"Nobody can take away from you who you are."
On trying to cope and not waiting for permission
I’m dusting off this newsletter to share some post-election thoughts because, like every writer with a newsletter, this is my way of processing—whether anyone actually cares to read it or not.
And there is a lot to process. How we got here, why we got here, how dangerous life will become or continue to be for so many people in our country.
Personally, I am now facing the possibility of losing access to the medical treatment I’ve been on for almost ten years; being sued or arrested for using the restroom; generally being imprisoned on the basis of my identity (and potentially more specifically for the content I have publicly produced over the years); losing access to reproductive rights and healthcare; losing the rights to marriage or having kids; no longer being protected from discrimination in employment and housing; and generally existing in a heightened environment of anti-trans hate.
I should say that, particularly as to that last point, I’m sitting near the peak of privilege mountain as a white, able-bodied typically cis-read trans guy. But the fact that even someone with as much privilege as me could face so many rights and protections being stripped away should tell you how absolutely fucking dire the situation is for those more vulnerable than me. Unfortunately for a lot of those folks, this is nothing new. They have been fighting this fight the whole time. And somehow they find a way to keep going. Which is exactly what I am trying to find a way to do, in part by looking to them for coping strategies.
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My brain has been a firestorm of worried philosophizing and strategizing since Tuesday night, all mostly fruitless. As my Co-star horoscope said today, “your body is attempting to metabolize this new reality.” I’m not really a horoscope person, but I’m amused by the fortune cookie-like daily notifications, and this one felt right on the money. I’m still metabolizing. I don’t have answers yet.
That said, there has been one strong memory clunking around my skull the past few days and it comes from someone who has been around this block before and literally written the book on it: historian Susan Stryker.
Two summers ago in San Francisco, she spoke at a tribute to the life of groundbreaking photographer Loren Rex Cameron.
Some of Cameron’s most well-known and powerful work was portraits of trans men, including of himself. Many of the portraits were nudes and, whether in exhibitions or in his 1996 book Body Alchemy, for many trans men, it was the first time they ever saw bodies like their own.
It’s difficult to overstate the impact Cameron had on the lives of a generation of trans men and transmasculine people. He began sharing his photographic work at a time when “representation” of trans men, specifically, meant a shock-and-awe story on daytime television once every couple of years.
That lack of mainstream representation, and lack of institutional support, formed the bulk of a panel discussion that took place at the end of the tribute service. In particular, Stryker and the other panelists reflected on what their experiences in the 80s and 90s might teach us now.
Stryker said this,
“…the thing that I hear from younger trans people is that there is a lot of fear, there’s a lot of anger, there’s a lot of anxiety, all understandable. But I also see a generation of people who at some level expect the law to be on their side, right? And that they’re asking for protection. And the thing that I feel like I wanna say as like an old fart is that it’s like, I remember back in my day we didn’t have any legal protection for anything. And we survived, you know? And here we are. It’s like, it’s great when the law’s on your side, and if it’s not, it’s not. And you are absolutely entitled to live your life and take your next breath and take up space in public. And nobody, nobody can take away from you who you are. You don’t have to be recognized by somebody to be who you are. You are who you are to yourself and in your community. And if the state is not on your side, it’s like, fuck the state… I feel like from back in the day… all the AIDS activism and anti-war activism, it’s just like… you make a space to have your life. And that is the thing that we who are older need to really communicate to the youngins. It’s just like, fight, you know? Just like insist on being and let the chips fall where they may.
This perspective stuck with me at the time because I had recently returned from the biannual Moving Trans History Forward conference, which had concluded with a panel made up of trans high schoolers. That there could even be a whole panel of high school-aged trans kids from the same general area, that they were there as part of an organization that had specific trans programming, was evidence enough of some kind of progress that has been made over the last decade or so. There are enough resources out there now for trans kids to find the language to describe their feelings at a much younger age. There are enough welcoming adults now for more kids to feel like they can come out in at least some spheres of their lives.
Yet at the same time, these kids—somberly, righteously—talked about not having access to gender neutral bathrooms at their schools and about being barred from single-gender extracurriculars that aligned with their affirmed gender. And I remember thinking that they were stuck in a really tough position: parts of society had progressed enough for them to figure out who they are and begin living openly at a young age, but the more institutional parts of society had not progressed enough for them to experience the equal opportunities or protections of their cis peers. They were also living under the microscope of the increased anti-trans sentiment that has grown in lockstep with increased awareness of trans people.
I left that panel feeling a lot of frustrated sympathy for trans youth and, while I continue to feel that, Stryker’s comments steered me toward another angle: yes, there are going to be many ways that institutions will prevent you from achieving your goals or even the safety we all deserve. At the same time, we can’t wait for those institutions to give us some official stamp of approval before we start living our lives.
