I recently opened my mailbox and discovered the following card. While the envelope said thank you I was leery of opening it as it had no postage or return address.

Since I purchased (or really got a mortgage for) a house, my family and I have been flying pride flags from June until Halloween along our fence. We usually keep a pride flag on the flagpole year round. Initially the year-round flagpole was dedicated to the pride progress flag, or at least the one we bought before the design was updated to add intersex symbology.

The original flags along the fence (non-binary, transgender, bisexual, and pansexual) represent identities within our household. In May 2024 it become clear to me that the Israel Defense Forces were responding to the horrors of October 7th by following Netanyahu’s orders to commit genocide. I had already written to my senators about my disappointment that they voted to send money to Israel. I purchased a Palestinian flag, a Palestinian pin, and a Free Palestine bumper sticker. About a month after I put the Palestinian flag on our flag pole I found this note and these “Free Palestine” bracelets on our porch.

When it seemed like there might be a lasting, if problematic, peace between Palestine and Israel I switched the flag pole back to the Pride Progress flag. At No Kings protests I usually carry the transgender pride flag, however, during Pride month I carried the Palestinian flag as the trans flag was hanging on our fence.

I feel more comfortable around people, even strangers, that have pride progress flags than with people who have rainbow flags. The movement for queer rights, like many other movements for rights, has frequently excluded people with intersectional identities. Despite the stonewall riot being started by two transgender women of color, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the movement quickly was co-opted by gay white cisgender men who not only pushed Marsha and Sylvia out they barred transgender women from queer spaces. The pride progress flag was made to show the importance of protecting all queer identities, especially for people who also have other marginalized identities.

Today some queer “allies” are dropping support and protections of transgender folks either to court conservative and moderate voters or avoid the wrath of the transphobic federal government. Fortunately, the queer community is not standing for it, as shown by pushback against allowing hospitals that dropped gender affirming care for youth from pride events and booing at Democrats in pride parades who have spoken against trans rights.

Some people found safety pins to be performative. At times I wonder if #IllGoWithYou folks would truly go with us.

When pride month began this year I asked my kids, only one of whom is trans, if I should switch the progress flag that was falling apart with the trans flag. Neither replied so I switched it. This card I received helped me to realize that in this moment the transgender flag is more impactful.

Being an ally isn’t without risk. Most people don’t recognize the trans flag or the Palestinian flag. While I got those bracelets from somebody who appreciated the Palestinian flag we also had a commercial vehicle pass us weekdays in the afternoon who beeped and flipped us off for months, even when we weren’t visible.

Having a flag isn’t enough. If you wear a pin that says “IllGoWithYou,” you should also be verbalizing this to the transgender folks you see, or better yet, make gender neutral bathrooms. Make your allyship a way to select a candidate when you vote. Ask how you can help. Write to your representatives. Have brave conversations. Be an active bystander.

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I created this to hand out at Worldcon. Need a bookmark? In theory, if you print this you’ll have 4! Unfortunately, as of this writing I haven’t tested printing it on paper … so I’m not 100% sure if it will work. I did test prints to PDFs and it looked good. Don’t have a printer, no problem, come see me at Worldcon and I’ll give you one!

This is my first attempt at creating promotional print-outs for myself. I’m historically not great at self-promotion.

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Text related to this page will appear on page 10.

On Thursday I attended the 2nd annual Pride and Purpose Summit at Bentley. I had hired Dr. Mateo Cruz to give a presentation at Home Chef last year for Transgender Day of Remembrance. He did an excellent job and suggested I check out the summit. I’ve been so busy that I didn’t have time to pre-read the agenda or read any of the speaker bios, though I was aware Dr. Cruz was going to be a speaker. I also knew I was going to arrive late due to the timing of the last swim class I was teaching that day.

I arrived in time to attend a workshop on courageous storytelling. A prompt I struggled with was creating examples of when I’ve been courageous. One of the insights from this talk is that it is often easier to see courage in others. Sometimes courage can feel like bullying, like when correcting a doctor after misgendering my teen.

