I wanted this to be a Memorial Day page like I used to do. I can’t do it.
As I sit here my hands are shaking, be it anger or sorrow, I don’t know, but I cannot put pencil to paper.
In the early hours of Thursday morning congress stripped all gender affirming care not only from Medicaid but from ALL health plans available through Obamacare in their so called “Budget bill”. If passed, this one change will effectively strip hundreds of thousands of trans people of their care. The suicide rate for trans people who cannot receive care is One in Five. You do the math. I suspect that this is seen by the republican party as a feature rather than a problem. Dead trans kids wasn’t enough. Now they want us all.
That same evening a live mic caught republican members of congress admitting that the end goal is to make all trans related healthcare illegal for everyone, but that they have to do it in “little bites”. This is a pretty damn big bite. This has been my literal nightmare since November 6, a thing I was told was fear mongering and that wouldn’t happen by republican “friends” justifying their votes.
That same day trump’s DOJ (I will use only the lower case, a small “t” for a small man) both ended the investigations into historically corrupt police departments and told Harvard that for the crime of choosing intellectual integrity and refusing to licking his boots, any international students there would have to transfer of forfeit their visas and that they can no longer host international students.
So instead of drawing I’m staring at a blank wall where my memorabilia from my time as a contractor for the army has now been removed. (We trans folk are clearly not welcome there anymore). I can no longer bear to look at it.
While I take time to honor those who have died protecting our freedom on Monday, I will simultaneously be mourning the death of that same freedom and the country I loved these last near fifty years and hope against the odds that the impotent octogenarian Democratic leadership finds the spine to fight this.
Instead I expect to see them to grandstand then cower and sacrifice us as some of their own number likely vote for this travesty. In the meantime I’ll do my best to hold the line in the small ways I can, since when they’re done with us, they’ll be back for more.
Sorry for the downer page today. It’s all I have in me. May my hands stop shaking by Monday.
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