This Week's Opening Thought: September 22, 2025

This week's opening thought: After this past weekend's full-on hate rally masquerading as a memorial service, and seeing the sea of people of pallor who showed up to "pay their respects" to a white supremacist bigot with tears in their eyes and a distortion of the purported "values of Christianity" in their hearts, I found myself once again playing my least favorite game: What Will It Take?

What Will It Take? focuses on me asking myself one question: what will it take for people of pallor to be uncomfortable enough to feel like "enough is enough" and stand up and fight for, well, everyone? Themselves, oppressed communities, targeted communities, everyone?

I've been playing this game for at least 30 years now, y'all.

What Will It Take?

Hell if I know.

After all my years on this planet, and decades of my own learning around the intersections of white supremacy and history, I honestly have no clue what it will take to get people of pallor to recognize how dangerous this country is for marginalized, targeted, and invisible communities and decide they're ready to fight.

I have no clue what it will take for people of pallor to collectively realize that white supremacy harms them, too, and that it's time to do more than show up to a "No Kings" rally.

And I'm flummoxed when it comes to understanding what it'll take for people of pallor to realize that we've been long past "talking it out," "finding a middle ground," choosing to "not get into political conversations," and well into dealing with an escalating level of danger that will eventually subjugate, eradicate, and oppress most if not all of us.

What Will It Take?

What will it take for y’all to fight?

I honestly don't know.

Y'all do always seem more than ready to fight and "stand up" against Black and Brown folx, melanated folx, trans folx, and queer folx for pointing out the harm, hate, or discrepancies in y'all's words and actions, though.

Huh.

Guess I know the answer to the question after all.

On Transphobia, Facts, and Acting Like We Don't Know Who The Real Terrorists Are

TW: transphobia, hate.

The Heritage Foundation is urging the FBI to add “Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism” (TIVE) to its list of domestic extremist groups so that it could “detect, disrupt, & dismantle TIVE cells.”

Citing the murder of Charlie Kirk as the “latest example in a long line of home-grown terrorists brainwashed by trans ideology,” it’s being reported that the FBI is discussing “treating Trans Individuals as a subset of its new threat category - Nihilistic Violent Extremists” or NVEs (a category created earlier this year). What’s an NVE, you ask?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines “Nihilistic Violent Extremism” as “criminal conduct… in furtherance of political, social, or religious goals that derive primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos.” There is, of course, not one bit of evidence that suggests trans folx are fomenting terrorism, but facts and evidence don’t matter in a budding autocracy, right?

Wrong.

Fact - y’all’s president and his cronies, with guidance from a white supremacist terrorist group masquerading as a think tank, are planning to define 1% of the U.S. population as domestic terrorists in a country where cishet males of pallor are literally terrorizing people every day.

Fact - less than 1% of mass shooters in U.S. history identified as trans. Cis males are 98% of mass shooters in U.S. history. Cishet males of pallor make up 54% of the recorded mass shooters in U.S. history.

Fact - the FBI currently has 11 known and registered white supremacist terrorist sects that they are supposed to be monitoring the activities of. I’ll let you guess the racial and gender identities of 96% of their members.

Fact - 1% of the population can’t be a terrorist group. That’s not anywhere near the population number and demographic structure it would need to be for a legitimate FBI to consider a subset of the citizenry a legitimate threat, a recorded terroristic threat, or a group that should warrant attention.

Fact - this sh-- they’re trying to pull is intentional, targeted, and violent transphobia and hatred. Pure and simple.

Contrary to popular belief, facts still matter. Facts aren’t dead.

But the way we use those facts to mobilize, stand with, and protect people and communities being targeted by hate could be, though.

It's well past time for folx to decide to stand up and fight the way we should in the face of transphobia, bigotry, and hatred or decide the facts make them too uncomfortable to care about their fellow human beings in danger.

On Pride Month, Performative Nonsense, and Stepping Up or Stepping Out of the Way

It’s Pride Month, which sadly ranks up there in performative pallor energy with Black History Month on the “I’m a Good Person” scale. Months that are equal parts celebration and memorial always hit a certain way, especially if your identities are intersectional with a splash of melanin. With the state of intentionally harmful practices aimed at trans and queer folx currently taking laps through the counties and communities that collectively operate under the United States of America brand, months like this feel more meaningful…which makes it all feel more tenuous and precarious than usual.

As a queer-identifying person who hasn't had to constantly have my sexuality and sexual identities questioned and threatened by "sleuths" who think that have everyone pegged, I have been able to use the little bit of privilege and positionality I have to educate, correct, and chin check “allies,” melanated misanthropes, and alabaster homophones and transphobes without them seeing it coming. I say all of that not to brag or boast. There's nothing to brag and boast about. I have privilege and positionality, and I use them to support others without the need for kudos and cookies. No, I say all of that to amplify one simple idea:

It's easy as f--- to step up, speak up, speak out, call in, call out, and fight for people facing harm, death, and oppression.

And you don't need a special month or brand name merchandise to do that sh--.

We don't have time for y'all pulling us aside after a work meeting to "apologize" for Bill from Accounting being a toxic ghost that none of y'all who share his lack of melanin have the backbone to stand up to.

Ain't nobody got time for your low-key "apologies" when your ashy homophobic and transphobic family members aren't present to hear that you stand with your LGBTQIA+ friends and family members and that their anti-Black bigotry is not a good look.

You either stand with and fight for folx in the now or admit that you don't care about their later.

Performative activism is a choice. It's not and never has been the only choice, but a whole lot of y'all so-called "allies" love to act as such.

Just sayin.'

Happy Pride, my peoples.