to any of my transgender followers feeling isolated with today’s news, i want you to know that this community, the LGBTQ community will not stand idly by and let this happen. i stand with all my trans brothers, sisters and siblings and i hope you know that you are so incredibly valid and nothing and no one can ever take your identity from you. i know it might not mean a lot coming from me, but please know that you cannot and will not be erased.
if you are feeling alone, please reach out to someone or call a helpline. if you are in the US, please call the trans lifeline or contact the trevor project via text/online if you can’t make the call.
to any cis people, we can’t let this happen. please do whatever you can to help out the community and if you are in the US, call your reps and ask them how they will support trans people.
I hate to do this, but I fucked up this week and I need money for rent, just $50 USD but I still don’t have it. You know how my parents are, they’ll freak on me and lord knows what they’ll do. Please help.
It’s so significant too that this narrative was collected by Zora Neale Hurston, one of the greatest authors and anthropologists of her time. She was shunned by the “gatekeepers” of both of these professions, largely because of her Blackness, her womanhood, and her uncompromising commitment to honoring and showcasing both in her works. She died penniless and alone in a state-run institution in 1960. All of her works had gone out of publication by then. It took more than a decade before she was rediscovered. A young author by the name of Alice Walker had come across her work and was deeply inspired by it. “In 1973, after an exhaustive search, Walker came across Hurston’s unmarked grave in Ft. Pierce, Fla. She purchased a headstone for Hurston’s tomb and had it inscribed “A Genius of the South.“”
It is through Zora Neale Hurston’s pioneering sacrifice, and the acceptance of that inheritance by Alice Walker that we have found this missing piece of our history. Without the courageous and unfailing work of Black women, we wouldn’t have Cudjo Lewis’s story. We are slowly regaining a narrative that’s been hidden from us, one that continues to be lied about. Trust Black women to lead the way.
Two years ago as of October 13, the Nathan E. Steward sank outside of my hometown and 110 000 liters of diesel fuel was dumped into the ocean, destroying millions of dollars worth of local clam beds and severely impacting the local environment and economy in long-lasting and traumatic ways. I attended a conference talking about the court case that the sovereign Heiltsuk Nation is taking up against the corporation that owned the tanker (Kirby), the province of British Columbia, and the federal government of Canada. Indigenous peoples in Canada have won 90% of the court cases that they’ve taken to the federal level in the past couple decades, and this is far from the first time that my hometown has gone to bat with the Canadian government. The legal fees will be extravagant. Please watch the video if you have four minutes.
If you care about indigenous issues, please share this. I’ve personally participated in the protests surrounding Enbridge when I was 14 (six years ago), but the Canadian government is still trying to fuck over First Nations people.
willowfoot 