I know everyone is posting everything Trump does everyday up here. We have no place left to escape his insanity. All that I am asking is to maybe try to think positively, not repost what he does all the time, so that we have a sort of, safe place to be. I did vote for Harris so I am in my right to say this. I would like BigCloset TopShelf to be a safe haven for all - Especially from the wanna be king. Please?
I am begging you all.
Sephrena
Comments
I agree
One of the big draws of BCTS is that it's a safe place to be me and express my feminine nature. I may be foolish, but for me I don't intend to let the rantings of someone in Washington DC affect my decision making process regarding how I live. It may be a tough few years, but "This too shall pass," applies.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Sorry no can do
As a post-op it may potentially impact me much more compared to a person who does not plan to live-full time so I can't be that sanguine about it.
So what might be a fantasy female life here is fun and all but I live in a real one.
The reality is that this is just the beginning of the pain. The economic impact of the ruinous financial choices this administration will make will hit home as the year rolls on. That will impact donations to BC more than likely, threatening its survival.
This has only emboldened haters of us even more.
One time I was headed off to work and this guy had this whole manifesto printed on the back window of his van expressing his POV of makeup etc does not a woman make.
He literally created a billboard of hate on the back of his vehicle.
Edit: Don't we know there is a War on ?
Even during WWII, the movie theaters, the only real escape from the war had war movies and there was always the reminder of people to buy war bonds. So there is precedent.
We can talk and chew gum at the same time. Dive into comforting fun stories, favorites as a relief, I have some go-to stories like that but to avoid discussion at all of what is the most existential threat to who we are in a long time is not in our best interest.
Jamison Green presented a talk at Fantasia Fair about what this whole issue and it comes down to we have to continue to build relationships with people who support us. We need allies. The state I live in is cool about the whole trans thing for the most part as far as I can tell. The conservatives excepting of course as you can tell from his van.
Underming our community's economic viability will cause a spiral of problems that will prevent us from fighting back any time soon. IMHO the T community has been set back literally decades.
Precisely Stated
Thank you Kimmie for conveying exactly what needs to be expounded. If we sit by and quietly let this occur then we are guilty of concurring with their hate. I don't know what they may have planed for me, I don't worry of what they can do, but think about our younger brothers and sisters, what is in store for their future? Love to all, Emily
Revisiting
Alito alluded to revisiting Obergefell v. Hodges which ruled on June 26, 2015, that the right to marry extends to same-sex couples, making same-sex marriage legal nationwide in the United States; essentially stating that denying marriage to same-sex couples violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. Multiple states are lining up to challenge this ruling.
He also mentioned that in his opinion, the Constitution does NOT guarantee a right to travel. I know of at least one parent who has been forced to move twice to ensure that her transgender daughter receives gender-affirming medical care. A removal of a right to travel to a transgender-friendly state is yet another way our freedoms are being threatened. Several states have tried to pass laws that criminalize helping another person leave to seek medical care.
"All gender expressions are equal. Some gender expressions are more equal than others." Orwell, Tranimal Farm
Love, Andrea Lena
Real ID
When the US government first proposed the Real ID program where you would have to have a "Real ID" qualified ID to take a plane or the enter a federal building, I immediately thought of a scene in the WWII movie "The Great Escape". In this scene the escaped prisoners are lining up for a check point to exit a train station. Everyone is required to show their identity papers and travel permits.
It seems that we are fast approaching that Nazi Germany state of travel.
Michelle B
Kimmie
In no way am I trying to take anything away from you. I get that you *need* to express yourself. I get it. I am just asking for a little breathing room to dial down the hate is all. It is a *whole lot* to take in. And if anyone is trying to take from you, I will step in with you. You're a valued member of our site and part of our family. Defending you is part of the job. Please keep us updated.
Sephrena
A reasonable request
Sephrena, you make a reasonable request. Especially considering the Three Rules that underpin our community here on BCTS. Though how doable the implementation is, is questionable as Kimmie stated in her reply.
I have noticed over the past 15+ years that my mental health stability and well-being is directly linked to how much news coverage I consume. If I stay away from news media, my mental health improves. But the more news I consume, the deeper and faster I descend into a mental health abyss.
I often wish I could follow the example of Vanessa, the thirty-five year old mother of Simon[e] in Tanya J. Allan's novel Weird Wednesday, and get off this world as well as exit the hamster wheel of the daily rat race of survival.
I am well aware of the fact that it is virtually impossible to live in isolation from all news media. Though I have become a lot more discerning about my media consumption. For myself I have found social media like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Telegram and other similar albeit niche social networks to be highly toxic for my general mental health. And it has been over three years since I last tried to login to one of those, unsuccessfully I might add. My current apartment came furnished with a TV, that I have disconnected almost three years ago in order to save some electricity. Since I grew up without TV, I do not miss it.
Having grown up under a [military] dictatorship, as well as over three decades of aftermath of 80+ years of totalitarian regimes, I am having a massive déjà vu as I see the USA racing headlong into a totalitarian and absolutist regime, with a politicized judiciary that is also slipping into religious fanaticism willing to kowtow to a megalomaniac and a spineless legislature that rubber-stamps whatever the “Supreme Leader” wants, in order to preserve their suckling from the public purse. And none gives a damn about the letter of the law.
