What In The Hell Is Wrong With This Country?: December 2, 2025 Edition

TW: Transphobia.

In today's edition of “What In The Hell Is Wrong With This Country,” I give you Samantha Fulnecky.

From the Huffington Post:

““After Samantha Fulnecky, a University of Oklahoma junior, received a failing grade on an essay, she filed a report with her school alleging that she’s being discriminated against because of her religious beliefs. In response, the school put the instructor who gave her the grade on leave.

In a Thanksgiving Day post, the U of O chapter of Turning Point USA highlighted Fulnecky’s essay and her professor’s response to it. The assignment was to write a reaction to a psychology article on gender stereotypes in middle school students and how it affects their mental health.

In the paper, Fulnecky bases her argument nearly entirely around Christianity and the Bible, arguing that “Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts.” The college junior went on to write that, “Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic.”

Instructor Mel Curth gave the assignment a zero for not addressing the reading. Curth, who TPUSA and other news outlets identified as trans, opened their feedback note to Fulnecky by saying that they were not deducting points because of the student’s beliefs but rather because she did not follow the assignment, contradicted herself, made offensive comments, and did not provide empirical evidence.

The post also included feedback from another instructor, who said she agreed with Curth’s grading and that “[t]his paper should not be considered as a completion of the assignment.”

But what should have been a disappointing but not uncommon outcome in an academic setting turned into a referendum on trans people, attacks on the instructor’s gender identity, and higher education.

“We should not be letting mentally ill professors around students,” TPUSA said in a lengthy post. “Clearly this professor lacks the intellectual maturity to set her own bias aside and take grading seriously. Professors like this are the very reason conservatives can’t voice their beliefs in the classroom.””

So now Professor Curth - a person who was just doing their job (and was cosigned by another professor for their assessment of the raggedy-ass paper Samantha's fragile-ass turned in) - has been placed on leave and may lose their job or be forced to apologize and give Samantha a grade that she didn't earn. All while now being endangered by TPUSA's "call out" for the foreseeable future.

This is the future so many of y'all want, isn't it? To never be challenged, to believe you're "white and right" even when you're wrong, hateful, and harmful?

Well, it's a really violent and stupid future that benefits none of us.

And "none of us" includes willfully ignorant, thin-skinned, and devout "Christian" white supremacists like Samantha.

On Trans Day of Remembrance

On this Trans Day of Remembrance, I hope that we all can take the time to remember the trans friends, family, and community members we've lost to hate and bigotry. I also hope that we're celebrating their lives, their energy, their joys, the impacts they had on our lives, and the belief that there is still hope that one day we won't have to lay to rest vibrant people who only wanted to live happy lives without hiding their true identities.

There are still fights ahead. There's still work to do. But the fights and the work are worth it because memoriam should come with knowing that lives weren't taken away from us for naught - they are still with us, hand in hand, fighting for a better tomorrow.

None of us is safe if some of us are facing a constant wave of terror for just existing and living freely as who we are.

None of us is free if some of us are in a never-ending battle for rights and privileges that so many of us take for granted.

To my trans friends, family, colleagues, neighbors: you are loved. You are worthy of love. You deserve the right to exist without danger and bigotry hanging over your heads.

And fighting for you is and will always be worth it.

On Workplaces, Impending Doom, and Wearing a Smile

Workplaces are really expecting us to show up right now every day with a smile on our face and not a care in the world other than a project deadline or deliverable.

I guess we're supposed to just act like nothing's happening?

I guess we're supposed to leave all of this descent into autocracy and dictatorship and the absolute dread, anxiety, and fear it's creating for so many of us in the car or at home?

That's what white supremacist workplace culture wants, so if we want to maintain employment we better put on our smiley face masks.

Geezus.

Acting like something isn't happening and expecting us all to cater to that doesn't stop it from happening and permeating every aspect of our lives, including work.

Expecting Brown folx, Black folx, Black women, femmes, trans folx, and folx with disabilities to show up and "be OK" while the world around us gets increasingly more heavy is a clear marker that these workplaces do not care about us.

