Trans rage (Patreon)

Sorry for not posting lately. It's been an extremely bad month. Here's the one scrap I managed to write, which I'll develop more soon. Monthly journal will be available for $2+ backers soon.

A short while ago, I attended via Zoom a National Press Club webinar where three journalists from major news outlets talked about diversifying their newsrooms. During the session, the panelists talked about salaries, internships, and professionalism, with a couple fleeting comments about news.

At one point, I asked the panelists via Zoom chat how they were covering the United States’ epidemic of transphobia, including U.S. legislators’ introduction of 147 anti-trans bills in 2021, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s virtual criminalization of gender transitioning by ordering state agencies to prosecute affirming parents of trans youth for “child abuse.”

The panel’s moderator paraphrased my question in a way that removed references to trans people or transphobia — effectively neutering my question. Appropriately, the panelists had a (fittingly) diverse set of non-answers, like how most readers don’t know much about trans issues and thus can’t expect “everything to happen overnight.” The Washington Post’s managing editor gave a particularly revealing answer, saying that “our obit writers have written obits a certain way for a long time.”

It’s comforting to hear that as a trans woman, I will finally matter once I’m dead. News outlets will cover produce “content” when the market is ready for it. I’m so grateful that “conversations are shifting”, that “people are on different journeys”, and that “change is on the way.” I look forward to change drunkenly stumbling into view and puking on my tombstone while a bipartisan U.S. Congress pressures President Tucker Carlson into closing a few of the state-run conversion therapy camps we’ll probably have in a decade.

I can think of no more comforting answer to “will you pay attention to our genocide now?” than “but think about how the money feels.”