Weekly Round-Up March 10
I’m officially testing negative for COVID now, but the bone-deep fatigue lingers. I only intended to take one week off from the newsletter, but as I stayed sick, I needed more time off. I’m hoping to get back to my regularly-scheduled programming next week.
Yesterday it snowed hard all day, and it’s funny that so many Thursdays have had snowstorms this semester, meaning campus is closed and classes go remote. I don’t mind, but the timing is interesting.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ legislation that is proposed and passing around the USA right now, including in my home state of Iowa. Some people try to reason with these bigoted lawmakers, but the cruelty is the point, and they hate us. It’s all about power and control and pushing their hateful agenda. To be honest, I don’t have much hope about things getting better, and the utter toothlessness of the Democrats is galling. On top of the attacks against reproductive rights, everything is pretty awful these days.
Recent data from the Trevor Project found 44% of LGBTQ+ youth (52% of transgender and nonbinary youth) have seriously considered suicide in the previous year; that’s more than double the rate in the general youth population at approximately 18 percent. I’m an adult and I struggle with suicidal ideation regularly, and having so many politicians loudly calling for the “eradication” of my community doesn’t exactly make one want to stick around. I’d like to believe that mainstream Republican voters just don’t realize the harmful impact they have on real people when they vote for these politicians, but I think that’s naive. I think they do know and either don’t care because they don’t see us as fully human anyway, or they agree with these politicians. But let me make it very clear: many people, especially young people absolutely will die by suicide because of this legislation.
What does this have to do with creativity, you ask? Well, it’s pretty damn hard to focus on making art when your very basic human rights are under attack. Every day I look for job posts and housing options in blue states that might not be so dangerous for me to live in, but the findings are bleak, and I resent the attempts to chase my community from our homes. I was born in Iowa, and I’ve officially lived here for 28 years this summer (cumulatively, not consecutively), longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s where most of my family is, and I don’t want to leave, I’m just afraid. Knowing that the fear is part of their plan hurts.
And I’m not just being paranoid. A mountain of leaked emails detail the coordinated effort the Christian right wing has executed since at least 2019 targeting LGBTQ folks. The Christian right wing (I don’t like saying “religious right” because lumping all religions together when we all know it’s 99.9% right wing Christians is problematic to say the least. Even my liberal Christian friends hate being lumped in with the Christian right wing. The investigation into these emails is shocking and yet also not so much so. Still, it’s all disheartening.
It seems like the Christian right is hell bent (lol) on erasing the existence of (or at least hiding all signs of the existence of) LGBTQ people, banning any book that features a queer family, for instance. But books aren’t meant to always represent our lived experience. I learned when studying to be a teacher that it’s important for young people (and, to be honest, adults too) to read books that are windows and books that are mirrors. That means that some books offer us a chance to look in the window at people whose lives are different from ours, and some books offer a chance to see our own lives reflected. Both are important. And banning books from schools and public libraries is not a solution.
So things are rough, and there’s not been much to celebrate creatively in the past several weeks. I honestly haven’t even been reading very much, just sleeping.
I do have some great interviews with creatives coming up, including part 2 of my interview with Julie Marie Wade.
Here’s a brief roundup of links:
This song is an example of my favorite kind of folk punk.
I’m also loving this Jenny Lewis song “Puppy and a Truck.”
Kids want to learn about the real world. This interview with children about what they want was interesting.
Amazing disability activist and educator Judith Heumann passed away.
Allie Phillips is a Tennessee woman with a very much wanted pregnancy that was found to be no longer viable, and the fetus had stopped developing and would soon die, putting her life at risk. She was forced to travel out of state to get an abortion because of Tennessee’s laws, and she has been chronicling her heartbreaking decision and journey on Tiktok with such raw honesty it’s frankly stunning.
That’s all I’ve got energy for today, folks. Hopefully I’ll be back in your inbox on my regular schedule soon.