A matter of degrees: How to show up in the day to day

Who has the spoons these days?? Maybe some of us, but definitely not most of us. This presidency has been an onslaught of overwhelm, and this is being done on purpose. With the Trans community being specifically targeted we have to take a beat and understand that most of this federal fear-mongering is out of our hands. The stuff we can control, however, is how we keep showing up. It's time to intentionally build community, it's time to ally, it's time to get creative, it's time to take rest seriously, and it's time to hold dear our Trans Joy.

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Celebrating, uplifting, and empowering Idaho's trans and nonbinary community

Transcript

Hi, everyone. How's it going? I'm Bonnie Violet. I'm a transgender queer spiritual drag artist, digital chaplain. And welcome to Trans Joy Boise, the podcast where we celebrate the vibrant stories, resilience and connections of Boise's trans community. Through heartfelt conversations, uplifting narratives and shared experiences, we explore the many ways trans joy thrives despite challenges. Each episode highlights inspiring voices from local advocates and artists to everyday heroes showcasing the beauty and strength of being trans and Boise and beyond. Together, we foster understanding, amplify voices, and create a space for joy, healing, and solidarity. Tune in, connect, and celebrate with us. Trans joy is here, and we're unstoppable. I love it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm Pacey, trans, masc, non-binary, mental health and recovery advocate. Yes. Working on overtime this week, huh? A little bit. Everyone is. Mental health recovery sounds like my weekend or my week. Everyone's, yeah. I think everyone right now is feeling really overwhelmed with everything that's been going on. Yeah. It's every time you look at your phone or you talk to someone, you hear some more really deeply upsetting news or updates of things that have been being passed. yeah by the new administration yeah it seems like it's there's something all the time like I've been pretty good with just like not getting too into everything but the last couple days I've got sucked into like all the things happening and because I think I was starting to feel a little bit bad about just trying to focus on me and what was impacting me and just feeling like there's so many other things that are happening right now that are really difficult for people that I'm not an immigrant, so I don't know what it's like to feel concerned about ICE. There's just a lot more issues that I think are maybe even sometimes I feel like it's even more pressing than me getting my HRT, if I'm honest, which is important. And that's the thing that's so hard. It's like all of this stuff is important and it's really not about saying that one thing is more important than the other, but it does kind of pits us against one another because there's this like combating and heaven forbid you have intersectionality in your experience like heaven forbid you be black and brown and queer and trans and you know um all these you know what I mean like it because it just makes it even more challenging oh yeah absolutely it's you know I know that I've been we've been hearing a lot like this is a strategy this is deliberate on this administration's part because if you're constantly overwhelmed and you're never going to have the time to really resist or respond to things when you don't even fully understand what's happening. There's like this barrage of these things happening and it's to keep us kind of confused and afraid and unable to really take action because as soon as you maybe start to organize something to protest one thing, there's something else and it's worse that you have to stay on top of. And there's so much ambiguity or even uncertainty about what's actually going to happen just because they decided they're going to cut funds federal funds to like all these programs like how is that actually going to play out is it going to impact is it like you know and some things are happening like right away and so I think it's it's really confusing and then you have I think one of the challenges too is you have people who are freaking the out right and then you have people that are just like meh And the reality is probably somewhere in between. That's what I've been trying to do is really try to find that sweet spot of it to where I don't get hysterical. But I also take things serious enough because I don't think we get to live in a time in which we can't just not do something right like that's what they're trying to get us to do they're trying to get us to just complacent be overstimulated like freaked out and just like give up you know and just like hide in our homes or whatever we're gonna do and not give any sort of like fight back to what's what's happening yeah yeah and with you know everyone being under attack right now it's even more difficult for us to rally together like you said it's divisive so you have all of these marginalized groups who are facing some sort of discrimination having their rights taken away and how do you rally for all of them yeah it's impossible and they know that it's impossible and it's deliberate yeah yeah and it's I think it's tough and I don't know if people that are listening can relate to this or not but like I feel like I'm a pretty like wide-ranged individual and I'm sure I have my blind spots but I feel like I really try to be open to different issues and other people's struggles and try not to get caught up in my own and try not to get divisive but you know I have I found myself you know feeling like well we're like being at a march or being at a rally and being like where's the trans person or where's the trans narrative in this like I care about women