Our president-elect has the usual fascistic fetish of directing public vitriolic attacks onto a vulnerable minority. Along with immigrants and arguably, all women, trans individuals have become his go-to rallying demons. Everything from basic health care to your right to travel is officially under attack, if you are trans.

Personally, we are in the process of making a move, for the express purpose of providing stability and sanctuary to family members who are under attack. We had decided to do this long before the election, in fact it’s been percolating for years. The timing was unplanned. But now the move has a special undertone. 

One of the strange contradictions of the times in which we live is how often one can find oneself at once at a loss for words, and compelled to speak. 

We must not pull back from our neighbors who are under attack. Nor turn away from the carnage that reigns beyond our own riven country: Sudan; Ukraine; Gaza. Especially Gaza, where our bombs are the killing agents. Somehow we have to find the ways to nourish ourselves on good art, good food, good friendships, the comaraderie of trees and wild places and the animal world; to keep strength, to walk forward facing what is real, offering solace or raising our voices when we can. Bearing witness, always.

The urge to flee danger, to turn away from chaos, comes from our deepest instinct for survival. But so does the love we hold for one another and this gorgeous planet, in all our ravishingly beautiful diversity. That love is the only core, the center place, from which we can move forward in this storm. 

It always has been. 

In solidarity, with love for our community,

sammy

Image courtesy of Anne Marie Champagne