imo the best we can all do for each other is provide hope and perspective and energy when we each feel like this. you're right to feel like this. & also, the antidote (on a personal level) is to grab onto community wherever you can get it. it takes so much work but it's the antithesis to what fascism does
^with all the caveats of I'm-not-in-the-US, & I'm sure you know this already, & it's easier said than done. but like I say I think the thing we can do best is keep each other going
@ghostscape yeah that was sort of the point. in the large part, we AREN'T keeping each other going. it's easy to see the big things the american fascists are doing from across the ocean, but it's the small things that are kicking our collective ass right now. small things that don't work into news soundbites...
It's how all the so-called "LGBTQ+ support groups" in my state suddenly became "LGB support groups" once Elon started poking about in people's financial records, how community food banks turn away trans women at the door, how therapists are trying to plant the detransition seed in AMAB trans people's minds...
coupled with the fact that the so-called "trans-safe spaces" online are more interested in policing semantics and conduct of its members than in silencing terfs or doing anything that might actually /help/ AMAB trans people. while trump isn't exactly the cause of all this, he sure has been a catalyst for its spread lately...
Like i said, it isn't your fault for missing these details--you missed them because they're not discussed. trans fem americans are somewhat less important on the news scale than, say, trump wanting to take over canada. that's a big, easy story for bone-idle journalists to waste their attention on so all the small injustices slip by unnoticed.
my main hope re the ongoing wave of fascism everywhere is that more people are (slowly, too slowly) wising up to the need for robust solidarity and tactics that actually work. i really wish you and every transfem a network that's capable of refusing to drop anyone, and i also think that this post and others like it are tremendously important. if nothing else, kick and scream with all you've got
A little late commenting, but I've been feeling similarly for the past 5-6 weeks. I had that same visceral, hypervisible sense of terror when Nex Benedict's death hit the news last year; just felt like all eyes were on me and got so distraught that I had to leave work early. I ended up using a backroad path to my car, where I figured cis people couldn't see me. Those same feelings keep creeping back on and off now.
It's very difficult being open about our fears as trans people right now, since our fear is what fascists crave. How quickly certain institutions/companies/groups have folded like cheap lawnchairs to them is especially upsetting. I also agree that the LGBTQ+ spaces online need to focus far less on the usual intracommunity pettiness. We really need each other now more than ever.
sighh this one hit home it's everything in my head rn too put into words. The change is tangible
imo the best we can all do for each other is provide hope and perspective and energy when we each feel like this. you're right to feel like this. & also, the antidote (on a personal level) is to grab onto community wherever you can get it. it takes so much work but it's the antithesis to what fascism does
^with all the caveats of I'm-not-in-the-US, & I'm sure you know this already, & it's easier said than done. but like I say I think the thing we can do best is keep each other going
@ghostscape yeah that was sort of the point. in the large part, we AREN'T keeping each other going. it's easy to see the big things the american fascists are doing from across the ocean, but it's the small things that are kicking our collective ass right now. small things that don't work into news soundbites...
It's how all the so-called "LGBTQ+ support groups" in my state suddenly became "LGB support groups" once Elon started poking about in people's financial records, how community food banks turn away trans women at the door, how therapists are trying to plant the detransition seed in AMAB trans people's minds...
coupled with the fact that the so-called "trans-safe spaces" online are more interested in policing semantics and conduct of its members than in silencing terfs or doing anything that might actually /help/ AMAB trans people. while trump isn't exactly the cause of all this, he sure has been a catalyst for its spread lately...
Like i said, it isn't your fault for missing these details--you missed them because they're not discussed. trans fem americans are somewhat less important on the news scale than, say, trump wanting to take over canada. that's a big, easy story for bone-idle journalists to waste their attention on so all the small injustices slip by unnoticed.
@badgraph1cs right I see what you mean, thanks for giving me more context. yeah, it's those little details that don't make it over here.
my main hope re the ongoing wave of fascism everywhere is that more people are (slowly, too slowly) wising up to the need for robust solidarity and tactics that actually work. i really wish you and every transfem a network that's capable of refusing to drop anyone, and i also think that this post and others like it are tremendously important. if nothing else, kick and scream with all you've got
A little late commenting, but I've been feeling similarly for the past 5-6 weeks. I had that same visceral, hypervisible sense of terror when Nex Benedict's death hit the news last year; just felt like all eyes were on me and got so distraught that I had to leave work early. I ended up using a backroad path to my car, where I figured cis people couldn't see me. Those same feelings keep creeping back on and off now.
It's very difficult being open about our fears as trans people right now, since our fear is what fascists crave. How quickly certain institutions/companies/groups have folded like cheap lawnchairs to them is especially upsetting. I also agree that the LGBTQ+ spaces online need to focus far less on the usual intracommunity pettiness. We really need each other now more than ever.