and I care about reproductive rights and I care about um about queer people having access to their marriage and you know these sorts of things and and um and then but then I can't help but think like but where's the voice of the trans person um and and again like I don't like and that I feel bad about that but there is an element of that and I'm sure there's plenty of times they can look at what we're doing and thinking like I think especially everything is so white you know it's really a lot more even more challenging I think to get black and brown folks and people from other marginalized communities to really kind of be in, step up and be in the front of things right now, I guess. Maybe that's what I'm trying to say. I think, yeah, no, totally. And I completely agree. I think you know, right now we need to fight as a community and we need to be fighting for everyone in our community. So. But how do we do that too? Cause it's so. It's hard. Cause like, I know for me, the energy, like, you know, we had, we had a rally on sunday we had a rally yesterday we had a celebration last night um there were a ton of other things that I'm probably not even aware of um and I just didn't have the spoons like um I didn't actually I didn't go to any of the rallies uh I I was feeling kind of bad about it but I just did not have it in me I went to the women's march was it a couple weeks ago yeah But when it came to the rally this Sunday and then even at the words rally, I just couldn't bring myself emotionally, like I just couldn't bring myself to go. Thankfully, I did go to the reception last night and just kind of be surrounded by people in that way, which felt really nice. But yeah, I don't know. I've just been really challenged because you want to show up for everything and you want to support all the different communities, but everything's happening separate and on its own. And it's impossible to do it all at once, almost. Exactly. But I think the thing that would make it... feel more possible is if there was more communication between everybody yeah um because I think that but we're all scrambling well yeah we are all scrambling and that's that's you know part of what's what's happening that's in on purpose you know so that we can't resist we can't rally against all of these things because there's simply too much going on But I think, you know, with the rally on Sunday, it was great to see all of these people come together and be passionate about it. It was like twenty five degrees outside. People were freezing, but they were there. They had their signs. They were like cheering and clapping. And the speakers were wonderful. We had three really good speakers, but we were lacking a trans speaker. And I think that you know, I'm not trying to upset anyone by saying this, but I feel like it was a little tone deaf at this time to lack that representation just because of how under attack. And it's not like, oh, it's just my opinion that the trans community is under attack. Everyone fucking knows that the trans community is under attack at this point. And I think that coming together and representing everybody right now is really important because we are all one family. Yeah, we're even just finding that way to leverage to leverage it a little bit because there was the, one of the things that I did see was a lot of trans people show up for the hearing on the gay marriage. Was that last Wednesday? There was a hearing. It was during the day I had to work my shift, but like I saw a lot of trans people showing up for it. what to some degree gay marriage or same-sex marriage may not even be an issue for them yeah directly again it just kind of depends on how paperwork fills out and how people identify but but at the end of the day we all know it's related it's all connected whether it impacts me personally or the people that I care about are the people that are in my broader community exactly yeah so it's I mean it's all of our fight and we've seen you know at first they were coming for trans people yeah and then but the first you know what was it resolution of the year was coming for for your marriage yeah exactly so it's it's all of us and I think that we have been finding as a community a lot of strength in everyone coming together yeah and it's been really beautiful to see and I think that we just need to continue that momentum because it's gonna carry us, it's gonna take us great places. It's just right now everyone is so overwhelmed and burdened by everything that's going on that it's difficult to kind of keep going at that pace. Well, and like yesterday was the anniversary, the tenth anniversary for the Add the Words campaign, which for folks who may or may not know, ten years ago there was like the first and only hearing after many years of advocacy people getting arrested multiple times I think it was like forty some people arrested at one point um and like and ten years ago they they did the hearing and then nothing happened and like nothing still has happened and so they kind of had like a uh opportunity to watch documentary last night and kind of celebrate and I was talking with um this guy afterwards he was really upset like he was like crying in my chest like a baby like and he was just petrified and he was also reflecting he's like he's like we like we did the work like those people showed up and showed out over and over and over for years and they still lost And like, it's even worse now. Like, how are we going to show up bigger and better than that? Yeah. And then are we going to win? Yeah. You know, and I just told him, I was like, we just got to keep the faith. Like, we just have to keep fighting and we have to keep trying. And like, and he's like, but not everyone is even like, because he was like, not everyone's even like understanding. It's a lot to take in. Yeah. You