In episode #447 of "How Much Worse Can Things Get?", last week we learned that the FBI is considering a plan to designate transgender people as “nihilistic violent extremists.”

What the absolute F???

Everyone's brains have been on overload lately, trying to make sense of the madness around us. Many of us are searching for something to DO to combat the relentless attacks on the transgender community.

ACLU lawyer and brilliant human Chase Strangio always has excellent perspective, and he wrote the following words on Instagram last week. I hope they help:

It has been a terrifying few weeks for trans people as we witness the escalation of calls to deem us as inherently threatening. The idea is that transness is an ideology - a threatening one - and evidence of the existence of the ideology is the defense of trans people. They want our silence. And more critically, they want yours.

But remember that attacks on trans people are an instrument not an end. We all need to show up for each other.

So here is my offering for what trans and cis people can do in this moment.

To-Do List for Cis People:

1. Be loud in defense of trans people.

2. Every day disrupt someone else's assumption that trans people are a threat.

3. Challenge your friends when they say things like "but isn't it unfair for a trans girl to participate in sports." Remind them that they are doing the authoritarian's work to divide us.

4. Recognize that your well-being is at stake when the government comes for trans people. That this is about sex as a structure and about power.

5. When someone says "well didn't we go too far in defense of trans rights", ask them: who is "we", what is "too far" and when did ceding a community's rights to power ever stop the powerful?

6. Show up at the Supreme Court in January when trans people's rights will again be up for debate.

7. Show up at your school board where trans people's lives and dignity are being debated. From NYC to Southern California, there is no jurisdiction immune from these attacks.

8. Donate to trans-led organizations and trans people's fundraisers. People are losing their health care, their jobs, their support. Show up where you can whenever you can.

9. Love your trans people. Fiercely. Publicly.

To-Do List for Trans People:

Do whatever you need to take care of yourself. And also, ground yourself in accurate information, the people you trust, and the knowledge that our communities have always taken care of each other. Find your people. We are here.

"There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."

-W.H. Auden

Mandy Giles​
Founder, Parents of Trans Youth​

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