the optimist swears hope dies last

Chaco Canyon is an irreplaceable cultural landscape, home to thousands of archaeological sites, important wildlife habitat and internationally recognized dark skies. Opening the surrounding public lands to new oil and gas leasing and mining could bring roads, wells, pollution, noise and artificial light closer to everything that makes this place extraordinary.

Chaco Canyon is a sacred and historical site, and of course, Trump is trying to destroy it for profit. Theres a very short window during which we can submit public comments advocation for the continued protection fo this National Park and World Heritage Site.

The comment period will close on July 29, 2026. All you have to do is leave a comment, you don't have to leave any personal information, not even you name. You don't even have to speak with anyone. Just go HERE and let them know that Chaco Canyon should be protected.

Chaco Canyon is an irreplaceable cultural landscape, home to thousands of archaeological sites, important wildlife habitat and internationally recognized dark skies. Opening the surrounding public lands to new oil and gas leasing and mining could bring roads, wells, pollution, noise and artificial light closer to everything that makes this place extraordinary.

number one check yourself. Number two comparing TMA/TME to anti-Blackness is a false dichotomy and I need white queer people to stop trying to compare themselves to Black people every single chance they get. oh my god

The two are NOT similar. If you really wanna play the game of equating race and gender, then the equivalent to “Black and nonblack” would be transfem/trans woman and non-transfem/trans woman, not TMA/TME. I can assure you that NO black person is going around saying “antiblack racism affected vs antiblack racism exempt.” Because That Is Stupid.

EVERYONE is affected by antiblackness, because of how deeply it’s ingrained into our entire societal structure. You cannot write off specific demographics as not being affected by certain forms of oppression or discrimination, because the nature of living in a white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy is that ALL of these systems are INTRINSICALLY connected with each other, and affect EVERYONE to some degree. There are countless historical examples of antiblack legislation directly impacting poor communities of other racial groups- including white people. There are primary targets of discrimination, obviously, but nobody is truly “exempt” from any sort of oppressive system unless they are at the VERY top of the damn food chain.

In the same vein, the intersection of transphobia and misogyny is ALSO deeply ingrained into our society. And because of that, nobody is truly “transmisogyny-exempt.” Even people who aren’t the primary targets are still directly impacted and negatively affected by transmisogynistic systems. I find TMA/TME to be useless in terms of categorization because it directly posits that everyone who gets sorted into the latter group just doesn’t experience any oppression or discrimination derived from transmisogynistic bases at all, which is ridiculous, because that happens All the time.

A trans man or enby who’s mistaken for a trans woman and is assaulted for it, a cis man who’s belittled and attacked on the basis of being Too Feminine, a cis woman who’s publicly shamed, derided, and transvestigated for having testosterone levels that are “too high,” are all examples of non-transfem/trans woman groups being negatively affected on the basis of transmisogyny.

Poor white people being affected by legislation meant to target and attack Black populations and the massive trend of colorism throughout Asian communities are examples of nonblack groups being negatively affected on the basis of antiblackness.

You cannot sort people by what oppression they do and do not face, and attempts to do so are inherently exclusionary and are bound to lead back into denying people of their lived experiences, just because they don’t line up perfectly into these specific categories of “this genre of person goes through this” vs “this genre of person doesn’t go through that.”

I believe that TMA/TME was coined with the best intentions, but the problem is that it’s a clumsy dichotomy and the way a lot of people tend to use it ends up leading back into the same issues of being binary (“amab trans people experience this, afab trans people don’t experience that”) and then THAT leads back into a whole heaping mess in and of itself

Talking about the way transfeminized people are targeted by transmisogyny is not a bad thing in and of itself! But like, you can just say transfem/non-transfem- or even just “transfeminized” to describe the position oppressors will often place people into in order to enact transmisogynistic violence against them- instead of directly trying to state what different groups of people Do And Don’t Experience. you can say “primary targets of transmisogyny” without directly implying that certain groups are exempt from it all together.

Not to mention over populated deer destroying what little is left due to a lack of predators, 60 million non-native birds released for sport shooting every year, plus huge amounts of wildlife crime, including large numbers of birds of prey being shot/poisoned.

BOTTOM 5%.

On July 6, 1994, fourteen wildland firefighters gave their lives on Storm King Mountain during the South Canyon Fire near Glenwood Springs. Twelve firefighters were unable to outrun the blaze and perished. Two more helitack firefighters were also killed as they tried to flee to the northwest. Today marks the 30th anniversary of that event:

Prineville Hotshots: Kathi Beck, Tamera Bickett, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Douglas Dunbar, Terri Hagen, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Jon Kelso

Missoula Smokejumper: Don Mackey

McCall Smokejumpers: Roger Roth, Jim Thrash

Helitack: Robert Browning, Jr., Richard Tyler

I now work in the district where this fire and these deaths occurred, and there is a lot being done to honor the 30th anniversary. I’ve met a handful of the survivors this year, and also hiked the memorial trail for the first time.

Halfway up the trail is an overlook that shows the whole fire line where this occurred, along with placards explaining the event. When I hiked it, I found that someone had left a little toy fire truck at that overlook, the truck staring out at the line.

I’ll never forget that little fire truck, nor the people it honors.