know, like it's, it feels surreal. It doesn't feel real. And we have to balance our own mentality. I think because it does feel so unreal, it's really hard to comprehend that it's really happening or what it all means. And I think some people get it more than others. And again, that goes back to the strategy that they're using, that they're implementing. And it's very effective. I mean, you see some people that are almost... like paralyzed to do anything because they're so upset by everything you have other people that don't even really necessarily know what's going on or understand the extent to which things are progressing and then yet still you have people who sort of are willfully blind to what's happening and I think that group is the most frustrating for me personally um I see I've done a lot with my partner. Not my partner, but my partner's friend group. And it's... it really is infuriating to me because you have this marginalized group, like queer people, non-binary people, and they're going through all of these things, they're actively losing their rights, and then they have to justify their reactions to that, and that in and of itself is just another injustice that the queer community is going through right now. It can be really isolating and it becomes almost potentially gaslighting. Because it's like, you're having this experience, but everyone else around you is telling you, no, it's not that bad. Yeah, like, oh, you're overreacting. That's not going to happen. But I think that's also, again, part of the whole strategy. I mean, I'm feeling it now, but I've always been the type of person, I have a hard time believing that people are just being horrible to be horrible. But I believe it now and that there is intentionality behind what is happening and how it's happening. Oh, yeah. And I think for me, I've always kind of thought like, oh, evil is just about being like blindsided or, you know, you're you're maladapted. And so it's like you cannot be fully aware and conscious of what you're doing and still do shitty things. And yet it feels we're beyond that. Like there was one that I that I read about a couple of days ago and some of these things, they just seem so outlandishly cruel. They're like, how is this real? Like for instance, when Trump signed the executive order saying that his administration would only recognize someone's biological sex at birth, male or female, that has a lot of implications that we don't even know about yet. And one of them was it, when that order went into effect, it changed a provision called the two thousand three prison rape elimination act or Priya. And that was passed under the administration to combat the rampant sexual assault that happened in the U.S. prison system. It was applied by Biden and Obama to protect trans inmates because they're already at a really high risk of assault. So under this new executive order, those protections are gone. what is what is the point in that like unless it's just to make people suffer yeah I mean things like those are the things that we're dealing with now and I I guess there's an element of thinking like yeah I don't know it's like how can you know know all that is happening and still do it You know what I mean? Again, I can understand being short-sighted, not understanding the full implications of something, but I think you have to know at some point, especially when you're the president or something. You have people around you. If you yourself don't know, somebody else is pointing that shit out to you. It's not a byproduct of his executive order. I think that's something that a lot of people are still struggling to kind of wrap their heads around this is the point is to you know eradicate these marginalized groups and I think once we start to understand that more as a community I think we might be able to organize a little bit better because I'm hoping that we'll get more people interested in in wanting to protest this yeah well I think more people are waking up I know that's such a trigger word I think more and more people are beginning to wake up and I think it might take that like it might take like people really like I think might really have to hit the fan for people to like really react yeah um and unfortunately that's going to come at the price of a lot of harm oh yeah yeah um but unfortunately I do feel like pain is often a touchstone for change and I don't think that's a healthy or the best way for it, but any sort of toxic change or toxic relationship usually ends with a lot of pain, you know? And so I feel like maybe the, I think AOC was talking about this too. It's like, you know, it's a capitalist, like, you know, this, this country was kind of created this way. And as much as we want to paint this beautiful American dream like land of the free, there's a lot of the things about this country that have been set up for it to become corrupt and to fall in the way that it's going to. So in a lot of ways, it's doing exactly what it was created to do. And we need to create something different. And sometimes something has to die before something else can live, you know? Yeah, that's unfortunate. Not to get all spiritual and shit. No, unfortunately, you know, I think that's true. And I'm worried that in this country, we've always... sort of had this mentality of like well that won't happen here yeah we're above it we're beyond it but yeah it wasn't that long ago that we were getting japanese folks and putting them in concentration camps not far from here exactly it really wasn't that far they had underground tunnels for that here in this I know it really wasn't that long ago so it's like but and yet it still feels like to us like it was either something that never happened or it was so whatever that like that's so like we would never exactly and it's like no we had constant