Another prompt from the storytelling workshop was to “Think about a time you felt pressure to hide, minimize, or edit yourself.” A very recent example came to mind: a Water Safety Instructor class I took in May. My legal name is still Forest, as I don’t want to lose the female gender marker on my passport when I update my name. To prove the certificate is mine I felt it was important to register with the Red Cross as Forest. My instructor found this confusing and preferred using my legal name. At one point I said I didn’t mind, but in retrospect I did. I hated that it confused my classmates. I hated him using it. It felt at the time that I needed to get my $400 worth from the class. As he was the gatekeeper of my certificate I deferred to his preference. After the class ended I reflected on some other behaviors, like how he pre-excused his way of discussing disabilities due to his age. Being respected is important for a student and its something I try to keep in mind when I teach.

I next attended Schulyer Bailar’s talk about trans inclusion in sports. Bailar is a world-class trans masculine athlete, who swam for Harvard’s NCAA D1 men’s team. I had heard of his advocacy work and was thus excited to hear his talk about the challenges he had in school and sports due to gender. In HS he had swum on the girls team. I asked him, what I, as a swim instructor, can do to help students like him that might be in my class. The main takeaway from his reply was to avoid taking agency from students, which I think is helpful for far more than queer kids. For example, as part of the Water Safety Instructor training, Red Cross teaches that rather than dictating how a student with a disability should approach swimming, we should ask the student what they want to try.

After Schuyler’s talk I went to the Pride and Faith Roundtable. We started with a prompt to write, or draw, our personal view of how religion and queerness intersect. This led to my pride flag and UU chalice drawing. We spent time going around the circle talking about how we felt. I was surprised that almost everyone had negative feelings about religious views of queerness. This was even true for people who had migrated to more inclusive churches. Many people felt they had to either hide who they were at church or avoid church.

The event ended with a talk by Dr. Cruz. Dr. Cruz, and all of the Bentley community, is coping with the recent loss of Dr. Wiley Davi. The talk was about the importance of hope in a moment of loss and tragedy. The event had almost been cancelled this year, but in thinking of how important it would be to Dr. Davi, the organizers rallied and brought it together. They already have some plans for next year’s event.

In the talk, Dr. Cruz gave for Home Chef he had a slide that I often reference showing a matrix of identities. He showed how in times of abundance Trans folks, Jews, and homeless folks are often ignored or tolerated. When, however, there is strife these people can become scapegoats. Hitler blamed the Jews for the issues the Treaty of Versailles imposed upon the country after WWI. During Kristallnacht, Germans were encouraged to take from Jews. Dr. Cruz’s point was that now that Americans see successful transgender folks they feel entitled to disenfranchise and scapegoat us.

After the event some of us went to a local brewery. I had several wonderful conversations and a not so wonderful non-alcoholic brew. There are some very brilliant people at Bentley, one of whom is an expert on how Concord’s evolution was impacted by transcendentalists. Another person talked passionately about her research into evictions and affordable housing. I also chatted with one of the organizers of Hampshire Pride, which I sadly missed this year.

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I was disappointed. Nick seemed nice, even if he thought I was a boy. Can’t he tell I’m too big to be a boy? Jess didn’t want me at all. Didn’t she know I was there to help. I felt very dejected.

At first I wondered if I should give up on my plans. Perhaps I should have an outdoor web. Most of my siblings had moved outdoors. I didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want to fail. I moved on.

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This didn’t sound good. I was just trying to be helpful and they didn’t want me. I’d already lowered the number of pests in their house. I considered running.

Nick came back with a glass. He put it over me, ruining my web in the process. He started to slide a piece of paper under the glass. I had to quickly get my legs out of the way so they weren’t hurt. Once he collected me he brought me outside. He released me on his front steps.

Nick said, “There you go little guy. Sorry, Jess is afraid of spiders.”

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Humans arrived a few hours later. There were two of them. It was a man and woman. They sat down and turned on the television. They watched it for a while oblivious to my presence. They seemed like nice people. People I’d be happy to help.

The next day the woman was searching the house for something when she spotted me. I waved one of my legs politely.

She screamed and then said, “NICK! There’s a spider.”

The man, apparently named Nick, said, “Oh Jess, it’s just a little thing.”

