On Mass Shootings and Trans Safety

TW: Gun violence, mass shooting, anti-trans violence.

It’s the 27th of March, and the United States has had 130 mass shootings. All those shootings barely stayed in the news cycle for 72 hours. All but today’s mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. Why?

Because for the only time in the history of the United States actively cataloging mass shooting numbers, the shooter was a member of a marginalized community facing a constant and persistent danger to their existence.

The shooter was trans.

The shooter was trans in a country deadset on harming trans communities, dehumanizing trans folx, and making a concerted effort to strip trans folx of human rights on every level conceivable.

The shooter was trans in a country looking for any opportunity to vilify trans folx to pursue an agenda of erasure through cisgender-driven transphobic hatred.

Because of this, you can guarantee that half of this country’s news cycle will be dedicated to that agenda.

Sadly, as is the custom in the United States, those who lost their lives in this tragedy will be an afterthought in the aftermath of their lives being taken by bullets from assault rifles. But their lives will be further diminished by a country full of hateful policymakers running with a new rung on the ladder of the narrative that trans folx are a danger to the populace and a threat to our children. These narratives will do nothing but increase the risk of harm or death to children, trans children, and trans adults at the hands of hateful sheep looking to justify their hate.

And all because, for one time in the history of the United States, a mass shooter wasn’t a cishet male.

Now trans communities will suffer, the families of those who lost their lives will suffer, and both parties will be pitted against one another in the news cycle with the intent of further endangering trans lives. And the United States will be no closer to addressing gun violence, protecting our children from real threats to their safety, or ensuring our country isn’t steeped in anti-trans hate.

And all of this enhanced trauma at the start of Trans Week of Visibility.

To those of you reading this who aren’t trans: get informed and involved. Visit the Trans Week of Visibility website to get informed and learn how to help. Find initiatives in your city, region, and state. Check the people in your life who are OK with the ongoing threats to trans folx. And do what you can to protect the trans people in your life.

To all my trans friends, family, and colleagues: I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this constant freight train of harm. You’re not alone. Please reach out to me if you need anything. We’ll figure out how to do our best to protect you and yours.

Sending you love and energy.

On White Women, Handmaids, and (Maybe) Stepping Up

As we end June 2022 and wind down Pride Month and Juneteenth celebrations, we walk away from a month of tumult with a hazy horizon in front of us. I’ve seen a lot of joy and pride in embracing oneself and celebrating culture and perseverance in the face of hate and oppression.

That joy and pride conflicted with the hard-to-miss fact that the United States is trending toward becoming more dangerous and harmful to most of its citizenry than it already is.

As Roe v. Wade was overturned, as the religious right began its long-gestating power play to obliterate the line between church and state, I’ve seen many white people shocked at what’s happening around them. Many white women are suddenly distraught at the future ahead of us if the citizenry doesn’t collectively stand up and fight for rights and safety. Bodily autonomy is officially on the chopping block, and the future of women’s rights and reproductive health looks a little murky. I’ve seen many white women with tears in their eyes, sharing their stories of needing reproductive health access and saying their eyes are now open. They’re proclaiming they’re ready to stand up and fight on every social media platform they can find. Because I’m human, I can feel for those white women and their fear and anxiety, at least a little bit. But as a Black man in the United States?

They can miss me with their shock.

And they can Matrix miss me with those tears.

In the 2020 election, among White women, according to NBC News, 43 percent supported Biden, and 55 percent supported Trump. There was little meaningful change from 2016 when the same exit poll showed that 43 percent of White women supported Clinton and 52 percent supported Trump. Other significant polling data found the same or similar percentages, give or take a couple of percentage points.

You can miss me with those tears, white women.

More white women are in the U.S. House and Senate than at any point in United States history. They are primarily Republican, and a sizable portion of them are Christian conservatives. Those who are Democrats are mostly moderate or centrist in their voting habits. And most of them have voting records that set the stage for everything we’ve seen over the past week by supporting and enabling white supremacist and oppressive policies, bills, and laws.

On top of all those mentioned above, Black women and Black, Brown, and Indigenous movements have warned white women of the dangers of aligning with white supremacist patriarchal values since before the Women’s suffrage movement. We’ve stressed the need for understanding the intersectional impacts of siding with whiteness and white Christian dogma over the unethical and hateful treatment of women and people with uteruses in the United States.

You can miss me with those tears.

You have nothing to be shocked about, white women. What are you shocked about? That the safety you thought you had by aligning yourself with white patriarchal nonsense doesn’t exist? You thought they were only coming after the “colored women?” You thought these repeals and Supreme Court decisions would skip you as a white woman and oppress everyone else?

That’s a dangerous game to play, white women.

But you already knew that, and many of you played it anyway.

You played the game, lost, and now it’s time to do more than cry. Mourn a little. Mourn the loss of your conscious obliviousness. Feel the weight of the moment. Begin processing the trauma and anxiety of it all.

Then step your asses up to the plate and fight for EVERYONE. Not just for white women. Not just for white people with uteruses.

For ALL people with uteruses.

For ALL women.

Are you going to step up now? Or will you keep comparing the current state of things to the Handmaid’s Tale and posting your personal stories for sympathy while levying microaggressions toward Black women who aren’t coddling you now?

If I shake my Magic 8-Ball, something tells me all signs will point to no.

How about you prove me wrong?