we had camps like we had camps we know better yeah we know better than any other country or any other group of people we can be just as horrible to one another as anyone else and I think that's what worries me the most is that mentality that so many people have just that Yeah, it's really bad right now, but they're going to stop this. The Democrats are going to do something to prevent that from happening because this is America. Stuff like that doesn't happen here. We're safe. Even if it's really terrible right now, it's just going to be four years and it'll be something new. I think that that's a really dangerous outlook to have right now. I can't even imagine this going through four years of this. Like it just doesn't feel like it's gonna, I cannot imagine it happening that long. I mean, it already feels like it's been a year and a half and it's been nine days. Yeah. I mean, it just feels like something would have to give. Like something, yeah, something would have to give. Like people would be done. Exactly. You know, I don't know. I don't know what that means, but... Yeah. To go at this degree or this level for the next four years would be... destructive, to say the least. Yeah. Well, I mean, so many things are happening around the world because of this. You know, and... Yeah, I mean, it's kind of cool to also see other countries and groups of people in other parts of the world that are like pulling for us. Yeah, and protesting. Yeah. But it's also kind of scary that it's so difficult to see those things on social media here. Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, I've been hearing some people say, last night I heard a couple people say that they feel really bad that they're not doing anything well then stop feeling bad and do something oops I mean not so much like if we all have that process right but I think I mean and some of that I think some of that might be real for us to check into am I am I not doing anything because I think sometimes we are and we're not fully aware of it so I think if somebody is saying that to themselves I think the big thing would be like really think about are you really not doing anything like I think just existing living our lives and living our lives and like having joy and like like the person who made the comment we need to take a break we can take a break preston's just gonna I got a tickle yeah do you need more water I'm so sorry. I don't think we can afford to be like not doing anything but I think we often have to look around and see what we are actually doing because I think sometimes we are doing more than what we we realize and just existing as the people that we are in this day and age is a lot. Still going to work, still showing up for our families and our friends. To some degree, I almost feel like that's the most powerful thing we can do is just live our lives anyway. To get married, to still go by our names, even if the government doesn't say they want to, or go by the genders that we go by, you know what I mean? Regardless of what the government is saying. And I think that's a hard thing to do right now. But at the end of the day, it's just... I mean, it's not just the government, but like we got to live our lives. Exactly. Especially if things are going to get worse or things aren't going to change. Like we can't wait until I think I was, you know, we can't wait until things are okay to be okay. I think that even just like you said, existing right now or creating art, anything that we're doing right now is an act of resistance. So if it feels like, like you're disappointing yourself because you're not at rallies or you're not doing these things to protest, you're still just existing as an act of protest at this point. So let's just take the time to be gentle with yourself because it's been so much right now, but eventually this is going, and this is terrible, but eventually this is going to feel normal. And then once it does and everything kind of balances out and, you might feel like you have a little bit more to give. And more agency in whatever's happening. Because right now it can definitely feel a little hard to find that grip. I mean, especially after the week we've had. I think that everyone is reeling from that and trying to find a baseline. And I think that's another part of this plan that he's doing is it's trying to unsettle us and dysregulate us so much that we can barely do the basic things that we have to do every day. Yeah, can you believe? So the cafe was just a few days ago. our first ever trans short boise cafe was like today's wednesday so it was saturday but it feels like it feels like it was a lifetime ago it feels like it was at least a couple weeks ago yeah and it was awesome if anybody's wondering it was really cool to to have people show up and just kind of check in about things um you know like paper you know we mostly just sat around and like talked which was really kind of cool um but then and then we did check in with some folks around like documentation and that sort of thing which which is probably something we could talk a little bit about because I think things have changed since when we first talked started talking about paperwork and we were very much about like get your stuff get it now um like get your passports get your gender marker get your name changed and that might be something you might not wanna do right now for some folks, depending upon their situation. We know that passports who, people who are wanting to get Xs on their passports, that's been kiboshed, right? They're saying if you're changing your gender marker, that also might give some sort of flag. And again, it's hard for us to say like, what anyone should do in this particular situation. But we did want to just kind of let people know kind of what's happening. I know there are some like a lot