The Trans-cendants

you have to be kinder to people who are slow processors.

you have to be kinder to people who don't understand your jokes.

you have to be kinder to people who forget important dates.

you have to be kinder to people with cognitive decline.

you have to be kinder to people who were always this way, too.

A mob of people beat a transgender couple on May 31 after one of the partners used a public restroom in Bossier Parish, Louisiana. After the attack, police arrested one of the trans women, took her to a men’s jail, and charged the couple with offenses that could result in months of prison.

Near the end of a lakeside barbecue with friends at Cypress Black Bayou Park, Shae Sanders (a nonbinary person assigned female at birth) used the women’s restroom just as they usually do. As their partner, Aurora Rush, waited outside for them, a man approached her, used slurs against her, threatened to beat her up if she entered the women’s restroom, and tried to get her to fight, trans journalist S. Baum reported.

When Sanders exited the restroom, a crowd of at least 10 men and women had formed around Rush, blocking their exit, calling her a “trny” and a “fgot,” allegedly threatening to murder her, saying they’d stop her from using the restroom by “any means necessary,” and proclaiming that their violence would protect children.

The mob then beat Sanders so badly that an ambulance later transported them to the hospital, where they received four stitches above their eye — doctors are trying to determine whether a neurostim brain implant in their shoulder may have been damaged during the attack, the result of which could kill them, Baum wrote.

Rush had a concussion, a corneal scratch that temporarily blinded her in one eye, “massive welts” (including “one knot above her knee swelled to the size of an apple”), and pre-existing disabilities. But even though she has a female gender marker on her driver’s license, police threw her in a men’s jail under a man’s name she had never heard of. (She said the name she was booked in jail under belonged to one of her male attackers.)

The couple claims they did not fight their attackers. Nevertheless, police have since charged Sanders with one count of disturbing the peace (punishable by up to six months in prison), and Rush with one count for “fighting” and another for “offensive language” (punishable by up to a year in prison), Baum wrote. It’s unclear if police arrested any other individuals. The couple has pledged not to agree to any plea deals.

“I’m more angry at the response of the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office than I am at the people who beat us up,” Rush said. “They further victimized me. I cannot just go to court, sign a piece of paper, pay a couple hundred dollars in fines, and let it just go away like it never happened. It’s an egregious miscarriage of justice.”

The couple’s attorney, Courtney Newburry, said the attack was “targeted, calculated, [and] had been simmering all day,” as a result of “dangerous and harmful rhetoric that demonizes and dehumanizes transgender people.”

The couple were scheduled for arraignment on July 15, but it was postponed at the last minute for August. On the day of their postponed arraignment, the Bossier Parish police jury voted unanimously for Ordinance No. 22, which imposes criminal sanctions (up to a year in jail) on anyone who refuses to leave any restroom or changing facility on public parish property that doesn’t match the user’s sex they were assigned at birth.

The ordinance punishes any police officers, janitors, or employees who fail to remove an individual whose gender or sex have been called into question, Baum noted, adding that it’s unclear whether the ordinance is currently in effect. A public comment hearing about the ordinance is reportedly scheduled for September 22.

Baum wrote that the ordinance was personally requested by Bossier Parish Sheriff Julian Whittington after the attack upon Rush and Sanders.

I work in tech, and much of what I do is support sales reps within the company by resolving errors with the software they use.

There is one sales rep who, every single time I send her a message or email with extremely specific instructions that will resolve her issue, does something completely different from what I tell her. Every time. Without fail. It is so glaringly obvious that she has never read even a single word that I have written to her.

So one day, she sends me a message that says little more than "(software) is broken, help"

So I do my standard song and dance of asking her what she's trying to accomplish, and what specifically is stopping her from doing that. And eventually, after much unnecessary back and forth, she tells me there's an error message. I ask her to send me a screenshot of the error message. She does.

The error message basically says, "these two required fields are blank. To resolve this, please fill in these two specific fields, and then click save."

So I take a few deep breaths.

Then I lie to her.

I message her back, saying "hey yeah, for some reason it's not loading that screenshot on my end. Could you type out the full text of the error message for me?"

She does.

I ask her if she still needs help.

Client is reporting that Some Thing Program doesn't work. I ask if there's an error message with further information about what's not working. Client says "no". I go over and ask Client to open Some Thing. Client double-clicks on the icon for Some Thing, it starts to boot, an error message dialog flashes up on screen, Client closes error message before I can read it, Thing closes after the error.

