Uncertainty is difficult enough to face on its own. Uncertainty framed by the threats of transphobes and their authoritarian fans is even worse. So much of what we should be able to take as given, from housing to healthcare, has already been threatened, but we don’t yet know where the sword will fall and where. As we cope with this ominous outlook, I’m wary of platitudes that we can survive because we’ve already been through so much. I’ve lived through abuse that no child, no spouse, no person should ever have to know, the inspirations for flashbacks and intrusive thoughts that nip at me almost every day. And I can only even consider the term survival solemnly because of how many of our transgender family should still be here but are not, and how many we will be remembering next year. All transgender people have endured should be enough to make the rest of the world stop and take account of their hateful words and actions. I don’t think that will happen, especially when bigots and zealots take our suffering as a sign they’re winning a cultural war of their own invention. I do not have an answer for how to change that, or a handbook for where we can be safe until we reach the day I know must happen, when we are seen as the lovable and flawed and complicated people we are. But I can share how I feel, hoping that the spark I throw your way will help you make your own flame and keep it close.
Live. Even if it’s only for an hour, a day, a year, a lifetime, live and claim the feeling of inwardly-turned affection that belongs to you alone. Squeeze every drop you can out of the good days and believe in the fact that every bad day still has an ending. You can use all manner of fuel to keep going. Affirmation and trans joy are powerful, but so are spite, rebelliousness, curiosity, and even anger at all time stolen from us. However you do it, by whatever means, give yourself every possible second to keep being and to keep becoming, feeling the ground under your feet even as we walk through a world we can’t trust. Even if we never speak, I want to see you out there.
Discord gives me migraines.
Everything there involves animation. I know there is an accessibility setting to turn off animation, but it it painfully hard to reach because the accessibility settings are themselves full of animation, and then if I turn off animation, it’s still full of animation.
Yeah, we really need a headdesk emoji as well.
Good to see her interviewed on corporate media. Great that she got legitimized and elevated into prominence by the Nobel committee (without that, I doubt MSNBC would have interviewed her).
I’m about half way through this one… so far, so interesting…
Yeah, this is talked about in the biography I read about Primo Levi (which I can’t remember the name of…)… Maybe he talked about it in Drowned and the Saved, too… but he was Italian, and after the fascists came to power, Jewish Italians certainly lived in a kind of second class citizenship, but nothing like what happened in Germany and Eastern Europe. The only reason he ended up in Auschwitz was because he was a partisan who was fighting in northern Italy when the Germans occupied it. He survived because he was young, able-bodied and a chemist. As bad as things got under the Italian fascists for his family, they all lived because they were in Italy and in a part where they were not in the part of Italy that the Germans occupied.
The Thessalonika Jews were entirely wiped out, just to make that point, but in general it’s true.
Wasn’t sure where to put this… but she does get into strategies for fighting the kind of dehumanization certain groups face in the political discourse and whether or not marginalized people are being supported:
Using cash when possible and avoiding retailers rewards programs are also a good idea.
Based on this, I’m expecting to see more useful strategies from Belle:
The upcoming YouTube changes might make it easier for viewers of pro-democracy channels to coordinate their efforts, too. 
Jeebus. Maybe some woman are like me and not loyal to specific stores? I probably go to/buy from non-grocery stores maybe once a year each for each store. I generally don’t buy from Amazon, although my boss loves, loves, loves them and gives us Amazon gift cards for yearly bonus.
There is one store (name escapes me right now) that always asks if we want to sign up for a credit card and we’re always telling them that we’re not loyal and shop there maybe once per year. (“But you can save an additional xx% on today’s purchase of $34!” 
)
Bingo. I also get my Rx from a non-chain pharmacy and I will pay more to buy my CoQ10, generic Zyrtec from him because I know him and he doesn’t sell my data.
Not a strategy, but relevant:
Image reblogged from @astrangergivingthestrangewelcome – @actuallyasisterofbattle on Tumblr