OK, I've thought about it, and I have decided that I am going to say a little more about my feelings about politics, elections, and in particular the upcoming 2024 American presidential election. I'm writing this mainly for myself, but I figure I will go ahead and share it with this thread, so that anybody who happens to be interested can hear my perspective and how I feel about these issues as a white non-binary transgender woman living in Portland, Oregon. This is probably going to be long.
Me and a lot of my trans friends don't spend a lot of time looking at the news. My girlfriend is struggling with spending less time reading headlines. She calls it "doomscrolling", a form of digital self-harm. It's that way for a lot of us, including me - we consider reading the news, seeing what the news is reporting about us, what other people are saying about us, to be a form of digital self-harm. So for me, clicking on this thread was a form of digital self-harm. I knew it when I clicked on it, but it's really tempting to me to hear what other people are saying, to hear the perspectives of other people on this board. I do think, in general, it's important for me to be open to and listen to other people's perspectives.
I try to do this, though, from a perspective of "wise mind". A lot of my thinking these days is informed by the DBT program I'm going through, by the DBT skills I'm working on developing. "Wise mind", mindfulness in general, is an important one for me. A lot of times I've been really upset about politics and said things without thinking about them. I would talk about things based on my emotions, I would spiral, and all of my rational thought would come up with all of these facts and evidence to support my basically emotional conclusion. It didn't help me to engage with politics that way.
Another one of the DBT skills I'm learning, though, is distress tolerance. It's a year out, but over the next year people are going to be talking more and more about politics, which right now entails saying a lot of pretty cruel things about transgender people. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. That's just socially acceptable political discourse right now, and I'm working to employ radical acceptance (another DBT skill) of it. And this is the thing about a lot of DBT, it's _dialectical_, it's finding, ironically enough given my skepticism of "both sides" politics, the "middle path". In DBT, the way I understand "dialectics" doing things entirely one way or the other. There's some overlap with the term and its Marxist application, but it isn't really used in that sense. We don't really talk about about Marx or Hegel in our classes. We're focused more on developing practical skills.
So even though engaging with politics online is for me a form of digital self-harm, at the same time it's important for me to develop distress tolerance, to be able to hear people advocating for, well, some pretty bad things, things that affect me personally as well as the people I care about, and be able to listen to that without going into emotional crisis. To some extent, of course! I can work to limit my exposure to the worst political talk and still be able to hear people talking about politics to some extent, even when people say some pretty hurtful things.
And I guess it's fair to admit that what some people who self-identify as "liberal" say about me, politically, is hurtful to me emotionally. I'm not saying that as a judgement on them. People are allowed to feel how they feel, and they're allowed to think what they think. It's not about right or wrong. It's about actions and consequences. When I read people saying that I'm not supporting my own best interest by not voting for Biden, it makes me feel like my beliefs about my own best interests don't matter. So I want to affirm here that my beliefs about my own best interests _do_ matter, that, right or wrong, I have the right to act on my beliefs and values. I want to affirm that what other people think about what my best interests are reflects on them, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with me personally.
Those beliefs are rooted in my lived experience, and I want to talk a little bit about that - my lived experience. This includes my friends, most of whom are transgender, seeing what they're going through, the things they struggle with.
First off, my lived experience is that who I vote for President doesn't matter. Who becomes President is determined by the electoral college, which apportions its votes, in every state except, I think, Nebraska, on a statewide basis. I live in Oregon, which pretty solidly votes Democrat. Therefore, whether I vote for Biden or not doesn't matter. Biden won Oregon handily in 2020 despite my not casting a vote in the Presidential election. It's _possible_ that Oregon's electoral votes could play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of the 2024 election, but it seems pretty unlikely to me. Similarly, it's _possible_ that who Oregon gives its electoral votes could be meaningfully affected by whether or not I, personally, vote for Joe Biden for President, but it seems pretty unlikely to me. So looking at things from a risk management perspective - and this isn't a DBT thing, this is just what I do professionally - I feel like the overall risk that my not voting for Joe Biden for President will lead to an adverse outcome for me and the people I care about is pretty small.
