i really appreciate this post and the work op put into making it and then further explaining things in the notes, so i want to reassure them that what follows is not a criticism of them personally, but me trying to articulate something iāve seen both here and on fb over the past few days since this anti-trans law was passed in romania.
āI know this isnāt as important as what is currently happening in americaā why not?
usamericans are fully justified in thinking whatās happening there right now is the most important thing in the world, and i stand in solidarity with them. i also recognize that compassion fatigue is a thing, so as bitter as i get sometimes about how little give-and-take there is in spreading that solidarity around, this isnāt the time to be likeĀ āit is Bad bc they refuse to allocate 2.17% of their currently very occupied attention to problems in another country.ā
but why do we impose a hierarchy of disasters on ourselves only to decide the one weāre currently dealing with does not deserve the top spot? why is the systematic dismantling of lgbtq rights in romania, hungary and poland not as important as systemic racism in the us? queer romanians, and especially trans romanians, face discrimination and violence in a legal, social and cultural environment thatās determined to do less to protect them and more to harm them with every passing day. and iām sure the situation is similar in hungary and poland. who gets to say this isnāt as important as whatās happening in the us right now, and why? why is the very real possibility of living under a new dictatorship decades after bringing down an old one not the most important thing right now? in romania the first people who took to the streets in support of the us protests were lgbtq and roma. why are they, to us, not at the very least exactly as important as whatās happening in the us right now?
so far iāve watched romanian lgbtq activists from a distance. next year, thanks to a project iām part of, iāll have the opportunity to get involved directly, and i honestly donāt know how i feel about it. i thought iād be happy, that it would be like a homecoming for someone who traded identity for safety in their teenage and young adult years. but, without taking away from all the good theyāre doing, itās so painfully obvious that most of them are alumni of the american school of queer activism. and iām just. iām fucking tired of that.
iām tired of the āwest gave us our rightsā attitude, which iām now trying to unlearn
tired of having to speak a hybrid language when i talk about my identity bc thereās no word for āqueerā in romanian, ālesbianā doesnāt really cover it, and there are no visible efforts in the community to create our own concepts around these identities
tired of scrolling through community fb pages trying to figure out what is unique about romanian queer culture and finding communist secret police records of arrested gay men and romglish memes, and very little in-between
we stand in solidarity with americans fighting injustice, but at the same time fail to recognize how deeply, deeply colonized our lgbtq culture is. we mistake adopting concepts and politics and cultural trends wholesale for learning from their experiences and applying those lessons to our own reality. and maybe because of that we feel that we have to pay some kind of tribute by sayingĀ āi know this is not as important as whatās happening in americaā
we have to start prioritizing ourselves and our own, and not just when it comes to protesting violence or trying to right injustices retroactively. not after people have been harmed or killed. we have to start prioritizing ourselves and our own now, and in the way we speak about our identities and experiences, and to understand that this can absolutely be done without taking up someone elseās space, because solidarity and compassion are not a zero-sum game.
we have to start acting like thereās a fucking future and it is waiting for us, and we can thrive and be happy there.