I can't do it today.

It's not that I have nothing to share. I'm sitting on gigs of butt photos (no pun intended). I have scrap playful humor pieces that you might enjoy. I even have a post about HEAVENLY CREATURES that is one fact-check away from sunlight. You will be able to read these things soon.

But you will not be able to read them today, because my brain is offline with terror. I know the day is coming when I will no longer be a person in Ohio, and the timeline towards this particular extinction level event accelerates with every 2024 legislative session. This time, Ohio's lawmakers returned early from one of their endless paid vacations just to make sure that trans people cannot get away with monstrous acts like playing games with other children or making decisions about their own health care. Yes, HB68 was vetoed, but nobody could have predicted that said veto would come clutched in a monkey’s paw wish that made Ohio into a policy laboratory for the most regressive anti-trans legislation in the United States. What fucking heroes.

This blog is supposed to be about what it is like to be a trans person during the apocalypse. Sometimes I illustrate that idea with a complicated metaphor or an allusion to a gross movie, but sometimes I have to speak plainly about how difficult it is to survive. My friends here in Chicago often remind me that I no longer live in Ohio, but there's a version of me that never got out, never realized who they were, and every time a door slams shut for them and everyone else I still love in that state it zaps me and empties my brain like an electric shock.

The last time I was in Ohio, I spent much of my time there begging the cis people I knew to care about this kind of legislation because I knew it was coming. I was belittled and ignored. I haven't heard a retraction from any of the people who told me to calm down, but then, I haven't really heard from them at all since I returned to Chicago. I know what to expect from "allies" at this point, but still. I wonder if they realize what's happening? Does anybody care?

I've spent much of the past few days looking for something smart to say. My hands are empty and I've cried three times in the past twelve hours. I'm out of words to make this particular genocidal push interesting and fun for you to engage with. There's a nasty little voice in my head that says sending out an update like this is "unprofessional" and I should keep my shit together. I am tired of that voice, and what people like me are expected to sacrifice on the altar of professionalism.

I am also tired of the unending pressure I feel as a marginalized writer to perform queer grief and emotional suffering. Last time I tried to sell a book, every agent I talked to told me that the book wouldn't sell unless I made it clear that my queerness was a part of what had traumatized me. I explained, over and over, that my queerness and my transness were the things that saved me from my trauma. It turns out that queer happiness, and even simple queer existence, are not marketable to many publishers. There are people who only want to hear the raw ugliness, who love the taste of queer tears and suck reassurance about their own holiness from the ways we are tortured.

Those aren't the people I write for. If I forced myself to talk about my pain before I was ready, I'd be doing it for those kinds of readers, not the audience I actually want. If you're the reader I've been looking for, you know why I have to rest today. I will have words about this, and I will share them when I believe they are ready. Not on a spectator's timeline, and not for anybody else but you and me.

I'll be back next week. If you love a trans person, make sure they know that today. And if you're a trans person in Ohio, please remember you have a friend in Chicago.