More importantly, when it comes to radical acceptance, I have to accept that there is a pretty strong possibility that a Republican will become President in 2025, probably as a result of whatever happens on Election Day in 2024. Whether that happens is not really within my control. What is within my control is how I respond to the stresses I face. The most important thing for me is to take care of myself.
I don't mean that in strictly a selfish sense. What I mean is that the single most important thing I can do to work towards transgender rights is to value and care for myself as a transgender person. My lived experience is that this makes way more of a difference than how I vote. One of the most amazing and wonderful things about my transition is that it's not just that it's had tremendous positive effects on me, but that my simply doing that, simply being myself and loving myself for who I am, has had tremendous beneficial effects on the people around me, cis and trans alike. Before I transitioned, I never really thought about the possibility that I might make the world a better place by just loving myself.
The reason this is effective is that, when I love myself, that gives me the motivation and desire to be the best me I can be. Because - and I know this sounds corny, but it's true - I'm worth it. Trying to do all of these things out of guilt and shame and a sense of obligation to other people just wasn't effective for me. I've been learning to trust my own values, recognizing that they're different from other people's values, that sometimes they conflict with other people's values. When I'm mindful about things, when I'm acting out of wise mind, I do trust my values and trust that I have the right to act in accordance with those values. I don't get caught up as much in self-doubt and spiraling and analysis-paralysis, which was a lot of how I engaged with politics, particularly _talking about_ politics, before I started trusting and loving myself.
Another important part of mindfulness is about living in the present. I mean, I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and say that what happens next November doesn't matter. It absolutely matters and it could have pretty significant personal consequences for me and the people I care about, trans and cis alike. I've found that spending a lot of time worrying about the future can make it more difficult for me to be be present in the here and now. If I'm not living in the present, I'm not being my best self. I guess the DBT skill I'd be using when dealing with the 2024 election is called "coping ahead". When I know I'm going to be in a situation where I'm going to be under significant stress, I can "cope ahead" by working to take care of myself emotionally, to take steps so that I can take care of myself better when I'm in an emotionally stressful situation.
"Coping ahead" in this case involves, for instance, getting my passport and social security updated well before 2024, so that whatever happens after that - and again, what's going to happen fundamentally outside of my control - I will at least have correct information on file for me. The most important part of it is emotional, though, which is why I'm writing now about the consequences of an event that won't happen for another year. The idea that, as difficult as thing are for me and the people I care about, they could get even worse a year or so from now... that causes me a lot of stress and anxiety. So "coping ahead" actually helps me in the present, helps me focus on the present knowing that I've done what I can to take care of future Kate.
That gives me a lot more time to focus on the serious stresses and anxieties I experience in the present. Not all of these are about things that affect me personally. Part of appreciating diversity is understanding that different groups have different experiences, and I can work to support people who experience different challenges than my own. This is what I think of as "intersectionality". For instance, I know that the people of Palestine are suffering from some pretty horrific things at the hands of a political institution that's hostile towards them. It's important to me to support them as best I can. My ability to do so is pretty limited. Everybody has different ways of living out their beliefs. In my case, part of living out those beliefs is saying that I can't really in good conscience support an American President who doesn't share the values of mine, who _can_ act in support of the Palestinian people but instead sides with their oppressors. I can see how this could be seen by other people as not advocating for myself, for my own best interests! I think that's a valid way of looking at things. That's not how I see it, though. I've looked at it from a risk management perspective, and from that evaluation I've concluded that the risk of a regime hostile to transgender people coming into power because of my refusal to support Joe Biden is pretty low.
In fact, not supporting Biden is less of a form of "self-sabotage" than that. The fact is that I already didn't support Biden. I didn't vote for President in 2020, and I have never planned to vote for him in 2024. This is kind of what I mean when I say that my ability to support the Palestinian people is pretty limited! Still, affirming my support of the Palestinian people and acting to oppose people like Joe Biden, who has political power in the country where I live, isn't, I don't think, meaningless. I'm living my values by doing so.
