In the wake of Florida preventing me from changing gender markers on your drivers license, I felt fear in a way I’ve been able to avoid since returning to my hometown. I was devastated yesterday and entered into a state of panic that was difficult to process. I started beating myself up for being too late,1 that I should have done this sooner, that I should have had future sight for the specifics of the incoming cruelty. Of course that’s wrong — the way my life looks is the way it is supposed to. I have done my best to navigate difficult circumstance after difficult circumstance, and that’s all I can ask of myself.2 You can’t live your life trying to predict the future of a sadistic, right wing administration, and my life is better off when I don’t enter into that headspace.
Doomerism never got me very far and always stands to make me feel worse. Whenever I give up on the possibility of hope and a better life for myself I lose the ability to take care of myself, to be nice to myself and the people around me, and the beauty of a potential future.3 I refuse to go back to that mindset even if it feels intellectually correct. Maybe it is hopeless here for me? But I do have to keep living, working, trying. This week has tested that.
In theory I could leave. I probably could scrounge up the money, I could budget extremely hard, I could find a place in a “safer” region of America4, I could find a new job and go through the horrible on-boarding process where I have to trust people I don’t know to handle sensitive information in regards to my deadname.5 I could take on more extreme change if it was necessary; I’ve proven to myself I can do it. It’s not like I can’t flee the scene. I’m not an activist, I’m not attempting to make a political statement in staying; it’s in my best interest to leave. But this is my home and I love Florida and I always have. The rhythm here makes sense to me. My family is here and with that comes a strong pull to be here, despite our complicated relationship. There’s nowhere drawing me out, and I have no desire to live anywhere else in America.
I don’t want to leave, but I can’t stomach the news. I can barely read anything coming down the pipe in the current legislative session. It’s too cruel. Being transgender in Florida is horrible. There aren’t very many wins coming our way. I feel for all of us, and I wish it were easier. Maybe one day it will be. A lot of us will stay in our communities, and in our state, in the face of an increasingly stacked deck.
But the days can still be good, there are still joys to be had. The spanish moss is rimmed by the afternoon sun, the camellias and azaleas will bloom, the black swans will circle the pond,6 Grady the egret will spear fish, cardinals will duck in and out of my courtyards bushes. I’ll cut my hibiscus back soon for new growth at the beginning of spring to bloom and die and bloom and die again. Once in a blue moon the neighborhood otters will poke out. I am safe in my own ways, and I’m very grateful for my strength and resilience to get to where I am now. I wish those weren’t prerequisites for my life. I wish those weren’t prerequisites to being transgender here. I still have to keep living.
Thank you for reading xoxo Exa
Not that this matters, as far as I understand from the directive if you have changed your gender marker you will need to change it back. horrible cruel evil terrifying.
Not to mention I COULDN’T AFFORD IT. Changing my name (in the process now) is $450. I prioritized laser and reproductive health which have cost over $2k total, not to mention endocrinology appointments, bloodwork, the meds, etc. This process is expensive, difficult to navigate, and emotionally taxing. I was in a safe work environment, and chose to focus on other things to make my life better in the immediate. It’s been tiring alongside family care-taking at times veering on impossible; beating myself up for not having finished this process is fruitless.
The beauty of the present as well which stares me in the face while I try and look away.
Though I’m skeptical. Pretty much anywhere in America is safer to be trans than the State of Florida, but I don’t have faith in the political establishment, namely democrats, to fight for trans rights. It seems like the tipping point can easily go the other direction, and given current political trajectories in the States in “ironic” right wingers, nihilism among the left, and a general sense that things that are in motion will stay in motion, I am naturally down about the prospects anywhere. This is my most lasting doomer mindset.
I’m 1/2 on this regard. My job at Reuse Planet was good and this wasn’t an issue. My job at the University has been the complete opposite. Overall this process is taxing and extremely vulnerable to the point of impossibility.
The mother swan has laid new eggs, her first go of it led to no babies, hopefully this time will be better. She has a turtle friend lay with her every day. Thank god cause she was so lonely the first go around.