I'm not a writer, so this isn't gonna come out like a mind blowing piece of theory or anything but I still ask for you to read it and think on it. Please be patient with my typos and poor wording. This took all my energy for the day. Theres no funny april fools joke here, sorry.
So yesterday was TDOV. I'm trans (you all are looking shocked im sure) I'm also disabled (more shock) and these two things don't exist separately. There is no way in which these "two" things get to disentangle.
I will always be trans and I will always be disabled. Neither of those things are bad things. I am different from other people. My life sucks because of both of these things sometimes. I have experienced great loss and grief because of these things. I can't do things I want to because of these things.
Much like with struggling with finding euphoria in gender I struggle to find meaning and a life while living with a body that needs a different kind of treatment, one that needs constant medical intervention, one that needs more support and solidarity. Frequently more than people are willing to give because, well... capitalism brain worms.
Right now (as always) we find ourselves in a time of struggle. Disabled people continue to be abandoned by the state, and there is a huge lack of solidarity. There is a lack of people attempting to use their privilege as Abled people to create spaces where I can be safe from a deadly and further disabling disease. People buckle under social pressure, take off their masks, and go out and pretend everything is fine. That the pandemic is over.
I'm deeply sorry, it pains me in my soul, it wounds me to say that solidarity with disabled people (and immunocompromised people like myself) does take sacrifice. Social sacrifice. It takes getting tested it takes masking it takes not going out to places where you could aid in the transmission of covid.
Some things are unavoidable, work for instance, grocery shopping, mutual aid work you do.
But if you want to make space for trans people like me, trans people who are disabled, disabled trans people like me who in the increasingly rare moments when my body will allow me to move out of my bed want to be queer and happy and go out and make friends and have sex and have a hobby and be with people... then you have to make those spaces available.
One-way masking doesnt work, much like one-way solidarity. Environments for queer disabled people to be queer take effort. They take sacrifice.
I want to feel safe and loved in my body as a queer person, I want to feel safe and loved in my body as a disabled person. But I can't make these spaces exist. I can't make people take precautions and encourage all their friends to make precautions and act like we're in the beginning of the pandemic. But the reality is, if people don't, I wont get those spaces. Queer people like me wont get those spaces. We will continue out of love for our own lives be forced out of social life, be forced out of necessary medical things we need sometimes even, just because we need to look after our health.
Unfortunately I can't make these spaces. I have POTS and ME/CFS and god so many other things (in the process of seeing if I have a rare blood condition that needs to be treated with chemo, cross ur fingers for me that I don't, I'm already immunocompromised enough lol). I am forced to live my life through the screen of a phone or a computer for the most part. And when I can leave my bed it's to go in for medical procedures or doctors appointments for doctors that refuse to see me remotely. So I ask for support, from other disabled people and importantly abled people, who maybe would rather not think about covid or mass death and disability, and who probably just want things to get Back To Normal. It sucks to think about, it sucks to take more precautions that interfere with our previous societal norms on what a social life looks like and gets to be when the state says "no its totally fine, covid is over, thousands of deaths a month, a week, its normal... theyre all At Risk"...
But theres good news! If you do, if you make space and take precautions (masking, distancing, being outdoors, limiting exposure whenever possible, planning around testing as much as you can with the most reliable tests you can before meeting up, etc) and encouraging others ACTIVELY to do the same (because it's life and death important) then you might by chance find that you're able to spend time with more queer disabled people. You could help make our lives happier, and more fulfilling. Lives that get to experience queer euphoria.
I'm truly sorry for all the effort this is to do. I wish the world was kinder. I wish it was easier. But effort to make queer disabled peoples lives full of more joy is so worth it.