"What did that error message say?" I ask.

"What error message?" asks Client.

I tell Client to open the Some Thing again and then not click anything else. Client opens Some Thing, error message appears, Client clicks it away again.

I tell Client to stand up, step away, and give me physical control of the computer. I open Some Thing, start looking at the error message without closing it, and Client says "You should close that." I tell Client that I am reading the error message. Client is apparently accustomed to treating error messages as a kind of spam email that should be deleted as fast as possible, and gets agitated that I'm reading it.

I read the error message. It tells me what the problem is. I fix the problem. Some Thing works now.

---

Later, I start thinking about how such an error message might perhaps be engineered to be more attention-grabbing and close-resistant as a way of making people read it. It's not important for some random program here, but there are more important systems (medical, etc) where it would be reasonable to demand the user's attention because people's lives depend on paying attention to the error message.

She was a computer programmer / analyst, a... Long Time Ago. Called in for a system she'd installed before, the office folk said they kept having problems where it Didn't Work Right (no error, a malfunction)

She investigated, and told them that could only happen if they did 3 specific things in a specific order, which they should not ever do.

So, she asked, did they ever do that?

No! Of course not, was the answer.

So she made a couple of small changes, packed up and said that should be fine, but they should call her if there were problems.

The next week

She had a call saying "We're getting a strange error message on the system, can you help?"

She said, of course, can they tell her the error?

And the message was:

Go to Ballotpedia for information on upcoming elections, including the midterms, state and local elections, who the candidates are, where they stand, and when and where to vote. You can also check your registration status, make sure you’re registered to vote, and explore options for mail-in ballots if you need them.

Here's how things are shaping up ahead of the 2026 midterms:

In the 119th Congress, the current party alignments as of August 4, 2025, are as follows: (Congress.gov)

House of Representatives: 219 Republicans (plus 3 Delegates) 212 Democrats (plus 2 Delegates and the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico) 4 vacant seats

Senate: 53 Republicans 45 Democrats 2 Independents (both caucus with the Democrats)

Elections to the U.S. Congress will take place on November 3, 2026. All 435 districts in the U.S. House of Representatives and 33 seats in the U.S. Senate are up for election. Five of the Senate's six non-voting members are also up for election.

Looking ahead to the 2026 general elections, Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to win a majority in the Senate. Meanwhile, Republicans can lose no more than two seats to retain a majority in the chamber. (Ballotpedia)

In the November 2025 elections, voters flipped the governorships of several states blue, as well as electing dozens of Democratic delegates and mayors in key local elections, dislodging many GOP incumbents. There was a record turnout of young voters and younger candidates for political office.

If we can do this again in 2026, we stand a SIGNIFICANT chance of not only mitigating the damage done by the current administration, but perhaps even steering things back toward recovery. It will still take a long time. A lot can happen by next November, nothing is immediate or guaranteed, and NO ONE running for office is perfect. But it's clear to see that letting things continue to slide toward the right is not an acceptable path forward if we want to retain our rights and secure a better future for those who will come after us.

So make sure you educate yourself on your state and local elections, check on your polling place and voter registration, help out with a campaign, or try running for something yourself if you're so inclined. Vote whenever and wherever you can, because every election MATTERS.

Ballotpedia | Run For Something

In a battle of inches, never let your opponent think they’re a ruler.

Look into your state and local judges as well via the state court system or sites like JudgeWatch and the Federal Judicial Center. Find out what their stances are, what their court records look like, where their money comes from, and whether they might be using their position to enable crooked business practices, ignore or abuse the law in their rulings, or support for-profit prisons.

Check Ballotpedia for additional state ballot measures up for decision before November! There are quite a few budgeting, revisional, constitutional, and redistricting measures going around as early as this spring, so don't miss the opportunity to make your voice heard!

Also, look for local municipal elections, special elections, and primaries. Everything from district congressional reps to the sheriff to the school board are voted on by the local community, along with and every one of them MATTERS.

Ballotpedia - Local Election Coverage By State

And in between votes, don't forget to call, email, and write to your representatives. Remember - they work for US!

queer, particularly trans representation hasn't come all that far in 20 years. maybe there's less blatant transphobia, but there sure as hell isn't any widespread positive representation. we have multiple generations of trans women and men who were only able to explore their identities during adolescence in online spaces. and kids today are being stripped of that.