She said, “I don’t want it in my house. Get it out!”

“Hold on,” Nick said.

After publishing pages 3 & 4 together I realized that at scale Sam is just not visible enough even on a widescreen monitor. I’m still making the two pages together, however I’m now splitting them prior to publication. All the words related to these two pages appear on the second page, making this a bit of a cliffhanger.

In general, I prefer not to write about Pon in order to protect their privacy. Here though, I think it is important to give people an understanding of where transgender rights are for minors. I asked Pon for permission to write this and they said it was okay.

Pon turned 17 last week. They came out as non-binary and socially transitioned in 2020 when they were 12. Pon has relied on gender affirming care since December of 2020.

I have a friend who has a transgender son. They were living in Tennessee when he came out as transgender. For safety reasons they moved to Ohio in 2021. He didn’t think he could be accepted in his new school so he thought he wouldn’t be able to transition. He quickly found acceptance in his new school and socially transitioned.

Tennessee, Florida, Idaho, and Texas are examples of the worst states for trans youth to reside. In Texas transgender youth are taken from their parents by the Department of Family Protective Services.

I’ve lived in Massachusetts since 2015. While Massachusetts is safer than many states for transgender youth, the safety has reduced since the 2025 inauguration. The administration has worked to remove gender affirming care for people under 19. At the start of 2025 there were three hospitals providing gender affirming care for minors. Fenway Health is a Boston hospital system founded in 1971 specifically to care for the queer community during the AIDS epidemic. While it cares for people beyond the queer community, it is that community who has been at their heart since Fenway’s inception. Due to Fenway Health’s reliance on federal funding they decided to stop providing gender affirming care in October 2025 to patients under 19. That meant the options for transgender youth in Massachusetts were cut by 1/3rd. Chicago area transgender youth faced a similar issue when Lurie Children’s Hospital stopped providing care. Some residents of red states were traveling regularly to Connecticut to seek gender affirming care for their children until both CT providers shut their doors to minors. This year when my teen went for their regular visit we were asked to sign a ton of documents to affirm our awareness and acknowledgement of continued care.

When our president was re-elected someone asked Pon if they were worried. Pon said they weren’t because they knew I was following the news and would keep them safe. Teens shouldn’t be worried that we might have to move, they should be focused on school, friends, and hobbies. Teens shouldn’t have to worry that their healthcare might vanish. Teens should not feel like scapegoats for issues caused by billionaires.

Reduced access to gender affirming care has doubled the risk of suicide for transgender youth. Transgender folks in the US are experiencing early signs of genocide. This includes transgender people being tracked, inhumane treatment in prisons, gun purchase restrictions, bathroom bans, sports bans, and being turned away from shelters.

The biggest things you can do to help are:

• Be supportive to your queer community, even if it’s just emotional support.

• Be politically active, tell your politicians at all levels your concerns and be an informed voter.

• Support trans writers by becoming a paid subscriber to my Substack, Erin in the Morning, and/or Trans United Fund.

• Support organizations that fight for the queer community like Glisten, the Trevor Project, and Trans Lifeline.

Joan started researching options in November after the election. Her biggest concern has been Ash, her 14yo non-binary teen. With Trump in the White House, having run on “ending gender insanity” it seemed likely the gender affirming care (GAC) Ash relies on would disappear. Many “red” states already prevent minors from getting GAC. There are even a couple states like Texas that take trans kids from their parents! She’s also at risk due to being a trans woman. Since she can’t renew her passport she wants to leave before it expires.

Joan met with her realtor and downsized. She paid off her car loan to make it simpler to get rid of when she moves overseas. Joan decided they should leave; first to Canada and then hopefully move permanently to Japan. Then she talked to her co-parent Selene. Selene reasonably wanted a more concrete plan. Would Ash be able to get their SSRI in these countries? Where would Ash finish High School? It was a ton of work to get an IEP that was meeting their needs, can they succeed in a foreign school?

Japanese doctors do not prescribe Fluoxetine so a genetic test for Ash was done to see what alternative SSRI could be prescribed. Joan found some well rated international schools in Ontario. While those schools are private, she can afford to get Ash through their last 2.5 years of school.

