

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

A Somber Note

Hi all,

Listen, I'm still here, and I'm still writing. Liberals here in the U.S. obviously had a rough night last night and we're all pretty shocked and upset this morning. I'm going to lose my health care and probably any chance to write full time. I might lose both my other jobs too.

And I'll be getting off light. I'm a cis het white guy.

My friends who are LGBTQIA+, people of color, disabled, folks who have survived sexual assault, folks otherwise on the margins....they're terrified. And rightly so. We now have a literal fascist and a bigot and a braggadocios sex offender in the White House.

Shit just got real for anyone who's not a cis het white guy.

Sure, Trump basically campaigned on destroying our alliances, treating global warming like it's a scam, being cool with letting our nation's credit rating drop a few letters, and millions of us (not just me) are about to lose heath care, so shit's real for everyone, but shit just got life-threateningly dangerous to folks on the margins of our social hierarchy. I already have friends who have decided not to transition or come out. Intersex folks are contemplating suicide now rather than live in a society that hates them and watching their friends die one by one. I already have loved ones who are not white looking for an escape hatch, and immigrant friends who are literally already NOAPing out. Though admittedly a complicated relationship, my family consists of a non-citizen, a woman of color, and a mixed race child. The campaign promise of walls and registries and electrocuting the gay out of children will be plenty of ground cover to embolden the worst parts of humanity. Hate crimes are going to skyrocket now that white nationalism has essentially just won a legitimate election, and the state might be officially involved in some of those hate crimes within a few months.

Maybe tomorrow or the next day, I will put myself back together. I will look at what's left and soldier on. I will write all the harder.

I will not be moving to Canada. I will not be giving up. I will not fold into my privilege. And I surely will not be silent.

There's a little dude who needs me to fight because I promised him I'd do everything I could to give him a world where he could be whoever he was and love whoever he loved.

Anyway, it didn't quite seem like the time to drop a listicle about making your characters pop or letting you all know my Patreon is going up soon.


  1. I don't know what Trump has to do with Intersex people, but Grade A virtue signaling here.

    1. I would be happy to tell you, but given that you think awareness of social privilege is virtue signaling, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be time well spent.

    2. I wasn't referring to your acknowledgement of social privilege, though for a lot of people this whole way of speaking is virtue signaling. If I referred to my family the way you did, it would make me feel like I was using them as a tool by using them to make a political point. Of course, this is the internet so I have to read into your intentions and tone. I admit I could be missing something.

      Can you please explain to me what Trump said about intersex people? Because if you can't tell me, I am going to assume that you just threw that in there to show off how much you know about different marginalized groups. But then again, this is the internet. I'm sure there is a lot to you as a person that is valuable and good, but this manner of speaking doesn't reflect that.

    3. I hate to suggest that you didn't read the post, but I never said anything about Trump AND intersex folks. I was literally talking about folks I know and their immediate reaction to the election. I suspect though that naming a VP who has one of the most terrifying LGBTQIA+ voting records ever might have something to do with it.