We have to be able to find joy, community, affirmation, and meaning in our lives outside of institutions that are, at best, unreliable, and at worst, actively seeking to harm us.
It is not an easy thing to do. It is not always a happy thing to accept. But it has helped me to reframe the election results in this way. I don’t know how bad it’s going to get. I don’t know how much of life as I currently know it will be taken away from me. But I do know that I have to at least try to find my own sense of power and beams of light through the darkness.
Maybe that’s leaning into mutual aid, holding my loved ones closer, appreciating the wonder of blades of grass and the distant cosmos. Maybe it’s continuing to tell stories, even when doing so feels scary, because I know that, when it’s most scary, is probably when it’s most important.
Like Loren Rex Cameron did. At a time when trans people had almost zero legal protections, he dared to document what our bodies and our lives looked like. In doing so, he left a legacy that continues to grow and found a community—a community made up of many people who are still fighting together today.
So that’s the hope I’m holding onto today. Not the hope that the incoming administration will be too incompetent to take away my rights, but rather the hope that, no matter what happens, we will all continue to show up for one another and find ways to laugh, to love, to make art, and to simply be there for one another. 1
Some Recommendations
The speaking bureau I’m a part of has relaunched their longtime reFRESH newsletter on Substack (subscribe here: The reFRESH) and also launched a podcast called The Green Room. Both showcase the work of a diverse roster of thought leaders and also provide insight into the craft of public speaking, writing, and more. I spent most of the previous Trump administration as the lead writer on an earlier iteration of the reFRESH newsletter. It helped me remain clear-eyed and aware through the chaos. It kept me connected to voices I needed to be listening to that might not have otherwise cut through my algorithms. I can’t recommend FRESH and its orbit of speakers enough.
My friend Ahsante Bean just launched a new video essay series on democracy. It’s meticulously researched, accessibly presented, and honestly a refresher course that I think we could all use right now.
After requesting On Tyranny from my local library and dusting off my copy of 1984, the first thing I read on Wednesday morning was the final chapter in one of my favorite books, Shakespeare in a Divided America. Written in the wake of the first Trump election by Columbia University professor James Shapiro, the book traces the influence of Shakespeare on American culture and politics from pre-Civil War to MAGA-pilled outrage campaigns. You can read an excerpt of the latter here, but I highly recommend checking out the book at least for the final chapter even if you’re not a Shakespeare buff. It’s unfortunately still incredibly relevant. And this point is still ringing in my ears:
“In the early years of the seventeenth century, playgoers from all walks of life crammed the Globe Theatre, turning to the plays of Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists to understand their fast-changing and unsettling world. A few decades later that great experiment came to an end. The divisions had grown too great. Few of those attending a performance of Julius Caesar back then could have predicted that the fault lines in their political culture would lead to civil war and the public beheading of their ruler. In 1642 Parliament declared that “public stage-plays shall cease,” and the Globe, along with London’s other theaters, was closed, then torn down.”
What I’ve Been Up To
I moved! After fourteen years in NYC, I decided to start fresh in Western Massachusetts.2 I picked this area because there are three things it is best known for and they are three of my favorite things: farms, colleges, and queer people. Honestly, what more could you possibly need? On my first trip to the local library, I was asked if I wanted to adopt a baby chick that was hatching in the children’s section. After a lecture on women in science at UMass, a professor/horse farm owner told me I have to talk to her wife for advice on growing pumpkins (a dream of mine). Suffice to say, life has been pretty good here so far.
If you want to hear all about why I moved and how taking that plunge reminded me a lot of coming out and transitioning a decade ago, I made this video. It’s a self-indulgent vlog about moving. But it's also about transitioning, and the big changes we all dare to make in our lives. I also spent a literal year working on it so please watch it and share it with anyone you think will like it.
I’ve been trying to post more short-form content this year to appease the algorithms. This goal has gone slightly better than my goal to write more issues of this newsletter. Here’s a round-up of some faves I’ve posted this year:
The unexpected hobby I took up after the podcast ended (Instagram version)
This top-recommended Halloween destination is also one of my favorites to visit for Christmas (Instagram version)
A fun way to track the books you read in a year (Instagram version)
A 2-for-1 Ghostbusters travel recommendation (Instagram version)
Everything I said here is all well and good in concept, but these are dark times. If you’re feeling defeated or need someone to talk to, you can call or text 988 in the US for the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline. Trans and queer-focused hotlines and chats are listed here: pflag.org/resource/support-hotlines
I teased this move publicly a few times, including the last issue of this newsletter! Which was, gulp, almost a year ago.
Jackson, your words are always a balm for the soul and today exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you.