We had questions about showers and bathrooms. We had questions about shelters and services. We had questions about bars and nightclubs. We had questions about jails and detention. We had questions about ponds and spas.
Had questions about self identification. Had questions about name changes. Had questions about legal gender. Had questions about travel docs.
Questions about hormones. Questions about blockers. Questions about surgery.
About universities. About libraries.
We had questions. We had to do something. And now that space is blank.
Have you ever said this? If you have, I want you to rethink. You probably think you’re a decent person (and you probably are!), but you are being rude by saying this. Huh, you might ask?
I see pictures of a protest. It can be about just about anyone’s rights, maybe nothing that directly addresses trans rights, and in the street and there are dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people. But what draws my attention isn’t the crowd size. It is who is at the front: more often than not, trans folk will be among the vanguard of the protest. These trans folk know how trans folks are treated by police and the criminal justice system. Yet they are the ones in front. It is time for others to step up for us.
I am autistic. I’ve always been autistic, and I always will be autistic. Autism is part of who I am, just as my sense of humor and my emotions are part of me. I like who I am, even my autistic part.
You see, autism isn’t an awful condition. I’m not condemned to an “un-natural life.” Yet, I have lived a life with pain, fear, and confusion. Pain because of your cold heart. Fear because of my past, and because of my future in a your world, which can’t tolerate uniqueness. Confusion because of my ways of interpreting your world and because of the deceit, lies, and apathy in it.
It was the last day of elementary school, and I was in the principal’s office. Was I not going to be allowed to graduate elementary school?
An award I never won
But lets take a step back, and see how I got there. When I went to school, elementary students would do the “Presidential Physical Fitness Test”. It involved things like pull ups (for people assumed to be boys; for people assumed to be girls, it was a flexed arm hang), sit-and-reach, shuttle run, sit-ups, and 600m run/walk. For each age, there was a standard that if you met, you would get some sort of award. I wouldn’t know much about that.
We need to eat. This article is for people that are finding that hard. I’ve been there, and I can give some suggestions (that said, I’m not a doctor, therapist, or nutritionist, so take my advice with appropriate caution). This advice is not for people who can consistently prepare and consume healthy food for themselves–and I hope they recognize that their abilities to do this are not universal, nor does this make them a morally better person than someone who can’t. Not being able to prepare and eat food regularly is not a moral failing, laziness, or ignorance.
We are living through some awful times right now. As a trans person with “AuDHD” (autistic+ADHD), I am exhausted from the hate right now. Between executive orders calling my gender a fraud and a health department that thinks work camps are the solution to my type of brain, I don’t have a ton of energy. I suspect I’m not the only one. I have some support right now (including a wonderful spouse who make sure I eat!), but I didn’t always, and due to recent social media discourse on the evils of ordering food delivery, I worry about people in the situation I was in during my twenties–people who don’t have the “spoons” to manage to take in enough calories to stay healthy, due to life demands or burnout.
From: Raymaker, D. M., Teo, A. R., Steckler, N. A., Lentz, B., Scharer, M., Delos Santos, A., Kapp, S. K., Hunter, M., Joyce, A., & Nicolaidis, C. (2020). “Having All of Your Internal Resources Exhausted Beyond Measure and Being Left with No Clean-Up Crew”: Defining Autistic Burnout. Autism in Adulthood, 2(2), 132–143. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2019.0079Continue reading “Eating During Evil Times”→
Think about what makes something accessible. You probably think of ramps and elevators, and maybe you think of things like sensory needs. What about communication speed? Communication speed can be just as much of a barrier as a set of stairs, particularly for some autistic or neurodivergent folk.
With apologies to Dylan Thomas, as I read about yet another one of Trump’s cruel orders, I’m angry. I’m angry at those who voted for cruelty, I’m angry at those empowering the cruelty, and I’m angry at those who will be “just following orders” to implement the cruelty.
But that’s not what I want to write about. I want to write about dancing. And I’m writing to the trans community. Cis folks, if you live in the USA, go scream, channeling the rage of the trans folks you know, at your senators and tell them to fucking do something. Go donate to a trans person’s GoFundMe. And maybe don’t help Trump hurt us. But, trans folk, I want you to dance with me.
A couple years ago, I took a upper division biology class as part of my gender studies degree. The class focused on the biology of women (and, by extension, biology of human sexual difference in general), and I chose to look at the biology of transphobia for my final project. It was wild: so much bad understanding cloaked in language that looks like it’s plausible to someone ignorant of any biology concepts introduced after middle school–but absolutely weird if you’ve studied almost any college-level biology of sexual difference.
Photo by Thirdman on Pexels.com (Because everyone knows biology has color if we’re going to show pictures of it, right?)
While I am not a biologist (ask me about computer networks, not how bees reproduce!), I did learn enough in this to question the credentials of transphobia’s experts. If an undergrad in gender studies can do this, I can only imagine how an actual biologist trained in human sex differentiation would respond!
When you show up, you’ll probably also hear, “why are you angry?”
“These words “It’ll be accessible” doesn’t mean what it says. If you are disabled, and you hear this phrase, what it really means is, “Our assistant manager knows someone with a disability, and they did just fine at our event/store/business/service/etc.” It certainly doesn’t mean it’ll be accessible.
Gendered Thoughts 