#election stuff

Maybe there’s hope. 🤞🏻

But only if my fellow Americans can find it in themselves to OPEN THEIR EYES and see what is happening, vs blindly believing the bullshit media.

Read the interviews here:

And I thought about how 8 years ago, my brother was that person. I was so angry at him. He was so apathetic and uncaring. When I tried to talk to him (in 2016) about how dangerous Trump would be, he laughed at me. He was so dismissive. I cried. Things were really uncomfortable between us for a very long time after that. I moved very far away, and we rarely spoke. We only saw each other on holidays and avoided serious conversation topics.

Now though, he is like a completely different person. He deeply regrets that he didn't vote in 2016, even though it wouldn’t have made a tangible difference because we don’t live in a swing state. He feels like a coward for not speaking up before. His first time voting (ever in his life) was 2020, and he voted for Biden. He was proud to vote for Harris in this election. I knew he was voting, and I knew he had been drifting farther left over the last few years, but I had no idea how far he had come.

So, a friend of mine I haven't talked to in ages, because they're always busy/traveling, posted something to Facebook that said:

It hit me very hard on a Jewish kind of level. I knew I was likely to be told I was derailing if I said so. But I kind of hoped I wouldn't be, just because the friend and I met in trans spaces something like 25 years ago and are both nonbinary.

What I ended up commenting was, "Ditto for Jews, IMHO. Ughhh, what a time to be alive."

What I hate about it is that my friend gave me the Jew version of the boilerplate response you'd give Aunt Nancy. List a fuckton of marginalized groups, add Palestinians here and in Palestine first, close with a line about how focusing on one group doesn't mean anything about the other groups but raising another group is intentionally redirecting.

adhdsskklllljsshjklfff I KNOW. And I know that you "had" to specifically add Palestinians in there to redirect away from antisemitism even while telling me I'm redirecting.

I wrote back,

I'm not trying to redirect. I'm saying yes, it's going to be fucking hell for us as trans people. And also, some of the specific things that are the most terrifying for me as a trans person are likewise going to be fucking hell for me as a Jew.

I fall into five of these categories (trans, poor, disabled, Jewish, have a reproductive system) but I'm fucking terrified of another Trump round on these two specifically.

I'm terrified of having to live through this man once again smacking the metaphorical button that turbo-charges everybody's latent belief that we're pedophiles, morally corrupting society, and/or inherently shady and deceitful and Bad.

I have been watching people cast both trans people and Jewish people that same way since Trump's first run.

I mean, yes, that's been the core of most cissexist and antisemitic tropes for a long, long time. But it's so incredibly open and accepted now.

Trump fucked over disabled poor people, and people with reproductive systems, in a LOT of ways. But I didn't also see a major increase in people publicly demonizing us, and politically weaponizing that demonization.

I'm sure that if he gets the chance, he'll once again defend crucial services, leave them unstaffed, and generally make them a lot harder for anyone to access. He'll tax the poor and waive everything for the rich. He'll strip funding for disabled student services of all sorts. It will be HORRIBLE.

It's just that, while that stuff may affect me personally, it doesn't feel personal to me in the same way that it feels personal when a lot of regular everyday people see people like me as sinister and disgusting.

(And yes, too many people are disgusted by poverty, mental illness, and disabilities of all sorts, and see disabilities, government aid, and any kind of accommodations as a sneaky cheating lie. Maybe I'm wrong, but IME it's become much rarer, instead of much more common; and it's not taken to a "you corrupt society" kind of level.)

Looking back at the original post, I feel like the real issue is that what I was saying WASN'T "Trump will be awful for these specific two groups," or even, "Trump will be awful for Jews, stop thinking about trans people(???????)"

It was specifically that I think most outsiders won't know why this is so scary unless (or even if) they're close friends with us.

And I think, on the left, that's far more true for Jews than for trans people.

I feel like my cis friends understand that Trump would be a nightmare for us. Maybe that's specific to my friends though, idk.

But it's clearer than ever to me that my goyish friends generally don't know the first thing about antisemitism.