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The 2024 U.S. presidential election has become more personal to me—more personally threatening—than any other in my lifetime.
It took 60-some years for me to experience such a threat, thanks to a boatload of advantages I haven’t really earned: I’m white, college-educated, often mistaken for cis male. As a result, I’ve had the liberty to make voting decisions on “objective,” “rational” criteria, which here means criteria removed from my own experience. I read about the candidates, weigh their positions, get a sense of how they think, choose one. It’s not a bad approach per se. But I employ it at a certain distance. Now comes 2024, and one aspect of my life—my status as a nonbinary person—is under attack. Recently The Atlantic, AP news, and other sources have reported on Donald Trump’s rhetoric and plans for trans people.*** Because some of my friends may dismiss these sources as “liberal media,” I web-searched to see if I could find the same plans coming from Trump’s own lips. I did. Here’s what I found in two videos featuring Trump himself:
So if Donald Trump wins back the presidency, my own government may well cease to recognize me, or at least an essential truth about me. Being trans or nonbinary will suddenly become “less than,” or “less tolerated.” It’s easier to openly take negative stances against people in such circumstances. That can have consequences: as we’ve seen, some of Trump’s followers take his words and actions as license to commit violence against those not in his favor. Granted, the risk to me is probably not high. But my trans friends and relatives may be more in harm’s way—whether the threat is to their personal safety or their access to needed services like healthcare and housing. So the 2024 election could reshape my own life and those of people I love. It took this wakeup call to get me thinking of people and groups for whom every election is personal—and personally threatening. How they’ve lived with such a threat all these years, I have no idea. What about the rest of you? What’s your experience of taking elections personally? ***Footnote: The line between trans and nonbinary is fuzzier than it used to be, which is why I feel justified in taking this personally. I seriously doubt Trump knows the difference.
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About the PhotoThis sign once inhabited the parking lot of my sister's old apartment complex. I know meteorology has become a precise science, but this is ridiculous. Archives
June 2024
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