Note: Some of my good friends don’t like cuss words, so I gave some thought to whether I should use the f-word in this post. There are alternatives--screw it, to hell with it, etc. But the desperation one feels at those moments—it’s intense—demanded the one word with enough good old Germanic oomph to get the point across with precision and force. Hence….

I don’t remember what exactly I had, illness-wise—it was senior year of college, after all—but it involved a lot of sniveling and whining and general misery. For days. And then more days. I couldn’t get myself to go anywhere or do anything. I just…sniveled.

Then one day I’d had enough. I sprang off my bed and started throwing things. (Pillows, mostly.) I swore and yelled and generally expressed every bit of anger with this never-ending blech.

After my fury had spent itself, I felt better. The illness had subsided. My health returned.

I’d had a “fuck it” moment—in which my deepest layers said, “Fuck it. I’ve had it with the suffering. I am so over this.” It inspired me to take action, and the action bore fruit.

I thought about this episode while reading one of the healing stories in the Christian gospel of Matthew (9:18-26). A synagogue leader asked Jesus to revive his daughter, who had just died. As Jesus walked toward his house, a woman who’d hemorrhaged for 12 years (presumably like having your period nonstop for over a decade—YIKES) touched Jesus’ cloak thinking that would cure her.

After pondering these stories a minute, I realized they had something in common. Opposition to Jesus among powerful religious authorities was fierce, so it took courage for the synagogue leader to step out publicly and ask him for a favor. Meanwhile, the woman who needed healing would have been considered ritually unclean and therefore shouldn’t have touched anyone (Leviticus 15:19-33). It took courage to reach out and touch this itinerant teacher.

Well it sorta took courage. Look closer, though, and you’ll see a greater motivator behind the courage: desperation.

The leader is desperate to get his daughter back. The woman is desperate to be rid of this life-sapping hemorrhage. I was desperate to get over my own illness, which had reduced me to sniveling.

And we all, in our own way, said “fuck it” and reached out.

To put it succinctly, “fuck it” is the cauldron in which the fuel of desperation becomes the fire of courage. Courage gets a lot of press; desperation deserves more, and so does the catalyst that turns one into the other.

I’ll bet you’ve had these moments, these situations. Feel free to share if you’re so inclined.
 

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​Ever since November 5, I’ve been paying very, very close attention to my deeper layers, listening for any wisdom that will teach me how to live in Trump World. A lot of good, clear insights—sometimes sobering, sometimes liberating—have come to mind.

​One, however, has haunted me for quite a while: the fact that I may be in danger.

I first made the case for this in January. To summarize:

• I am nonbinary—which I’m sure Mr. Trump would label trans, though there’s a distinction.
• I write frequently about gender identity.
• Project 2025, the MAGA “promise to America,” has pledged to delete every mention of gender identity from every corner of the federal government (see page 5 of the Foreword).
• The rhetoric around gender identity has heated up to dangerous levels. The Trump campaign’s TV ad “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” uses caricature and out-of-context photos to persuade its audience that trans and gender non-conforming people are weird, repugnant, totally “other.” Project 2025 has conflated “transgender ideology” with “pornography” and the “sexualization of children” (again, page 5 of the Foreword). As I mentioned in my January post, Trump has proclaimed that “under my leadership, this madness will end” (00:55 of the video).

So how much danger are we talking?

I have to say the risk to me is low. This is a very large country—by area, by population, and by sheer social media volume—and it may be difficult for the Trump administration to even find me in all those layers. I am very small potatoes, so they may not care about me. You’d think that would keep me safe.

But low risk is not no risk. What’s more, my “low risk” does nothing to protect the trans and gender non-conforming loved ones I so cherish.

Maybe, maybe, I could get my brain to calm down about this. But then I read this Medium article from Dana DuBois, a writer who’s a parent of a gender-conforming kid. She writes way more about gender than I do. She has done her homework and assessed the risk.

She’s sounding alarm bells.

Now, I don’t consider myself brave. But I can’t imagine changing how much I write about gender, because I feel a calling to it (as to the other things in my life). Dana DuBois has pledged not to give up her writing.

This exercise is essential for many of us, I think. We can’t possibly know what Mr. Trump will do. One way we can be ready is if we pay very, very close attention and assess it all with a clear mind—without letting him fill our headspace in ways that damage our mental health. A tall order, I know, but I’ll be working on it.

Will you? Do you need to? It’s worth considering.