As part of the trans community in Canada it’s devastating watching our American kinfolk suffer. Because of the Safe Third Country Agreement American citizens cannot claim refugee status here. I have been writing to every politician I can to try and punch out an exception. The minute I can I am opening up my home to as many folk as I can.
I feel validated in an opinion I have had for ages : that in all the talk about 2nd Amendment rights Americans do guns are nothing but a security blanket they clutch to make them feel like Democracy will be saved or be maintained as long as they clutch their emotional support weapon. They will watch rights be stripped from them, their neighbours carted off in wagons and none of them will shoot even if they have the weapon on their person while this is happening. They will protest, they will write and verbalize their dissent and they will appeal to authority and band together democratically but the ownership of the weapons themselves are useless. Realistically if someone from the government comes for them they will likely go quietly because no one is coming to save them. At that point it’s basically over. The system is too big to fight.
The real resistance is in numbers not armaments. It doesn’t matter what you are wielding if you have solidarity and organization and the bravery to misbehave. Resistance can be in attacking the gears that make things run by not doing your job or doing it poorly. Refusing to comply in a multitude of ways like sending things to the wrong place or making ‘mistakes’ that cost time and effort to fix. A government can only force compliance so much and at the end of the day runs on good faith. Guns are a distraction to jingle in your face so you stay isolated. Building walls between you and other humans with dreams you will defend your own little fort against the tides of tyranny.
Sad part is it doesn’t matter if they retract the news statement people are already thinking the guy is some kind of trans avenger or something. The trans people are enemies part gets screamed. The “it was a mormon cis guy who has the parlance of the average 22 year old internet troll” gets whispered real quiet.
Why is the assumption by these people that there is a sexual component required in the explanation? Age appropriate explanations are easy.
“Know how some families have one mommy and one daddy? Some families have two mommies or two daddies instead.”
If the kids ask about the actual mechanics of procreation they are old enough to hear something like:
“Some couples adopt or they find someone to have a baby with who helps them make a family.”
Was there any need to mention surrogacy or donors? No. Kids don’t need to oversexualize queer people. Adults don’t need to over sexualize queer people! When people are sheltered from our existence until they are in their early teens they tend to think of gay couples as explicitly just sexual relationships rather than romantic or family building ones that are as dynamic as straight relationships because they were introduced to them as a sexual mechanics first kind of way. It’s dehumanizing.
Really not looking forward to a repeat of the time of the Hogwarts Legacy game. Online Trans spaces were being brigaded with every reveiw or JKR tweet and comment sections filled unchallenged with tacit endorsements after the trans voices fell silent because we were all just hoping the abuse would stop. That the HP targeted adds and their companion transphobic political adds riding on the wake of the high on queer creators would dry up. The media, the platforms the people coming into places proclaiming they are gunna buy multiple copies of the game to show us what is what. The suicidal ideation of our most vulnerable friends as they deal with feelings of being targeted and feelings of being unwanted or ignored by the world…
Most people not caring might not be “valid” but it will feel like the truth again.
Okay. Can we take a minute to just acknowledge that this comment has a little neurotypical ableism and regional bias? Some people literally need more context than others do to understand the tone of a text. Just because you do not need that assistance with context clues in play doesn’t mean everyone also doesn’t need that.
Kindness and extending a little help costs us so little.