At the same time, living my values, supporting the Palestinian people, means actively working to oppose antisemitism. My support for Palestine isn't based in any sort of antisemitism, and I'm not willing to actively work to support Palestine in community with people whose motives for doing so are antisemitic. Doing so is an attack on both my personal values and my friends who are marginalized because of their Jewish heritage. This is, to the best of my understanding, part what DBT means when it talks about "dialectics" - reconciling two apparently opposed points of view and actions and navigating a sort of "middle way".
But only part, really, because all of the above addresses intersectionality from a theoretical framework, from what DBT refers to as "rational mind". There's a more practical aspect to it as well. The people who support trans people, who support queer people, who support my values - these people overwhelmingly support Palestine. There is, in practical terms, an _intersection_ of various groups of people with differing interests. I remember seeing "Free Palestine" graffiti in Portland as far back as the BLM protests in 2020. It's everywhere now - graffiti, flyers. It seems like nearly all of the people who support the same causes I support, all of the people who provide _me_ as a transgender woman with the most meaningful, direct support, also support Palestine. I guess in a sense that's rational as well, but it _feels_ like less of a rational reason than all of the preceding. In any case, there's another dialect, one between supporting Palestine for theoretical reasons and supporting Palestine because all of my friends, including, to the best of my knowledge, my Jewish friends, do. To the best of my knowledge! I don't talk a lot about it with my friends because I've never encountered any real disagreement with any of them on the issue and because we all have lots of other things going on in our lives. Emotionally, my top priority is to support the people who are directly in my life, my friends.
Which, I guess, _finally_ (I told you this was going to be long, haha) gets me to the point of talking about the political factors that are affecting me in the present, how I interact with politics in practical terms. Honestly, my political actions are much more small-scale and personal than they were a couple years ago. Two years ago, I was working to start an online community to help support trans people locally. That community has been pretty successful and I'm happy for its success! However, at the same time, I wasn't working to deal with my own life. I was spending a lot of time worrying about things outside of my control - because even in Portland, a lot of things are outside my control.
I've had to really work hard to not feel guilty or stressed about some of the things that are happening to my friends. A couple of my friends have lost their jobs and are having a hard time finding new ones. Even looking for a new job is really stressful for a lot of us. Looking for work has always been really hard for me, putting myself out there in a situation where I'm constantly, you know, getting rejected. And I know it's not personal, but I am pretty rejection-sensitive so it's hard. I guess it's easy in the abstract to blame people personally for not looking hard enough, but I just don't see the benefit in that. Actions and consequences. That's all.
Most of us don't really experience overt bigotry, but at the same time, we just don't get the support we need, a lot of the time. My girlfriend had to quit a job that was really important to her because people there were transphobic to her, and when she reported it to HR they dismissed her complaint as being not founded. Fortunately she's in a better place now professionally, although she still has some work-related challenges (not related to her being trans). I'm really glad that I've been able to be there to support her personally, just like she's been there to support me personally. It's a lot of why I'm handling the stresses of life as a trans woman in 2023 better than I had been.
I have friends who live in other states, and sometimes I see the practical ramifications of what is happening to them. I've had to stop reading about and keeping up with what's going on in Florida and Texas and states like that. I know it's bad. I know that the leadership there wants to... the term I've settled on is "extirpate", for now. Basically they don't want there to be any more trans people in Florida and Texas, and they're looking at different ways to implement that goal. I assume that everyone who's in a position of leadership in the Republican party shares that basic goal, and will work actively to implement it when the Republicans obtain political control of the country where I live. I'm not saying that's going happen in 2024, but it seems reasonable to assume it's going to happen _eventually_, and whether it does or not is, again, fundamentally outside of my control. That issue of control is why I have stopped getting loud and agitated about it like I was earlier this year.