She shared all this with her co-parent and Selene said it didn’t seem worth the risk. She suggested Joan go and Ash would stay with her. She felt that it would probably be safer to be non-binary than trans. Selene agreed that if Ash was in danger or could not get GAC they should move, but that she wanted them to wait and see.

Today Joan packed me, partly for Rakree, a convention in Boston and partly because the inauguration would be on MLK Jr day. I have cash, meds, and their passports. The plan is that if anything awful with executive orders happens after the inauguration she’ll take Ash straight to Ontario from the convention.

January 20th, 2025

Joan and Ash seemed to have a good time at the convention. She even considered traveling to Worldcon in Seattle after confirming it is currently a safe state for trans folks. The inauguration hadn’t really finished when the conference wrapped up so we headed home. Honestly, I’m a little nervous about this choice. Originally she had considered leaving the US on the 17th so they wouldn’t even be here for the inauguration. Joan unpacked some of the clothes she had in me but left a day’s clothes, passports, meds, cash, and charger.

February 23, 2025

Ash doesn’t go to Providence Dicecon, so Joan was a little worried about being an hour south without them. She left me home since that’s where Ash would be. She took just a suitcase.

March 2, 2025

It looks like she had a blast at Dicecon. Apparently it was way better than her experience the prior year. She had a roommate this year and it worked well. She was a little worried about a cisgender woman feeling uncomfortable sharing a room with her, but it worked out.

July 6th, 2025

Now I’m outright offended. She downgraded me to a pile on her bed so she could go LARPing in Andover! What if something happens? What if something valuable gets misplaced?

August 1st, 2025

Yale, Kaiser, and Connecticut Children’s hospital all folded to threats from Trump and now there is nowhere in CT youth can get GAC. People had been traveling there from states that ban it for care. I’m worried our state is next.

August 5th, 2025

Joan is driving to New Jersey today to see an Ado concert. She “upgraded” me to a paper bag and left me behind. I guess she’ll be safe. She won’t be back until late tomorrow because she’s going to an anime meet-up in Brooklyn. I hope she stays safe, that’s a lot of people she’ll be around.

August 12, 2025

Joan was hoping to convince a friend from church to fly to Seattle with her. The friend knows someone in Seattle so it seemed like a possibility. She certainly would be safer going through TSA with a friendly witness.

August 18, 2025

Yikes, apparently there was an incident at the Seattle airport for her return flight. TSA flagged her for a pat down. The agents were really rude during the process. After she got through it she encountered a woman with a MAGA hat. It seems Seattle isn’t so safe after all. Maybe this will convince her to leave the US. She’s very shaken up about the experience.

September 11, 2025

Apparently there was a terrorist attack on this day in 2001. Joan has been going to a weekly local protest against the Trump administration. She usually brings her trans flag to the protest which I feel makes her a bigger target. A few times she brought a Palestinian flag instead.

Apparently some popular conservative named Charlie Kirk was shot yesterday. The protesters got people driving by who flipped them off, people who gave the thumbs down, people who said, “go Trump”, and people who said, “get a job.” Then a tall bald man walked up to them and said they were freaks. The man said they shouldn’t be there after what happened to Charlie Kirk the day before. He said that Kirk was just a kid, despite him apparently being 31. The protesters weren’t there because of Kirk though. Joan is there every week!

She seems upset about the encounter. She says she wished she offered to take the guy to the ice cream shop across the square and listen to him. I don’t know, that sounds risky.

September 29th, 2025

Joan spent her birthday in Chicago for work. I was, of course, left behind. It sounds like she had a great time with friends though.

Since that Kirk guy died they discovered the shooter had a transgender roommate. Musk, who has a trans daughter, posted misinformation making it seem like trans folks are more likely to be the cause of shootings. The administration has been trying to ban trans folks from having guns. The NRA has stepped up to protect the transgender community.

Joan doesn’t seem interested in owning a gun. She certainly couldn’t leave the country with one. Still, many Jim Crow laws banned black folks from owning guns. If guns are a human right in America than this does seem like early stages of genocide. She really should take Ash and go! I’m ready, even if I’m paper.

