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I saw a skeet on Bluesky a couple of days ago that hit me hard. It was from a trans person who was decrying the lack of energy and outcry around Congresswoman Nancy Mace's proposed bathroom ban in DC and the Capitol building. This person was like, "Where is everyone? Where is the groundswell? Last time we were so loud! Now, it's crickets!"
I am ashamed to admit this, but my first thought was, "OMG, it's because I am already so tired."
But, thankfully, my second thought was, "No, that's exactly what they're hoping for. That we're too tired to do it all again, to commit to calling or writing our Congress members as early and as often as it takes." So, I sat my a$$ down in my chair today and I wrote to all three of my congress critters. It was going fine?
... and then I hit Tina Smith's form.
As many of you may remember from the last go-round, a lot of Congress folks have these little electonic forms that you fill out. Often one of the required feilds is "subject matter" and you are only allowed to choose from a drop-down list of things like, agriculture, economy, foreign affairs, etc. Okay, so my House Rep, Betty McCullom had the option "LGBTQIA+" and since I was premptively writing to remind her that trans people are people who need to pee and so I expect her to vote down bullying bullsh*t that makes life extra difficult for my fellow human beings, I clicked that. My Senator Amy Klobuchar did not have a LGBTQIA+ option, but did have Civil Rights, so, since trans rights are civil rights, I clicked that.
Tina Smith had neither.
I chose "General" since that was my only option, wrote my piece, and ended with a sternly worded P.S. in which I noted that I found it deeply uncomfortable that there wasn't even a "Civil Rights" option.
I went back to doing the dishes.... and proceeded to slowly lose my mind.
By now, no doubt, most of you have seen this insanely powerful show of force by a minority voice in the New Zealand house of parliment. (If you haven't, watch this. Even if you have, feel free to watch it again. I have it on loop when I need to be reminded that a FEW can be very, very powerful voices.)
And I kept turning around in my head that Tina Smith was so cowardly that she couldn't even put CIVIL RIGHTS as an option for things that she was willing to talk to her constituents about. I couldn't let it go. I put down the dish I was washing, wiped my hands, and returned to the keyboard.
Clicking "General" again, I basically entitled my follow-up "And Another Thing" becuase.... Do you remember when all the pudents told us that one of the reasons that our legistalors have been moving to the center/right is because they used to get harrassed so constantly by the conservative wack-jobs in their districts that they started to feel like those loudest voices were the will of the people? I have decided that I'm going to be a liberal whack-job that this darkest timeline needs.
So I told her what I believe.
Personally,--and I am aware that this is nothing but a gut feeling, I have no polls to back this up--I believe that the Left didn't turn out to vote because of people like her: cowards. From the top down, Democrats have been yellow-bellied cowards for some time now. Just one haka would have gone a long way. But, instead, what we get is senators like her who are too afraid of the right, too cowed by Nazis, too determined to work across that aisle, that they won't even put CIVIL RIGHTS down as an option of things to talk about.
If I get put on some nut job ban list by her office, I don't care. Civil rights seems like the sort of thing that a person REPRESENTING ME ought to have the balls to DISCUSS. I mean, I'm not even asking her to stand up for them, since, clearly, she's afraid to even utter LGBTQIA+ on a list--much less Civil F*cking Rights.
I didn't swear in my letter, though. Nothing useful comes of that. Honestly, nothing useful comes of writing our Congress critters either, but this is one of those things I've determined, for myself, is a "yes, and." It takes so little effort on my part to send an email. It is something I can continue to do so that, if nothing else, historians will know that there were a few of us who didn't just surrender like mindless sheep to the fascists.
I am ashamed to admit this, but my first thought was, "OMG, it's because I am already so tired."
But, thankfully, my second thought was, "No, that's exactly what they're hoping for. That we're too tired to do it all again, to commit to calling or writing our Congress members as early and as often as it takes." So, I sat my a$$ down in my chair today and I wrote to all three of my congress critters. It was going fine?
... and then I hit Tina Smith's form.
As many of you may remember from the last go-round, a lot of Congress folks have these little electonic forms that you fill out. Often one of the required feilds is "subject matter" and you are only allowed to choose from a drop-down list of things like, agriculture, economy, foreign affairs, etc. Okay, so my House Rep, Betty McCullom had the option "LGBTQIA+" and since I was premptively writing to remind her that trans people are people who need to pee and so I expect her to vote down bullying bullsh*t that makes life extra difficult for my fellow human beings, I clicked that. My Senator Amy Klobuchar did not have a LGBTQIA+ option, but did have Civil Rights, so, since trans rights are civil rights, I clicked that.
Tina Smith had neither.
I chose "General" since that was my only option, wrote my piece, and ended with a sternly worded P.S. in which I noted that I found it deeply uncomfortable that there wasn't even a "Civil Rights" option.
I went back to doing the dishes.... and proceeded to slowly lose my mind.
By now, no doubt, most of you have seen this insanely powerful show of force by a minority voice in the New Zealand house of parliment. (If you haven't, watch this. Even if you have, feel free to watch it again. I have it on loop when I need to be reminded that a FEW can be very, very powerful voices.)
Clicking "General" again, I basically entitled my follow-up "And Another Thing" becuase.... Do you remember when all the pudents told us that one of the reasons that our legistalors have been moving to the center/right is because they used to get harrassed so constantly by the conservative wack-jobs in their districts that they started to feel like those loudest voices were the will of the people? I have decided that I'm going to be a liberal whack-job that this darkest timeline needs.
So I told her what I believe.
Personally,--and I am aware that this is nothing but a gut feeling, I have no polls to back this up--I believe that the Left didn't turn out to vote because of people like her: cowards. From the top down, Democrats have been yellow-bellied cowards for some time now. Just one haka would have gone a long way. But, instead, what we get is senators like her who are too afraid of the right, too cowed by Nazis, too determined to work across that aisle, that they won't even put CIVIL RIGHTS down as an option of things to talk about.
If I get put on some nut job ban list by her office, I don't care. Civil rights seems like the sort of thing that a person REPRESENTING ME ought to have the balls to DISCUSS. I mean, I'm not even asking her to stand up for them, since, clearly, she's afraid to even utter LGBTQIA+ on a list--much less Civil F*cking Rights.
I didn't swear in my letter, though. Nothing useful comes of that. Honestly, nothing useful comes of writing our Congress critters either, but this is one of those things I've determined, for myself, is a "yes, and." It takes so little effort on my part to send an email. It is something I can continue to do so that, if nothing else, historians will know that there were a few of us who didn't just surrender like mindless sheep to the fascists.
