Persistence is Not Futile

In The Brutal Telling, by Louise Penney, the Chief Inspector strolls into the living room once more with the new owners of the Hadley Home. He thanks them for the tour and tea, and proceeds to questions. Marc comments that it seems so out of character for the village to have a murder.

Later the man who was supposed to be Carole's deceased husband stands in front of her. She tells him that they need to talk. She waits for him to point out her faults and flaws.

Gabri makes up his mind and wants to get to the old Hadley house before he changes it. A carved wooden sign hangs out front, reading “Auberge et Spa.”

Wednesday, I listened to the opening statements in the US Supreme Court case US v Skrmetti, challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender affirming care for minors on the basis of the law being blatantly sexist, and in need of intermediate scrutiny per the Fourteenth Amendment. The ACLU lawyer, who is the first trans person ever to present in front of the US Supreme Court did a fantastic job presenting the case and the impact the law has. The United States Solicitor General’s argument was only a bonus. The State of Tennessee tried to argue that the case was about medical procedure, and that elected representatives can best represent the interest of the people they are serving. This does not, and has never, worked as well as you think it would. It hasn’t served black people, women, or gay people. It has almost always been necessary for the courts to step in when the marginalized communities are pushed farther to the margins because of their lack of a voice in the decision-making halls.

In Bury Your Dead, the Board of the Historical and Literature society discuss having another book sale. The comments by the board members are the same as they are every meeting. In the middle of the discussion, a sudden sound interrupts the tedium.

In Metal from Heaven, by August Clarke, the narrator vows to be grateful to the bandits, Sunny, Beauty, and a “host of painted women in loose velvet and silk. Uthste stares unblinking with half-lidded eyes at the greasy spine of what remains of a roasted swan. Uthste tells the narrator that she likes her “Very crawly” hair.

A few years later, the narrator finds themself conjugating stupid phrases around the phrase I loved her. It is her duty to “trick the wildly invested” that they were a competent and knowledgeable help to the imposter for Baron Loveday. She and the other members of the Choir don’t speak--partly to not interrupt Valor’s singing, and partly in deference in Bandegor’s queer mood being near ghosts from her past.

In More Stars than Grains of Sand, Al Forsyth reflects that a gecko walking on a ceiling can support about 1,900 times its own body weight. Each foot pad of the five toes of each of a gecko’s feet contains over 6.5 million tiny setae. Sea otters have up to one million hairs per square inch of fur.

This is the season of Christmas parties, potlucks, and white elephant gift exchanges. Wednesday I attended a luncheon and gift exchange for the Women's State Legislative Council of Utah. The women’s group from my church had both a potluck and a gift exchange, and the Utah Stonewall Dems yesterday had both. I ordered one gift for the first event, and used what I got at each exchange for the next one. It's not about acquiring gifts, but exchanging them. I used my Instant Pot to make a Dill Snack Mix for the church Women's group, and a Pork Ragu for the Utah Stonewall Dems. I found these to be wonderful community building events, sharing food, conversation, gift giving, and games.

One of the Utah Senators is going to try to ban changing sex on birth certificates. This is problematic, because it is a crucial document used to update other identity documents. Not being able to update one’s identity documents puts a trans person in danger of being outed, targeted, discriminated against, and harmed. Utah is home to an Air Force Base, in which active duty military serve from two to four years. A trans person born in Utah that doesn’t reside in the state, would be forever impacted by the change, and tied to a state that can’t see them for who they are. Furthermore, the sex on a birth certificate has had no use historically other than to enforce gender discrimination. Of course, now it's being used to try to identify which bathrooms someone can use.

Fifteen years ago there was a movement spreading across the country signaling to the transgender community that they mattered, that they were valued, loved, and that they belong. Corporations were adding gender identity to their EEO clauses, and entire counties in progressive areas were codifying non-discrimination. Bathroom bills were fought back. Non-discrimination went statewide. Conversion therapy was banned. It felt like anything was possible, that the trans community were finally being recognized—then the backlash started to hit. The MAGA movement piled on and made it worse. Even though in all the years that trans people were included there were no instances of actual harm, trans people, trans women in particular, were once again relabeled as “men” and deemed to be a threat to “real girls.” One particular senator has led this TERF-fueled movement, and the super majority in both house of the state legislature piled on. And yet they continue to get re-elected. This same person is the one behind the birth certificate bill.

We can’t give up. We must continue to resist these absurd changes that threaten the health and well-being of our youth. Sooner or later, when sanity kicks in, we will get a chance to breathe again.