this region? Do you think catering to the “I don’t like those trans people” tantrums of the lowest common denominator will be great for business? Organizational Leadership research says it’s terrible for business. I happen to be nearing my graduation with a Masters degree in the subject this December.
You cannot attract the best humans while exuding the worst qualities of humanity. Particularly, the worst qualities for which my uncle gave his life to ensure would not take hold of Arkansas in 1944, when innocent, hardworking, deeply loving and kind transgender and Intersex people just like me were being rounded up alongside Jews and executed in German gas chambers to appease those nationalists who only wanted people like themselves to exist. You cannot attract the best humans while pushing me out of Arkansas. I am the canary in your coal mine.
To tell transgender people we are not welcome, to eliminate our jobs and push us to the margins of society and willfully leave us to die for lack of community support is anything but pro-life. It is “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” which is the specific phrasing listed in the United Nations under the definition of genocide. One cannot claim to be both pro-life and simultaneously refuse the dignities of transgender lives to exist, live, work, engage in community activities such as bicycling, and use bathrooms without harassment, as these are all essential functions of living.
Sincerely, and respectfully, I ask you to put out the flames of hatred here in Northwest Arkansas. Tell the bullies to go see a therapist instead of harassing you over their anger issues about our mere existence. Focus on your jobs. Fix a pothole. Feed our children. Do literally anything constructive that benefits us all. Be someone of integrity whom your children can feel proud of in 20 years. Leave them a brighter future than the Nazis’ children had to feel embarrassed by and ashamed of in the 1950’s.
Most of all, please, stop giving me more reasons to give up on life than are already piled on my shoulders in this hateful society that chose us as its political whipping boy of the decade? It’s a small ask to just let us live in peace. Surely you have better things to be doing than fussing over political wedge issues that prioritize cruelty over neighborliness?
Please. Just let us live in peace here. And maybe see ourselves reflected beside the word “welcome” once in a while, so we have something to live for?
Warmly,
B. Gallagher
they/them
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