Corporate news media is next to useless in any kind of facts-based journalism or reporting. And independent media is increasingly becoming polarized and extremely strident. Some independent channels, that four to five years ago reported facts ignored or suppressed by corporate media, have increasingly started to sound like increasingly hysterical broken records. Instead of maintaining a calm and measured tone of voice reporting on the facts, they are increasingly sounding like hysterical fanatics trying to brain-wash their audience. To the point of making me nauseous. Which is why I have more or less abandoned them.
I will admit here and now, that I am also guilty of participating in some inflammatory comments, because I get so triggered by the AI (absolute idiocy or absolute ignorance) coming out the current regime in Washington DC. Even though I am not a citizen of the USA nor do I live in the USA, due to the globally intertwined nature of social and economic interactions, I am still impacted by the ignorant and idiotic actions of totalitarian “leaders” with delusions of grandeur and notions of infallibility.
Stories Are An Escape
For me BCTS is a place to find new writers, enjoy and study their skills at writing, and get lost with them in the world of their imagination. In a way it's going to movie, maybe fishing, flying, petting the cats or goats, writing another story, etc. It's escaping from the problems of the world. Most everyone has their own choices how to find a comfort zone. Each find their step back, find their break from the constant fighting at the front of a war whether that war is physical or mental. Not every soldier is slogging through the mud and grind at the front, seeing their friends die. There are those who are so far from the fight, to them it is simply news of what is happening, nothing more. I'm so happy not everyone is caught up in life's meat grinder where everyday is a test of survival.
BCTS provides a time out for those who are struggling and those who are safe and life is coasting. It also provides a place unique to all who share not only their imagination but also what is happening in life. I guess some of that is like trying to enjoy the movie and there are those around one keep talking and spoiling the entertainment on the screen. I can't recommend a satisfactory solution for both sides. I guess Erin and the girls could remove the blog feature?
Hugs Sephrena
Barb
I'll go pet the goats.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Here's a goat!
The Wut Wut Goat!
Sephrena
TV news or reruns of Gunsmoke
It's my choice. There are many threads right now on this subject. I'm not following all of then anymore. I choose not to, Not because they don't have valid points to make, but because my psyche can only handle so much doom and gloom before I begin to spiral into depression. I'm on the verge right now.
It's like a mild catatonic state. I just am... I'm not creative, I'm not happy yet not morose, I just am. The frustrating part of it all is that my muse refuses to associate with me when I'm like that. Therefore I'm about to tune out all discussions about the politics currently assaulting us,
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Grace
I hear you, Sephrena. Mostly I have tried to focus on stories, because in my own way I think sharing stories is a way for us all to stay sane, and -- in a strange way -- a method of resisting the madness that is overtaking our society. There are those who would erase us, but we are still here.
Still, it's hard to post fiction and fluff on days when the world teeters. When our trans sisters and brothers are dismissed from the military, or denied the health care that they need. For many in our community, this may be the ONLY place where they can share their anger, fear, and heartbreak. Where they can discuss ongoing threats and possible strategies to counter them.
We need to give each other the grace to meet the moment in our own ways. Sometimes I engage with the political discussions here; often I don't. There are times when I just can't take another scream about what is going on -- when I've screamed so much myself that I just need an escape. And if, in those moments, I don't read a political blog, but instead post a silly story, or a comment on someone else's finely-crafted tale, or blog inanely about cover art, I hope that everyone here will understand that it's not because I don't care, or am blind to what is happening in the world. I'm trying to cope as best I can, at the moment that I'm in, and hoping that maybe someone else can benefit from something light-hearted.
But the fact that I may have hit my own wall and am in desperate need of an escape does not mean that someone else should refrain from writing something serious. That may be how they can best meet the moment. And they may say something that another community member needs to read, just to get through their day. There are plenty of days when I am that "other community member." Just not every day.
— Emma
TOPICAL: A Prefatory Trigger Warning
Well, this is a dilemma, isn't it? Some of us want BCTS to be the one place where we can find peace and escape from the unpleasant realities of weaponized transphobia in the US and other nations these days. Others like myself might feel like this is the only place where we CAN honestly discuss our feelings about our status as society's pariah caste, among the only people who can relate to our fears, our resentments etc. There doesn't seem to be a good way to make both sides happy, and I can sympathize with Sephrena and others who wish I would just shut up about America's current POTUS; or as as I like to say POSOTUS (you can work out for yourselves what that acronym means)...
So maybe those who need to blog or comment about such unpleasantries could -- on an entirely voluntary basis -- begin their blog titles or comment headings with the word TOPICAL: as a warning that they're going to be discussing political matters, capitalized so that it's hard to miss. That way anyone who doesn't want to be reminded of the horrors going on outside of our little safe space can do so, and those who need to commiserate about them or find inspiration + strength for the fight against them can choose to read it. Kind of like the movie ratings system, with its little tags warning of Violence, Sex, Bad Language, Smoking; or this new one I hear they're adding- Wokeness.
It's just a suggestion, until someone smarter than me can
come up with a better way to accommodate both sides.
~hugs, Veronica
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.