“They’re going to bury you three feet deep, because you’ve only ever been half a man” sounds like a raw ass line from Shakespeare or something buts actually from me yelling at my cat for stealing my sandwich while I was getting a drink.
Bro got posessed by the spirit of a king who’d been betrayed by his eunuch advisor.
you’re allowed to say “sex” on the internet. See? I just did it. Sex. Sex sex sex. You don’t have to say s*x or smex or Adult Fun Times or s3x or “spice” any other variation of self-censorship on tumblr dot com you can just spell out the word SEX i am going to scream until the heat death of the universe
The next few weeks are going to be hard for many of us in the US. The new regime is going to come out of the gate in full attack mode. The LGBTQ community, people of color, immigrants, women, the poor and even our (already broken) health industry are going to be targeted.
This is an attempt to exhaust us with a game of civil rights whack-a-mole, and there is no doubt that some of us are going to feel absolutely wrecked every time we look at the news.
Here is my advice on surviving the next four years
Limit your exposure to the news, it’s fine to check the headlines, but
Order a big roll of postcard stamps from the USPS and buy some cheap, blank, postcards.
Sending physical mail can be more effective than signing online petitions, and it has the added benefit of getting you away from the computer. I personally prefer writing postcards because it feels more like I am taking tangible, physical action.
If you are especially organized, you can pre-print address labels for your representatives. I am 100% not that organized.
Most importantly, don’t fall into despair. You are not alone in this, there are millions of us out here who want to see a kinder world.
We’ve got your back.
adding jews to this list bc antisemitism is a problem across the political spectrum, meaning the trump crowd will likely be targeting jews as the reason for xyz minority existing, and progressives will likely be going with the usual “this is the fault of (((the shadowy cabal of zionists controlling our government)))” so just. keep jews in mind too, please. and be intentional about the rhetoric you use.
In elementary school, the first and only time I heard about trans people existing was a rumor about Lady Gaga. The first movie I saw with any kind of trans character was Ace Ventura, which my dad paused and preemptively explained, in serious tones; not because the transmisogyny might be upsetting, but because the existence of trans people was such an adult and taboo topic for us to be introduced to.
But things got better- were getting better, slowly. A guy in the grade below me in high school was the first openly trans person at my school. There were a few openly gay/lesbian couples at every school dance, something kids even a few grades above me said hadn’t happened for fear of backlash. TV and movies, even kind of shitty primetime ones, were adding lgbt+ characters to their lineups.
Gay marriage was legalized in June of 2015. I remember walking to get frozen custard with my friends, and feeling an infectious joy: that everything was getting better.
I graduated high school in 2016.
Everything that year felt like a slide backwards into hatred. Increasingly fascistic rhetoric from the Republican candidates had crystallized into a bid for Donald Trump to run for president. The Pulse nightclub shooting happened that June; I remember crying for days, going to a vigil with my sister. We lied and told our parents we were going to the movies. Each car that passed made everyone at the vigil tense and relax – we’d already seen the news about the bomb threats, the foiled copycats.
I had just entered my first year of college, bought my first binder. Offered she/they pronouns in one class. Gotten to vote for the first time.
Trump won. Anti-immigrant and anti-queer and anti-BLM posters were slathered over campus the next day.
I remember feeling broken, the whole week after. Crying in the tiny LGBTQIA+ club room with a bunch of other dead-eyed queer kids. We spent every moment not in class huddled together like penguins, basking in the meager solace of all being equally scared.
We fought. We made social groups and organizations. We protested. We signed classmates up to vote. The microphone set up for national coming out day the following year saw lines of people waiting to tell the world who they were, in spite of it all. We got gender-neutral bathrooms designated in every building. We kept trying.
Social change comes in waves- 2 steps forward, 1.9 steps back. It feels awful and horrifying to see the backpeddle, especially when you’re just coming of age after a period when all you can really properly remember is the steps forward. I know; I entered the world at a similar moment.
I don’t want to retell my whole life story, so I’ll end on this. After I graduated, Fall of 2019 I went down to Tennessee and worked at Cracker Barrel HQ for a while. They have a pride affinity group. One of the company leaders was an openly gay man old enough to be my grandpa. The world after that went to shit in other ways, but sometimes I sit and stare at my tacky CB-logoed rainbow flag and pride glows inside me. Pride that we have made it so far, so fast; that what was unmentionable 40 years ago and mockable 20 years ago is normal enough to be blandly included today. I am asking you to believe that we are still stepping forward. I am asking you to keep being you – as quietly as you want to, as loudly as you can.
Love is an observable force, evil is an illness to be cured, light will pour from the sun long after we need it, I have a gun and I swear to GOD I’m not fucking around
As we see a barrage of evil executive orders come in, they are not immediately enforceable and will takes months or years to implement.
That’s still not great, but don’t let these pile up to the point of hopelessness. Take a breath, and look community leaders who will fight it every step of the way.
Reminder that when Trump was in office before a LOT of his orders got overturned or held up in lower courts for long enough that they became irrelevant. It also does not mean they WILL be enforced. Stand with your community where you can. The fight is not over. Do not obey in advance.
Last sentence above is the most important. Tyranny requires people to shut up and fall in line. Do not obey in advance.
One time I saw this New Yorker cartoon with a piece of penne pasta answering the phone and saying, “Fusilli, you crazy bastard! How are you?” and now I cannot cook fusilli without thinking you crazy bastard
i’m gonna talk about this not for sympathy or to trauma dump on main but because i want society to get more comfortable with conversations about sexual violence. we can’t fix a problem we won’t talk about.
my rapist was my boyfriend. he was popular, talented, smart, and generally well liked. he was a gentleman and treated me so well. at school we were something of an “it” couple (listen, i went to art school, there weren’t a lot of people to begin with). he was the last person you would suspect to be a rapist.
and then he was. he didn’t threaten me or drug me, he just didn’t hear the word “no”. that’s all it takes. perfectly nice guys don’t hear the word “no”. you cannot tell someone is or will be a rapist by looking at them or talking to them or being their friend or dating them. the only way to know if someone is a rapist is to know if they’ve raped someone.
you didn’t “know the whole time”. you didn’t “get a weird vibe”. there were no signs, no clues, no foreshadowing. you didn’t know and neither did I. you are not wiser than the victims.
anyone can be a rapist, so stop acting like you can pick them out of a crowd.
amhrancas 