of really great people from the passport people, people who work in passports who are sharing a lot of information online around kind of how to deal with that. So passport is something that you're really passionate about. There is a lot of really great information out there. to kind of like figure that out but I know for me personally I know we did that thing a couple weeks ago or a few weeks ago now and I talked about how I filled out my paperwork and I was excited to do all that and honestly I didn't do any of it I didn't pay for it I didn't have money to pay for things I didn't send anything in so at this point I'm just gonna yeah I'm not going to do anything right now. It's hard. I think I was one of the last people to get a gender marker change on a passport because mine came in the mail like two weeks ago. Yeah. I didn't use the gender marker X, and that's the one that is most under fire right now. And the way that they're doing that, the way that they're able to target it is with his new administration, they only recognize male and female. So right now, anyone who has an X on their passport, that is being targeted to the point where we're hearing that some people are having their passports confiscated and there's the possibility of even like if you're trying to come back into the country with a gender marker as x you can be detained possibly so that's where we're at so I think I mean we can't tell you what to do but if I personally was going through that process again i I don't know if I would change my gender marker right now. Because you don't know if they're going to hold it or confiscate it. Or create a list. That's the stuff that gets scary for me. It's just like people collecting these lists of trans people or non-binary people or half-white people and then what are they going to do with the list? What are they going to use the list for? There's no reason to think they wouldn't come after us in the same way they're coming after illegal immigrants. There's no reason why they wouldn't decide, okay, well, these folks are criminals. They're not abiding by the laws of whatever. I don't see why... At some point down the road, that couldn't be our reality. That sounds so grim. I mean, yeah, but I think it's good to even be thinking about it. Because even if it is wildly outlandish and it never happens, it's better to be kind of prepared for it. At least have it on your radar. Because the reality of this right now, And we kind of debated about whether or not to talk about this because we don't want to scare people. Like, that's not what we want to do. We just want people to be informed. We know someone who is traveling out of the country in just a couple weeks, and they have an X gender marker on their passport. And they are debating whether or not to even go on their trip because they're worried that they may be detained. when they're trying to come back into the country. And that's, this isn't something I read about on Reddit. It's not something I saw on TikTok. This is someone that we know personally that we interact with daily. And this is something that is, that's a very real and valid concern right now. Yeah. And there's the quandary of like, do I even go on the trip? Do I go on the trip anyway? You know, I know there's also like, I know for me, there's a lot of like also wanting to claim my own agency in some things to be like fuck you I'm gonna go do the thing I'm gonna do like I'm not gonna let you know what I mean like exactly and so it's like this weird balance I'm sure of like feeling like you're like standing up for yourself and doing what you need to do for you and your personhood but then also having to and if you have family or you have you know people that are dependent upon you or you know I can't even imagine like me I'm just a free agent you know like so and and I can find it challenging so I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to to have folks that rely on you on a daily basis and considering those sorts of decisions as well. I feel for a lot of people right now because there's so much uncertainty. I guess the only certainty is that shit's on fire. But how everything's going to roll out, how that's going to impact you as an individual, just don't even know and I think it sometimes it does feel like it's so far away but we have people in our world that are in these predicament predicaments who we have people who are concerned about ice you know I was hearing something about twin falls and yep just even just down the road from where we are now and you know what I mean so it's like it's not just something that's happening out there I think one of the differences though is like I mean some of that's like so we've been living in like shitty state for a while right so in some ways we could kind of look at the rest of the country and think they're having a better experience and we're just kind of unique in that I think there is something to thinking around that this is happening all over the country yeah do you know what I mean like where it feels a little bit more big yeah um in ways that I wasn't initially really considering, I think. And then just impacting at a federal level. I think in a lot of ways we reveled in the rights and privileges that came from federal laws and federal protections that are now not there. So it's just kind of a double. So what are we doing? What are we doing? We ain't nothing. Yeah. So we talked about how we did the Trans Roy Boise Cafe last week. So we're doing that the fourth Saturday of each month. Our next one is going to be February the twenty second. And it's from noon to three p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church. So we are going to have some we're going to be able to check in with folks around paperwork and have some of the resources there. But a lot of folks were just