Joy

Fellow Substackers have been sharing wonderful insights and quotes this month about the importance of hope and reminders of how vital it is to keep our spirits up when the authors of Project 2025 are hellbent on making us feel only despair.

I hugely appreciated all of you who took the time to read and share my last post, “Defiant”, which contained my first US Copywritten poem by the same name. It was an honor to have read it aloud at the 2023 and 2024 Houston Transgender Unity Banquets and again yesterday at the 5051 Demonstration in San Antonio, Texas. I’m grateful to everyone who attended the march and the rally.

But I am equally grateful for every person resisting in the ways that are safe and available to them and for all notes and comments our community has been sharing here this past weekend. You all have inspired me this afternoon to post as well the latest poem I have written because it is very much in the same spirit that many of you have been nourishing.

I am moved, elated, and in awe to be part of this community that is working to make society a kinder place than when we found it, not only in the short-term by standing up to the Bullies in Power, but by laying the groundwork now (and promising to continue that endeavor) for a future more inclusive and centered on altruism and acceptance than our past as a country. Our nation has committed atrocities that we must finally collectively face head on if we are to achieve that better tomorrow, but the mission itself is a beacon of hope. We are trying to become what America has always had the potential to be. And I am joyful to be on that journey with you.

Attached is my latest work, “You cannot take my joy.” This Regime has taken so much from me and from the Trans Siblings of our Pride Family. I will not give them one thing more, especially not our spirit - not now, not ever.