But y'all already knew that.

Y'all just like us better when we smile more and preserve the feelings of those who want to exist outside of reality.

On Conversations with the Brainwashed Bigoted Masses

So...y'all's president has unveiled the next stage of the plan to make the United States a Christian, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, ableist, autocratic hellscape that criminalizes poverty while increasing said poverty tenfold and making homelessness illegal by declaring a state of emergency in the nation's capital and unleashing the National Guard on a citizenry and city that has seen a dramatic decrease in violent crime and crime in general. And he's doing this with no evidence of any kind of crime escalation that would deem this move necessary, because the United States Supreme Court has ensured that being President has no checks and balances, allowing y'all's president to do what he wants to all of us with no repercussions.

Yet some of y'all are still supporting this man and these decisions because, for some reason, you think he's not launching a pilot program for a nationwide police state where everyone faces a state of constant danger for just existing. Hell, some of y'all have already been increasingly harmed by the decisions y'all's president has made and the impacts they have had on entire communities across the country, including rural communities. Some of y'all have lost jobs, businesses, farms, family members, healthcare options, and basic human rights in the past seven months due to the kazillion hateful executive orders and bills passed by y'all's president and his cronies. Yet some of y'all are still supporting this man and his decisions. Some of y'all have gone as far as to say things like, "I know he didn't mean to hurt me. I know he'll make things better" while he continues making things worse for you. And some of y'all are still out here talkin' about we need to keep the lines of communication open with folx and take care of folx who voted for and support this ongoing harm while being harmed themselves and believing they aren't intentionally being harmed.

With all of this in mind, my question is simple: what conversation is there left for us to have?

I refuse to continue putting energy into fruitless conversations with people brainwashed by their own hatred and bigotry.

I refuse to consort with FAFO people who force us all to find out, even those of us who weren't effin' around and knew what effin' around would do to all of us.

I'm done trying to help people "see the light" when they'd prefer to look directly into the sun and act like their corneas aren't being fried.

It's not worth it, y'all. There's no benefit to continuing a directionless discourse with the folx who are embracing their dictator because they're never going to hear you or believe the facts you present that show them how in danger they truly are.

Reserve your energy for fighting for those who need your help. It's clear who and what we need to fight for - and it ain't a fanbase for a wannabe dictator who are cool with a dictator oppressing us all while believing they'll eventually be deemed special and spared of his wrath.

On Crate Walking, White Supremacy, and Reckless, Stupid, Dangerous Behavior

Y'all remember when people were out here tryin' t'walk up a pyramid of milk crates?

Image descriptions: the first image shows a woman of pallor precariously trying to scale a pyramid of milk crates. The second image shows the woman from the first image plummeting to the ground after the milk crate she was on failed to stay steady. In both pictures, people can be seen filming the fiasco with their cell phones.

Pepperidge Farms remembers.

That was some wild sh--, wasn't it? Just reckless, stupid, and dangerous behavior. And y’all was doin’ this nonsense in the middle of a pandemic! Like, bruh.

I remember at the time thinking, "Man, with everything going on, this is one of the dumbest, most dangerous thing I've seen people intentionally do in years." But now? It's not even in the top five reckless, stupid, and dangerous things I've seen people intentionally do in the last decade.

That distinction goes to everyone who voted for y'all's president and this current administration that thought they wouldn't get hurt by their idol who are still holding out hope that they'll be magically spared from the complete dismantling of the systems and protections that are keeping them alive and safe.

Just reckless, stupid, and dangerous behavior.

I would say you should've know better but a lot of y'all really thought you could walk up a stack of milk crates and come out unscathed so c'est la vie, eh?

[Image descriptions: the first image shows a woman of pallor precariously trying to scale a pyramid of milk crates. The second image shows the woman from the first image plummeting to the ground after the milk crate she was on failed to stay steady. In both pictures, people can be seen filming the fiasco with their cell phones.]