Rage and love and selfish wishes and keep going

[cosmolinguist]

We made mini-zines at queer club tonight.

Someone else made a zine by asking everyone what they wanted to ask Father Christmas to bring them, "selfish wishes only."

D said he wanted structured cabling. I said I wanted a trip on one of the sleeper trains across North America.

Everyone's wish got put in with their first name and their age.

The person working on it said it's good to lean in to childish joy, and I think that is wisdom indeed.

D said he didn't have anything to make a zine about and then made a great zine about how his brain works, and I love his brain (except when it's being a jerk to him) so I was totally charmed by it.

Mine is actually about death (the thing I most associate November with, so it's called Fuck November), and transphobia because I'm a big grump lately. But it's also about love and community because these are part of death too. On the back cover, I wrote "We are only so sad that you are gone because we were so happy that you were here.", something that still makes me think of my brother first but also now so many other people, most recently a teenage trans activist that was known to people I know. On the inside of the zine I wrote something that I think they said (and if not them another member of their movement):

trans community is real, and it is strong, and it’s powerful, and we aren’t going away no matter how much it may feel - at least it feels to me - like the government wants to pretend we aren’t real, to pretend we don’t really exist, we’re just a tiny tiny group they can just tuck in the back of their minds. We’re here. We’re showing up. We’re strong. There are so many of us. It is incredible just in this week how many other trans people of all ages I’ve met. I never been around a trans community like this before.”

“It’s horrible that we have to do this but at the same time it’s been filled with rage and love. Rage at the people who try to do this to us but love for the people around us who are part of our community and are going to make sure that we keep going.”

Comments

[silveradept]

We can hope that you get the selfish wishes, and also that the rage produces change and the love produces community.