this moment
New York, 2024
I am a sex educator turned abortion doula turned public health professional turned DEI facilitator.
Every single one of those roles is under threat by the new administration.
Every single person and community I served through each of those roles is under threat by the new administration.
Every single identity that brought me to each of those roles — a queer disabled immigrant daughter in America — is under threat by the new administration.
I am grieving, but I am not weeping. I am horrified, but I am not surprised.
Like many others, I’ve spent the last months and years building up a library of prescient words by those who have seen this before. I am leaning on deep collective revolutionary wisdom to keep me afloat and grounded.
If you don’t know where to begin in this moment, here’s a few suggestions:
COLLECT YOUR PEOPLE. What skills and resources can you offer each other? How are you bolstering each other’s fear, holding each other’s grief, celebrating each other’s joy? What are your collective access needs, and how will you meet them for one another?
READ. Read speculative fiction, read history, read poetry, read Black feminist praxis, read romance novels, read Indigenous wisdom. Get a library card if you don’t have one yet, and support your local library.
ARCHIVE. Write down (pen and paper) what you observe, what you know to be true. Vital information is quickly disappearing off government websites — sexual and reproductive health research, Spanish language pages, gun violence prevention policies, disability and accessibility guidance, and many others. Social media suppression is escalating quickly. Collect what you need and share it widely.
PREPARE. Talk to each other! What do the most vulnerable among you need? Make a plan for where you might go if you need to leave. Make a list of what you might need to resource yourself and your people if you need to stay.
PRACTICE. Practice sitting with fear and transmuting grief. Practice offering with generosity; practice asking with humility. Practice radical exuberant joy, in the face of all of it.