“A tonic for living on this earth in the winters of this climate” ~ Adrienne Rich
Who wants to be judged by the worst thing said about them online or in the media?
When I reflect on the coordinated attacks on my fellow trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive people, I can easily slide into despair, grief, and exhaustion. People who don’t know us have created terrifying rhetoric about who we are, designed to turn our fellow citizens against us.
These attacks are painful and devastating not only for the loss of legal protections, access to health care, and freedom from violence but for how they are designed to sever us from our futures.
Individual futures where we can simply live our lives. Collective futures where our many experiences and expressions of gender are valued, respected, and cherished.
On a particularly tough night, when the Florida governor used the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia to sign noxious new bills into law, a good friend saw my despair and suggested a 24-hour media hold. When I pushed back, she raised the bar to 48 hours. I begrudgingly took her advice.
I spent those hours around people who love and care for me. I slept and ate well. I meditated to touch into the grounding of the earth and the spaciousness of this as only one moment in the vast expanse of time. I played hockey because, from the minute I step on the ice, my mind is present only on the game.
I’m all too aware that attacks on fundamental human rights — access to food, shelter, human connection, and inclusive sports leagues — are targeted to take away our humanity and rob us of our joy.
Without joy, we are robbed of our resilience.
Without joy, we cannot resist the insidious narratives that tell us we are less-than.
Without joy, we cannot fight.
I did not come out as transgender until I was in my 40s because I did not see a future for myself. I was a trans kid, and I somehow lived to become an out trans adult. I think of the transcestors whose existence, joy, and resistance made my future possible.
I dream of the day when trans futures are common and ordinary, and I dedicate my work to making that possible. That means staying informed of the worst things said about us but dwelling in and among narratives of our dignity, worthiness, and futures full of possibilities.
