Future platforms and plans
An update for yall.
So, I am currently in the progress of migrating my blog onto my own website/newsletter platform. Not sure how long that will take, because I am currently working on a couple of very major projects for my work, which is both exciting and extremely time consuming.
This blog migration will, unfortunately, involve going back through my old posts and shortening them to bring them better into copyright compliance, because I want to work with journalists, good news outlets, and radical/solutions journalism outlets, and there's a big difference between running some random (and initially quite small) tumblr and having your own platform.
(So, if you want any of my old posts on hand for reference, might be best to save them now.)
Future Plans
My current goal is to get Reasons for Hope up and running on its own platform (likely as a roundup newsletter at first, with a much more full site to follow) by January 1, 2026. (Which is not allowed to be coming up so soon!) Though there are some things that might delay that, which, you know, all things in their time, so I'm fine with that possibility potentially being the case.
Currently, the plan is to try to set up any posts on my website/newsletter to automatically post on tumblr.
I know this resource has meant to a lot of people, and running it has meant a lot to me. Though I am moving to another platform and changing my setup, I really do want to try to keep this here for people who want it/need it.
That said, it will likely be all automated, at least for the foreseeable future, because, in my other big update.
Aside from automating reposts here, I'm currently planning on leaving tumblr
So, yeah, in a move I've been considering for a while now for various reasons, there's an extremely high chance I will be quitting tumblr entirely, as I transition Reasons for Hope to my own platform. Because honestly, this is no longer good for my mental health.
I have spent a few months now going back and forth on this decision, and going back and forth on whether I should even say something on here about what drove it, but being on here has not really been good for me for a while now.
And there's a lot of reasons for that, including the way social media is literally built to be addictive/mess with your emotions, and the fact that it really, really sucks to watch members of my community - especially trans women and Black bloggers, and bloggers of color in general - be constantly harassed and banned and deleted and driven off the platform, etc.
However, in full transparency, the biggest factor for me was ultimately this:
Why is the trans discourse on here Like This right now???
So, I'm trans masc (nonbinary, they/them). I've been an out trans activist in many/most parts of my life since 2015, and completely and permanently out since late 2018.
I don't know how or when the dominant in-community trans discourse has switched to (sometimes quite vehemently) denying that trans men and trans mascs ever face any oppression, or that afab people are ever punished for being trans. (Which, to be clear, we do, and we are.)
But I really hate it.
Quite frankly I did not live through the absolute mound of shit I have lived through -- slurs, oppression, catcalling, harassment, stalking, bullying, low scores in competitions, housing discrimination, job discrimination, constant misgendering, healthcare neglect, medical trauma, and attempted SA -- to sit here and be told that being trans masc is rewarded by society.
Yall wanna think that that's true, that's on you, I guess. But it's really, really, really deeply out of touch with the realities of the lives of trans men and trans mascs, to say the least.
(For stats illustrating this, you can search "trans men" in the report for the 2022 US Trans Survey. Full report here. And keep in mind that it's actually much, much easier and more accepted to be trans masc in the US than in the vast majority of countries, even with how much it sucks here right now, so these stats are like. The high water mark. Like, these stats ARE the stats that generally include the most privileged trans men and trans mascs, in a global context. Most countries, it gets worse from there.)
But I'm not all that interested in spending a bunch of time in community with/around people - many of whose opinions I have historically really valued and respected - who now refuse to recognize even the possibility of my lived experiences.
Anyway, protect trans lives, always.
Trans is always beautiful. Always, always, always.
I might be intermittently around on my activism sideblog, directactionforhope, and I like the queue's self-care quotes so I'll try to take an hour or two to set those up for the rest of the year. If I have extra extra spoons, I may make an occasional good news post on here, because despite everything, there really, really is so much good going on right now, too. The horrors are there, yes - but so are the incredibly powerful forces of human love, community, and resistance.
I might get the good news roundup newsletter by itself going sooner, though, in November or December. Depends on if it ends up being a nice and enjoyable break from work, or the opposite.
Anyway, thanks for listening, and I'll see yall soon <3