Politics in practical terms is that the Republicans will keep doing these sorts of things until somebody tells them they can't, that they're hurting people, that the prejudice and bigotry they're enacting institutionally against trans people is not acceptable or legitimate. I don't really see the Democrats doing that right now. Whether they aren't able to or not willing to - again, that doesn't matter to me. What matters is what they aren't. This doesn't affect me personally the way it does, say, my friend who's a hospital nurse in Texas, where her DEI committee had to shut down due to bills being put before the Texas legislature. That committee was a bright spot for her, a haven of support in an environment that's overall not very supportive. She's trying to get out of Texas, but she's also trying to stay employed. We all have a lot we're going through on a day to day basis - sometimes it's referred to as "allostatic load". It makes things challenging. Even things that might be easy for others are hard for us. I feel for her personally. There's not much I can do, in practical terms, to support her.
I have a couple main concerns on a personal level. One is trying to remain visible as a trans person. In Portland this isn't a burning political issue, so much, particularly in the neighborhood I live in. It's just personally important to me. I'm not spending as much time as I used to directly involved in trans community, in trans activism. I'm spending more time caring for myself. Part of caring for myself, though, means giving people the opportunity to know me as a trans person.
On a more practical level, the main thing that concerns me is making sure I keep having access to hormones. This is honestly more difficult than you'd think it would be. In Oregon, a lot of providers simply won't prescribe trans hormones. Compounding this (pun intended, here) is that the particular sort of hormones I use are an injectable form that isn't made by any pharmaceutical company. My challenge have to find a provider that will prescribe it and find a company that will compound the hormone and send it to me. Right now the provider I've been using isn't covered by my insurance. I'm trying to find one that is covered, so I don't have to pay out of pocket to get a hormone prescription. On top of that, insurance companies don't really cover compounded medications, so I have to pay out of pocket for those, as well. The place I'm getting my hormones from is a compounding pharmacy based in Texas. Of course, due to the political situation they could vanish at any time, and then I'd have to find another source for my hormones.
Having access to hormones is pretty important to me. It's surprising how difficult getting a steady supply of hormones is for me, a professionally employed, financially stable trans woman living in Portland, Oregon. And that is, to me, a political issue. Access to hormones is important for a lot of trans people, and it's just a really dicey situation right now.
An important part of my having access to hormones is being part of radical community. If I went through the standard medical channels, all I'd really be able to get is pills. Because of their half-life, I don't get a stable curve in terms of hormones, and this negatively affects my emotional stability. I've tried patches, but for whatever reason they're not effective on me, so even if I _could_ get them through the standard medical channels, it wouldn't really benefit me. Through radical community, I have access to information most people don't have that I've been able to use to get the medical care I need. I'm fortunate to be able to do that even _with_ the support of radical community. Most trans people just aren't as financially stable as I am right now.
Anyway, this is sort of an illustration of how I sort of have to work outside the established American systems and structures in order to get my needs met. It's that way for a lot of us, that way for a lot of us right now. Right now, nothing I'm doing is illegal. If things change politically, it might actually become illegal for me to get the hormones I need. It wouldn't even take that much. You wouldn't have to ban HRT altogether. You'd just have to go after the compounding pharmacies. A lot of Democrats do seem to be pretty eager to go after them, so supporting Democrats isn't necessarily a great way of making sure I keep having a steady hormone supply. If any of the "legitimate" pharmaceutical companies made the injectable hormone I use, it wouldn't be as much of a problem, but none of them do. If you really look at it, placing political pressure on institutions that provide gender care can be just as effective, perhaps even moreso, than passing laws that restrict access to care. You don't need to pass laws to keep trans people from getting prescribed hormones or getting hormones filled. This is just the reality of trans life right now.
That's not even talking about access to surgery. I'm really fortunate to have had access to the surgery I did. Back in the day, if you wanted surgery, a lot of times you had to go overseas. A lot of people still do that, go to Thailand or South America or whatever. A friend of mine needs hair transplants, and she's probably going to wind up going to Mexico for them. A lot of insurance companies consider them "cosmetic" and not covered. I think Oregon law now doesn't allow insurance companies to exclude trans-affirming care as "cosmetic", but that only applies to insurers based in Oregon. My insurance isn't, and my friend's insurance isn't.