coming in to connect. We also are. We also are having a wedding. Yep. Oh, I'm so excited. We're having a trans wedding at the cafe. And I honestly think that that is exactly what the community needs right now. Yeah, yeah. And the couple, Benjamin and Chris, and Adair, they're little ones, but they are wanting you all to come. They would love for community to come out and experience this time with them. And so we're going to have cake, and we're going to have... just lots of beautiful trans and queer people all over I'm super excited to be officiating their wedding and I think one of the things is like you know um this is a couple that I was going to marry further on down the road but some people are feeling like they need to marry sooner than later um so that's something I think that I've been hearing a lot more of is like people maybe aren't changing gender markers and doing those sorts of things but they are getting married they're um making sure adoption paperwork is filled out they are making sure that like medical uh rights and privileges and all of that is is lined up estates um all of that sort of legal stuff is all still really big and probably still really important because they even talk about like even if somewhere down the road the supreme court decides it's a state rights issue they do have like a trigger thing into where it would happen automatically here yeah or yeah there's but even with that I think there's still like this grandfathered clause like if you haven't if you're already married you might be able to stay. It's just maybe new marriages won't happen. And again, who knows? There's a lot of things down the road, but I know a lot of people are feeling the pressure to take care of that stuff sooner than later. And a lot of times we need to take care of that stuff sooner than later anyway. Especially when it comes to medical stuff and protections and all that. That's something we honestly should already have in place with a lot of our loved ones and stuff. Yeah. I agree, just for protections. Yeah. And we're starting our little support group. Yes. On Thursdays. Yeah, so I'm gonna call it like a social group. A social support. Our social support group. Social support, yeah. Yeah, we're not necessarily, we're not therapists. No. Not by, yeah. Yeah, we're not therapists and it's not gonna be like. Like a traditional kind of like. Yeah, like a recovery group or something like that. We're not gonna sit around in a circle and talk about our feelings. No. We're gonna like sit over coffee and talk about our feelings. No, I don't know. like it's not going to be orchestrated it's basically just going to be like a time in a community room to just kind of like hang out and that's kind of what like eat drink and be merry yeah like just being around other people that are you know going through the same or similar experiences was really validating and I think it's really important for us to be coming together in this in times like these anyway just as a community and I think that it's really healing it's a lot of I think what the cafe was but just on a smaller scale yeah um and it's something more often more like regular and right now because I know that's I think that's the thing for me is there's a lot of things that we're working on down the road or even like these cafes are great but you have to wait till the end of the next month or whatever it just feels like we need more regular like connections somehow so we uh you know roots market was they have a community room they're more than willing to let us use it they're excited to be hosting us they're a really great um organization um trans non-binary people work there um I spend a lot of time there myself um so if I think it's a really great location and great spot for that I'm really looking forward to it yes and then did we need the app right You know, we're still getting the app going and we're building our wait list. So that way, as soon as we launch it within this month, we'll be able to just kind of hit the ground running and just start being able to interact with everyone and get the community together in one place, you know, as soon as it launches. Yeah, yeah. When we're getting lots of like the last time I looked a while ago, we had like forty some people on the waiting list. So And so the notifications are going off all the time, which is really exciting. Do we have, we haven't anticipated, like it's, it should be sooner than later, right? I would imagine probably within this month. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not, it's something that's happening soon, but not like tomorrow. Right. Exactly. But, but probably within the next couple of weeks. I would imagine. Yeah. I think everything seems to be going smoothly with, with that. Yeah. So I would imagine it will be, maybe three or four weeks yeah yeah I think that was all the things we wanted to to talk about I mean I think as as you know we are getting a lot more engagement on our socials and our podcast so please do um like please do share them comment um we really love hearing from y'all and then we're also working on getting ready to have guests on so I'm sure you're all tired of Just looking and listening to us. But I think starting as soon as next week, we're hoping we're going to start having a guest with us each week. So if you yourself are interested in being such a guest, reach out to us. Put it in the comments or DM us. Or if you'd like to nominate or like to see somebody on the podcast, that would be great for those ideas as well. Perfect. Looking forward to seeing some of those. Yeah, so take care of yourselves. Don't be hard on yourself. And surround yourself with people who love you and care about you. Because we all need that a little extra right now. Definitely. Awesome. All right. We'll see you next week. Bye.