Hi all,
After last week’s Skrmetti oral arguments, I had this tab open and kept looking at the above photo of Chase Strangio walking into the Supreme Court.
I do recommend the post itself, which is by the great legal reporter Chris Geidner (a former colleague from my BuzzFeed News days). Unsurprisingly to me, Chris’ coverage of all this has been excellent — in such great contrast to much of the mainstream media’s continued failure to humanely and accurately report on trans people and how we are being terrorized.
Even after I finished Chris’s piece, I kept it open, kept stumbling into the photo. I just liked seeing this image. It would bring me a flash of joy, seeing Chase in his sharp suit and his stunning blue coat.
Everything is fucking grim! And yet! How totally brave and cool is it that a trans man argued before the justices of the Supreme Court!
I couldn’t help but linger there a beat. I’m overwhelmed by the magnitude of this achievement. I feel such gratitude to Chase for doing it. (Maybe a version of me deep inside that did once dream of being an attorney also felt stirred. Perhaps, I wondered, in some alternate reality where I’d seen a lawyer who looked like him back in the day, what might have been?)
I kept being reminded of an exchange I had some weeks prior with a trans friend of mine. We’d been talking about everything going on when sorta out of the blue he had commented, Chase is one of my heroes.
“Same,” I replied.
So that’s What’s Helping Today, Chase Strangio making history. This gives me a small hit of happiness — a break, however fleeting, from the otherwise all-consuming tide of dread.
I fortunately was able to schedule this surgery, which is now coming up super fast, like in-just-over-a-week fast. Contending with everything I must therefore now coordinate and figure out, it’s a lot. And I’m not doing great either, tbh, given every day seems to bring more cause for grief. Given how outraged I feel at so many. Given how alienated I can feel from most all cis people, right now. Hard to not fall apart. Sometimes I just do.
But I try to focus on what I can control, on what concrete steps I can take. I try to lean hard on my own best advice for surviving hard times. I’m trying to remain ridiculously devoted to my self-care routines. I’m staying connected with loved ones. I’m asking for help.
Alright. If you all don’t hear for me for a while, it’s because I’m focused on surgery and recovery.
One of my aspirations with my remaining days pre-surgery is to cook a bunch of food for afterwards — soups and stews and other (nutritious, protein-rich, easily-reheated) meals to freeze. Cooking calms me and it’ll be helpful for my caregivers and I to have good options on hand. Anyway if you have any favorite such recipes you wanna recommend, please feel free to let me know.
Especially if you are trans, always feel free to write me. I’m here. Maybe tell me what’s helping you, today.
Sending you strength as we together survive this dark season,
Sandy Ernest