Access to care, in practical terms, hasn't really gotten any better over the past three years. If anything, it's gotten worse. Surgical providers haven't necessarily closed down, but there's an increasing amount of demand, and things haven't kept up. There aren't, for instance, enough electrologists out there in Oregon, and the ones that are, they're not usually covered by insurance. The process to get something like that covered by insurance is pretty onerous for someone who's just doing electrolysis, and pretty much all of them work independently. This isn't just a matter of stubble. The most common technique for transfem genital reconstructive surgery requires electrolysis of the genital area. This is a long-term, arduous process. There are techniques that don't take as long, that can remove hair in just a couple of sessions, but again, they're not widely provided. Someone I knew flew out to Chicago to have it done. Someone else flew to Texas to get electrolysis without it taking a year, and again, God knows if they're still in business. There is real benefit to doing it in fewer sessions, because that means one can get scheduled for surgery sooner. Particularly in Oregon, getting access to surgery can be really difficult, and the place where I got my GRS done (which at the time was the only place in Oregon performing GRS) didn't even book people until they'd gotten a certain amount of electrolysis done. This is one of the reasons I was able to get my surgery done so quickly - my surgery didn't require electrolysis, so I got to avoid that bottleneck.
Now, fortunately, this hasn't been, and isn't, a personal issue for me. I was able to get my surgery fairly quickly, and I had it done by a technique that doesn't require electrolysis beforehand. One of the effects is that I do have hair growing in places where it wouldn't generally be growing on a cis woman's body, but I can have electrolysis to have it removed. I just haven't gotten to it yet. Allostatic load, and all.
That's not to say that the Biden Administration hasn't done anything to benefit me personally, because it has. I'm non-binary and I can now update my federal identity documentation to reflect my gender. I tried to do this under the previous administration. I actually couldn't get my social security updated to show my gender as female! Social security wanted some documentation that said my gender was "F", and all of my documentation had my gender as "X", so they wouldn't do it. Now, I don't think this is official policy, I think this was just that person's interpretation of an unclear mandate. That's one of the practical things I have to deal with. As I said earlier, I do want to get that change made before a Republican gets into the White House - since it's under executive control, I expect any Republican president to repeal the ability to have non-binary gender reflected on federal documentation pretty quickly. The legal status, at that point, of any federal documentation showing my gender as non-binary, isn't something I have any control over, so I choose to not worry about it.
One of the things I do professionally is that I'm a contractor for CMS, and so I have a login with their systems. It was really difficult for me to get them to update my name in their system. They were finally able to do it this year. I've been trying to get it updated since 2020, but it just never happened until this year. The person who finally helped me with it was a little snippy with me, saying I hadn't followed the right procedure, but I am happy to finally have my account updated and grateful to them for helping me. It's pretty common with federal bodies like CMS that we don't necessarily get clear directions on how to comply with their processes. A lot of times we get contradictory information. This isn't just about gender stuff, it's about a lot of things, and it does make my job more difficult. The main way it made things more difficult was that whenever I did reporting I had to login under my deadname. I dreaded doing reporting because of that. It's really emotionally hard for me to be addressed by my deadname. Fortunately it happens pretty rarely these days. Anyway, this is a case where a gender-affirming policy was in place, but it wasn't, in my experience, implemented efficiently or effectively. Trans-affirming official policies are nice, but they haven't been as much practical benefit to me as one might think.
The point of all this isn't to nitpick - merely to point out that there are real, practical things that Democrats in positions of power can do to benefit trans people, even in an environment where they face Republican opposition. In fact, there _are_ a lot of real, practical things being done to benefit me - by people who _don't_ have the national political power that the Democrats do.
In light of all the preceding, it's just really hard for me, as a trans woman, to believe that supporting Democrats electorally on a national level is in my rational best interest as a trans woman, or that it's an effective way of supporting my friends who are marginalized ways that I'm not.
If you've read through all this and found it of value to you, thank you so much. That's really all I want in posting this, is to be able to communicate my perspective, my lived experience, and have it be listened to in good faith and with an open mind. Even if I don't get that, though, I think writing all of this out has helped me to process a lot of the emotions and fears I have about politics right now - so on that level, I feel like it was worth doing!
― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, 2 November 2023 15:29 (five months ago) link