#midwestern queers

[thatstormygeek]

Being nonbinary is years of watching trans discourse about trans men and trans women and how their experiences define the trans community while being shut out of the story because you aren't "really trans" (yes, I'm old enough to remember when a not insignificant percentage of the trans "community" argued that nonbinary people didn't fit under the trans umbrella), only to suddenly get the script flipped and now be viewed as the "privileged" category of trans people that society caters to while still actively oppressing the "real" trans community (which, depending on who you're talking to, is only trans women or may also include trans men).

Meanwhile, the vast majority of (cis and binary trans) folks only remember us when they want to make us a punchline.

[thatstormygeek]

It's currently raining. When I woke up a couple hours ago, one of my neighbors was mowing. These people are freaks about their yards. Which is why I have such a love/hate relationship with my dandelions.

I'm a mentally ill, neurodivergent nonbinary bisexual atheist who grew up in Kansas and lives in Missouri. I survive by being invisible.

My dandelions make me visible. Very visible.

My central Missouri forest farmer friend came to visit and she was enraptured by my dandelions. She keeps talking about digging roots out of my yard because she wants dandelions at home. And she was cracking up at the way my yard was full of yellow while my neighbors are all just carpets of solid green. The guy across the street gets attacked by dandelions from me and his next door neighbor and there is almost a ruler-straight line between his yard and theirs. I joke that his lawn service should use his yard as advertising.

The yellow flowers I can handle. It's the big swinging dicks that follow that have me hunching my shoulders and keeping my head down as I walk my dogs. They draw attention that I don't need or want. My neighbors have called the authorities on me more than once for existing in a way they don't like.

But I'm not poisoning my yard for fucking aesthetics.

[thatstormygeek]

I'm not out here shooting people.

I'm not out here advocating for people to shoot other people.

So I don't feel a strong urge to go into performative paroxysms of hand-wringing when some dude who decided to spend his entire adult life making the world meaner and more violent gets popped.

Should it happen? Well, no. In an ideal world, nobody would be getting shot. But since we live in this one, there are a hell of a lot of things I'm much more concerned about than the co-founder of TPUSA reaping what he sowed.

[thatstormygeek]

I think going forward it will be important to define what is meant by a "free" country.

The US has gotten away with a LOT of shit by touting itself as a "free" nation without ever really defining what that means.

And a lot of nations are letting themselves off the hook for their collaboration with the ruse.

Because if the US was willing to do all the ugly shit they didn't want to be seen doing, they could reap the benefits while heaping scorn on the actors.

At the most obvious level, I don't believe a nation should be allowed to call itself "free" if it practices chattel slavery. So that was a giant, flaming issue from the very beginning.

England practiced chattel slavery, too. But people at home didn't think it was exactly the thing. So they banned it...while keeping the practice going strong in their colonies. Which allowed the people at home to ignore the bad shit going down in their name.

Sounds familiar....

Not once, in the entire history of this nation, has every citizen of the United States held all of the same rights and privileges as every other citizen.

That doesn't sound much like a free country.

That sounds like the same old shit hiding under a thick layer of "freedom" propaganda.

White supremacy has tilted every facet of this country since its founding. As has misogyny.

At its most basic level, the US is built on racism and sexism.

A truly free nation would not have multiple classes of marginalized people who are expected to constantly petition the government for their rights. That's our big freedom in the US - to beg our elected officials not to add more discrimination against us. And we have to work jobs to pay their salaries while we are expected to spend our "free" time pleading with legislators to give a shit.

I'm not the first or only person saying this by far, but the entire "freedom" line was and is bullshit and has been so since day one.

When the job of your lawmakers is to meet for a couple of months before going on vacation while the job of your citizens is to call, knock doors, petition, vote, write, call, email, protest, call, vote...something is seriously out of whack.

[thatstormygeek]

“I think it’s important for the average citizen to realize that laws only work when there is enforcement behind them,” she said.

It’s a maneuver that has shocked many in the disability rights community. Those who spoke with Stateline said they have not received answers from public officials about why the states are still pursuing the lawsuit after the Trump administration removed federal protections for gender dysphoria.

Ah. I'm going to try to explain this without getting too far into the social-justice weeds here:

it's because bigots are bigots

hope that helps.

This is the selfish argument for solidarity. It doesn't just help other people. If the disability community is already standing with the trans community (and vice versa), then neither community is "next" after one is attacked because they are already fighting together. If anti-racism activists and disability justice activists are already standing shoulder-to-shoulder, there's no place for an organization such as, say, the BBC, to lever in a wedge and pit marginalized people against one another.

How a legal challenge over gender dysphoria became a fight for disability rights • Missouri Independent

A group of Republican-led states is pushing a lawsuit that could weaken a key federal disability rights protection.

Solidarity requires recognizing that you are not the most important person in the world, however, and a willingness to get the fuck over yourself. So. Yano.

[thatstormygeek]

You must be anti-racist.

It's crucial work. For all of us.

But.

It's not enough to just be anti-racist. It's important to continue rooting out the other bigotry you've internalized from living in a kyriarchy.

[thatstormygeek]

It's super fun to read articles about the SAVE act and wonder if they'll even mention the trans community. The community that famously had our passports fucked with at the beginning of this administration. The community that has extra hoops to jump through for documentation in general. The community for which states have been on a spree to roll back rights and invalidate birth certificates.

Good thing this community doesn't need to be mentioned as one of those most impacted by this legislation.

[thatstormygeek]

Look, atheists are a religious minority because we are marginalized along the axis of faith/religion/belief/whatever you want to call it. Kinda like how nonbinary people who exist outside of the male-female spectrum are still marginalized on the basis of their gender identity. Or like how asexual and aromantic folks are marginalized on the basis of their sexual orientation (compounded by the fact that we still don't separate sexual and romantic orientations in society). Lack* of X doesn't mean the entire societal apparatus built around X ceases to impact you.

*-oversimplified