This Week's Quote

Image by Serena Wong from Pixabay

I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I'll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side.

Audre Lorde

Source:  AZ Quotes

24/7 Reality

Image by BedexpStock from Pixabay

Last night I was driving home around 10 and brooding over the fact that I'd just watched my Seattle Storm, in a game at Climate Pledge Arena, pull defeat from the jaws of victory.

Suddenly I saw multiple flashing lights ahead on the other side of the road. I drove by carefully, as there was nobody directing traffic. Only a mile later did it dawn on me that I'd probably just driven past an ICE raid on a home.

The pieces fell into place:  the one helmeted "cop" I saw didn't look worried, and if this had been a crime scene, I wouldn't have been allowed to get so close.

I realized I was distressingly slow on the uptake because I don't have to live in terror over ICE coming to kidnap me. That display of American ugliness isn't part of my daily or nightly reality. Other displays are, but not the ICE follies.

Unless Trump and his parasites decide to start deporting everyone born in New Jersey.

Really, Zip

 

Terrifying

 

This Week's Quote

Image by Eglantine Shala from Pixabay

You know how I always dread the whole year? Well, this time I’m only going to dread one day at a time.

Charlie Brown

Source:  Reader's Digest

A Different Kind of Holiday Wish

Image:  Abhishek Yadav at Scopio

I was driving behind a Toyota the other day that sported a pair of unique bumper stickers. The first said "Gender? I hardly know 'er!" and the second read "My other they is a them."

Thanks to the times we're in, I found myself fervently hoping that over the next four years that RAV4 never sets one tire outside of liberal Seattle.

Election Day Eve

Image by Azmi Talib from Pixabay

I can think of a hundred reasons why Donald Trump shouldn't be president. And that's without benefit of caffeine.

But for my queer-centric purposes, I'm zeroing in on just one reason here on this day before Election Day: the appalling transphobia of Trump and his fellow travelers.

The "PBS NewsHour" put my stomach in knots over the weekend by reporting that, between Oct 7 and Oct 20, the Trump campaign and allied groups dedicated over 40 percent of their enormous advertising budget to anti-trans ads.

That's an amazing figure. In the final days of the election, Republicans believe the winning strategy is to demonize the most vulnerable part of the queer community. If this were a debate class, they'd all flunk for such an irrelevant closing argument. (If they hadn't already flunked for the way Trump treats microphones.)

Since the main issues in this election are the economy, immigration and abortion, noted a "NewsHour" host, why the anti-trans push in the closing stages? A transgender journalist replied that "the purpose of a fear campaign is to distract you from issues that you normally care about by making you so afraid of a group of people, of somebody like me, for instance, that you're willing to throw everything else away because you're scared."

It strikes me that Trump could cover all the bases by running just a single ad attacking a transgender poor immigrant who aborted a kindergartner.

It wasn't at all long ago that Republicans fear-mongered around gay rights and same-sex marriage for political gain. Now transgender folks are their victim of choice. Who in the LGBTQIA+ community will be next? It's hard to imagine conservatives getting whipped into a froth over genderfluid asexuals.

The bottom line is which will happen first: They run out of fear or we run out of letters?

This Week's Quote

Image:  Facebook

My husband and I, sadly, know a little something about this. For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black.

Wait, I want to know: Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those “Black jobs”?

Michelle Obama

Source:  TIME

Still Waiting

 

The GG Question

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

 Let's cut to the chase. What are you most afraid of in 2024?