Hunter Schafer PSA Reveals Privilege Won’t Protect You Forever

Actress Hunter Schafer, who is known for her performance on Euphoria and has been out as a trans woman since her teens, has shared that she’s felt some of the effects of our current administration. In a now-deleted video, Schafer posted on social media that she has received a replacement passport with an M gender marker instead of the F marker that she had originally.

Schafer says that she received a “harsh reality check” when seeing the change on her passport. She admits that because of her mistrust in our current administration’s words and her privilege, she wasn’t really expecting Trump to follow through on a lot of his threats to marginalized communities. She said that she was making the video to tell people that “It is actually happening.”

The sad reality is that a lot of people already knew that things like this were/are happening. Disabled folks and communities of color have been feeling the effects of both the previous Trump presidency and the Biden presidency for a while. While there was definitely good to come out of the Biden administration, the current ethnic cleansing in Palestine was started under his term. Roe v. Wade was overturned under his term. It is important to bring things like these up and make noise about the injustices happening no matter who is in office. Our rights having been threatened is not solely because of the current administration, although this current assault is very fast, numerous, and aggressive.

Schafer citing her privilege as a reason for her not seeing this coming is very important. “I just feel like it’s important to share that it’s not just talk; that this is real, and it’s happening, and no one, no matter their circumstance, no matter how wealthy, or white, or pretty, or whatever, is excluded. This is real.” For other people who have similar privileges like being white, able-bodied, or conventionally attractive, they may be seeing things like this for the first time. This is why it is important to practice intersectionality and keep community with all kinds of marginalized people.

There are creators like Crutches & Spice (Imani) who is a Black, queer, disabled person and has been speaking up and taking on the burden of educating people for multiple years. For example, she has correctly predicted some conservative ideologies coming back into popularity based on her lived experiences and those of other intersectionally affected folks. Imani is one of many creators who use their platforms to give people an intersectional perspective on the way this country operates and the dangers its people face. While Schafer making this statement and saying, “fuck this administration. Trans people are beautiful. I’m never going to stop being trans,” to bring awareness to the reality of the situation we are in is a really good thing, it is important to remember that she is just now feeling these effects. Many of us have already been suffering from this and previous administrations.

If this is the first time you are hearing about this, if this is the first time you are questioning your government or administration, I urge you to research further and seek out more diverse points of view. This is not the beginning. Educating yourself and listening to your community only helps our fight against injustices like these.

Photo courtesy for social media