October 14, 2025

Fenway Health has closed its doors to folks under 19 for GAC. Fenway Health is a Boston hospital that was founded specifically to care for the queer community. Ash goes to one of the other two hospitals in Massachusetts that offer GAC to adolescents, neither of which are dedicated to the queer community and thus seem more apt to close. This might be it. My next entry will hopefully be from Ontario.

December 30, 2025

I got restored and went on a trip! It wasn’t to Ontario though. Ash’s partner lives in Maryland so we went on holiday there for a few days. Teen romance is so gross, ick! I was a little worried about them being safe in Maryland since it had been a slave state, in fact Joan visited Harriet Tubman’s birthplace. At least I was there and everything seemed to go well.

January 19th, 2026

We just got back from Rakree. Ash bought two swords. I don’t think they are meant for protection, though apparently they are real!

January 30th, 2026

Medicare is being restricted for hospitals providing GAC so they might need to leave soon. Joan also just got news that she needs to move to Chicago in May or find a new job in May. Things look dire. Joan is excited about the possibility of working with kids soon. She’s been wanting to retire from tech to become an English teacher in Japan. It’s been a little over a year since she made me. While it’s great Ash will probably be able to finish their junior year of high school, senior year seems less likely.

This poster is based on the Book-Head-Heart framework that Kylene Beers and Robert Probst developed and published in their book Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters.

As I’m student teaching at a Middle School with multilingual learners who speak Spanish or Portuguese natively I included translations for them. Here are some examples of how a student could use this framework. The first two examples are from Sandra Cisneros’s novel The House on Mango Street:

Here is an example from Jaqueline Woodson’s poetic memoir Brown Girl Dreaming:

Here are some more examples from Brown Girl Dreaming:

♥️ Ruby Bridges and James Baldwin are listed on p4. This seems to be a list of her heroes which makes my think about the list I put in my own memoir: Joan of Arc, Mary Dyer, Alice Paul, Felicia Elizondo, Marsha Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera. As she relates to her list from what I see as a black advocacy perspective I relate to my list from a transgender feminist perspective.

🧑‍🎓This is a book that’s clearly written using her “own voice” (p4).

♥️I didn’t realize Ruby Bridges was only 6 when she tried to attend school on the heels of desegregation (p6).

📘She wrote a whole poem about how her father would have named her Jack if it weren’t for her mother and aunt interfering (p7). What does she think of the name? It’s clear how she was named was important but was it because of the outcome or the process?

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Once upon a time there was an old woman named Lyla who lived alone. She was happy with her simple life. As was true with most homes of her time, she had no running water. Instead of running water Lyla owned two buckets and a carrying yoke. A carrying yoke is a nifty rod that fits behind a person’s neck and allows them to place heavy things on each end. This makes carrying far easier than just using hands! Shoulders are able to support far more weight than hands.

Every morning after Lyla got dressed and had breakfast she would attach the buckets to each end of the yoke. Once the buckets were secured she would place the yoke on her shoulder and walk to the well. The well was a few hundred feet away from her house. Today we might consider that to be the length of a football field! At the well she would fill the buckets with water and then Lyla would return with her buckets.

For several months one of her buckets had been leaking. One day as she returned home with her buckets the leaky bucket said, “Lyla, I think you should replace me. I’ve enjoyed bringing your water but lately I’ve been leaking half of the water.”

Lyla said to the leaky bucket, “the water you have been leaking has caused flowers to bloom on your side of the path. I don’t need two full buckets of water, I’m just one woman. What I do need is the beauty from the flowers caused by the water you provide.”

Now the second bucket said, “Lyla, if that’s true, wouldn’t it be nice to have flowers on both sides? Perhaps you should replace me.”

At this Lyla chuckled, “what has gotten into you both. You’re usually so quiet. Yes, I value the flowers from the leaked water. I also need the water. While you both look similar, you each provide me a different value.”

Both buckets asked in unison, “are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m very sure! If either of you were battered I would repair you. You are both irreplaceable. I need you both in my life. You provide the beauty for my walks, the water for my drinks, washing, and ramen.”

With that explanation both buckets felt a deep relieving sense of belonging. They continued their days living happily ever after. The End!