Trans issues are also environmental issues. They're also

Sarah McBride, a voice of courage and compassion in our time, once proclaimed: “Trans issues are also environmental issues. They’re also healthcare issues. They’re also national security issues.” These words, though brief, resound like a bell across the ages, for they remind us that no struggle for dignity stands alone, but is woven into the great tapestry of humanity. She speaks not only of identity, but of interconnectedness—the truth that the pain of one is the concern of all, and that justice cannot be divided into separate chambers, but must flow through every part of life.

When McBride says that trans issues are environmental issues, she calls us to remember that the earth itself is not separate from the lives of its people. Pollution, climate change, and natural disasters do not discriminate, but they fall hardest upon the vulnerable, upon those whose voices are already ignored. Just as the ancients taught that harmony between humankind and nature is the foundation of flourishing, so too does McBride remind us that to neglect one group is to weaken the bond between all and the earth they share.

By naming healthcare, she touches the deepest core of survival. The ancients knew that the city which neglected the sick was doomed to collapse, for the strength of a people lies in the well-being of its weakest members. To deny healthcare to any, whether through prejudice or indifference, is to tear a hole in the fabric of society itself. Thus, McBride’s words shine with a fierce wisdom: the health of trans people is not a separate concern, but part of the universal duty to heal, to preserve life, and to guard the dignity of the body and spirit alike.

In calling these also national security issues, McBride gives her words the weight of urgency. For what is security if not the safety and trust of a people in their own land? A nation that fails to protect its own citizens from harm, discrimination, and despair is already weakened from within. History offers grim examples: empires that persecuted parts of their own people always collapsed, not from enemies at the gates, but from rot in the heart. Rome’s decadence, the division of civil strife, the fall of kingdoms through internal injustice—all are warnings that the denial of dignity is itself a threat to survival.

Consider the story of the American Civil Rights Movement. Its leaders, like Martin Luther King Jr., declared that the struggle for Black equality was not a separate struggle, but tied to labor, tied to poverty, tied to the very promise of democracy. In the same way, McBride echoes this tradition, teaching us that the plight of one group is never isolated. To lift the rights of trans people is to strengthen the whole; to deny them is to imperil the whole. Justice cannot be selective, for once it is withheld from one, it is weakened for all.

Her words, then, are not merely a defense of the marginalized, but a call to vision. They summon us to see the unity of all struggles: that the environment, healthcare, national security, and human dignity are threads of one great garment. To tug at one is to affect the others, and to neglect one is to let the whole unravel. This is ancient wisdom reborn in modern form: that the polis, the community, the nation, is one body, and if one part suffers, all suffer.

The lesson is clear: when you hear of trans issues, do not see them as distant or separate. See them as your own concern, as bound to the air you breathe, the health you cherish, and the safety you seek. Speak not with indifference, but with solidarity. Take action—support inclusive healthcare, demand justice in policy, honor the dignity of every human being, and protect the earth that sustains us all.

For McBride’s words are a reminder that the measure of a society is not how it treats the powerful, but how it treats those at the margins. To build a just future, we must embrace the truth that all struggles are linked, and that by lifting one, we lift all. This is the path of wisdom, the path of courage, and the path that will carry peace and freedom into the generations yet unborn.