A Somber Note

Hi all,

Listen, I'm still here, and I'm still writing. Liberals here in the U.S. obviously had a rough night last night and we're all pretty shocked and upset this morning. I'm going to lose my health care and probably any chance to write full time. I might lose both my other jobs too.

And I'll be getting off light. I'm a cis het white guy.

My friends who are LGBTQIA+, people of color, disabled, folks who have survived sexual assault, folks otherwise on the margins....they're terrified. And rightly so. We now have a literal fascist and a bigot and a braggadocios sex offender in the White House.

Shit just got real for anyone who's not a cis het white guy.

Sure, Trump basically campaigned on destroying our alliances, treating global warming like it's a scam, being cool with letting our nation's credit rating drop a few letters, and millions of us (not just me) are about to lose heath care, so shit's real for everyone, but shit just got life-threateningly dangerous to folks on the margins of our social hierarchy. I already have friends who have decided not to transition or come out. Intersex folks are contemplating suicide now rather than live in a society that hates them and watching their friends die one by one. I already have loved ones who are not white looking for an escape hatch, and immigrant friends who are literally already NOAPing out. Though admittedly a complicated relationship, my family consists of a non-citizen, a woman of color, and a mixed race child. The campaign promise of walls and registries and electrocuting the gay out of children will be plenty of ground cover to embolden the worst parts of humanity. Hate crimes are going to skyrocket now that white nationalism has essentially just won a legitimate election, and the state might be officially involved in some of those hate crimes within a few months.

Maybe tomorrow or the next day, I will put myself back together. I will look at what's left and soldier on. I will write all the harder.

I will not be moving to Canada. I will not be giving up. I will not fold into my privilege. And I surely will not be silent.

There's a little dude who needs me to fight because I promised him I'd do everything I could to give him a world where he could be whoever he was and love whoever he loved.

Anyway, it didn't quite seem like the time to drop a listicle about making your characters pop or letting you all know my Patreon is going up soon.