Love, Support and Community
We're all in this together
Dear Friends,
We have two months before a Trump administration comes into power. I don’t want to waste time opining about what went wrong or why we’re here—other people can do that better than I, and many of them already have. This is where we are, and it’s relatively urgent that we now focus on what needs to be done in the immediate future.
For those of you who aren’t aware, the Trump team ran a $215 million advertising campaign specifically targeting trans people in the run up to the election, so there is no ambiguity about the position this incoming government takes towards trans people. The threat is real, and we are in a place of clear and imminent danger.
If you don’t know what this means on a practical level, we rely on the support of the government for access to all the things that enable us to live, such as gender affirming medication and medical care, the ability to change our gender markers on official documents, and protection from employment and housing discrimination. Given that the majority of the country has just willingly and knowingly voted for a transphobic president who endorses violence, his plan to rescind legal protections for trans people is particularly concerning. Hate-related crime will almost certainly rise as our legal rights begin to disappear. For trans people who haven’t completed their transitions, or who don’t pass and therefore can’t go stealth, or are under the age of 18, our right to exist—our ability to exist—is now in peril. The Trump administration is going to do everything they can to make our lives as difficult—and dangerous—as possible.
For all the trans people reading this newsletter, please know that however awful this may sound, we are all in it together. We will stand as a community to make sure our most vulnerable members are safe, and we will never stop fighting to protect our rights and our lives. For the friends, parents and allies who subscribe to this newsletter, we are truly grateful for your support. We need you now more than ever.
If you are an ally, the first thing you can do is reach out to any trans person you’re personally acquainted with, to let them know you care. I got an email of support yesterday from a neighbor I don’t know well, and it was incredibly reassuring to know that someone in my immediate vicinity understood how vulnerable I was feeling, and was thoughtful enough to contact me. An email, a voicemail, a text - it doesn’t matter what you say or how you send it, what matters is that you will make a trans person feel seen, supported and a little more safe. These small acts of kindness go a very, very long way.
If you’re trans, you should immediately get to work making sure your gender-markers are up to date. The ability to change your gender on your passport, driving license, birth certificate and social security card will almost certainly be rescinded under the Trump administration, so get it done now. If you’re an ally, offer to help a friend get their papers organized. It can be a lot of work, and a little help goes a long way.
Next, please make sure you’re all getting enough support. I cannot stress enough how important community is going to be over the next four years. If you’re trans, I hope you have a good support network already, but if you’re the parent of a trans kid, or an ally to a trans friend, you’re going to need support too. Please don’t go through this alone. Reach out to your local LGBTQ center, contact PFLAG, look for virtual support groups if you’re in an area or a state where there is little support on the ground. Regular contact with a group of people who understand what you’re going through, and with whom you can speak openly and honestly, will help you stay safe, sane, and in an ideal world, hopeful.
At some stage I hope to get back to writing about book tours and memoir-writing and gender-fuckery, so if you’d like to stay in touch about what’s going on politically, I highly recommend you follow Erin Reed. I’m a narrative non-fiction writer, not a journalist, so I’m not going to be your best source of information for all that stuff. Erin publishes regular, fact-checked, comprehensive updates on trans legislation, along with practical recommendations for actions that can or should be taken, so please subscribe to her newsletter, Erin In The Morning, and follow her on threads. If it’s happening, you’ll hear about it from her first.
Thank you all for reading, and subscribing, and caring. It’s going to be a tough few years, but we are who we are, and however hard they try, they cannot get rid of us. We are only going to become bigger, and louder, and more vocal, and more visible. As Toni Morrison said, “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
With love,
Oliver
If you or anyone in your life needs support, please reach out to the following hotlines:
Trans Lifeline: call 1-877-565-8860
Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: call 988
The Trevor Project (for LGBTQ+ youth): call 1-866-488-7386
PFLAG (for parents and families): visit www.pflag.org
If you are an ally and would like to show your support, please donate to the Transgender Law Center or the ACLU. They are going to need all the help they can get.
