GV in November: everything is political

What a time. I recently saw someone use the greeting (or something like it), “I hope this email finds you navigating the trauma of the American experience,” and I hope you are, however the last few weeks are hitting you and the people you love. If it’s not hitting you, or if you’re celebrating the results of the U.S. Presidential election, I’m not sure how you ended up reading this newsletter!

I'm listening to: (NSFW, probably) IDLES’ Joy is an Act of Resistance. Crass’ The Feeding of the Five Thousand (The Second Sitting) has also made repeat appearances the last few weeks.

I'm reading: Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Highly recommended to everyone, but especially to those who organize convenings and events. It’s also felt incredibly healing as I come to more fully understand what my body and brain need to want to be alive (more on that later)!

I’m also reading—carefully, slowly, methodically—the Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, which outlines Project 2025. It’s a horrifying document. More on this in a bit.

UPDATES & LEARNING

Well, here we are. I’m not particularly suprised, though I am experiencing a range of emotions between grief and anger and fear. I’m also still experiencing joy and gratitude and silliness (is silliness an emotion? I think so). I’m doubling down on my routines (eating whole foods, making sure I move my body) to ensure that I’m present and healthy in this moment and the next. I'm also in the process of re-painting a bicycle, which nourishes six-year-old Genevieve.

PROJECT 2025

Reading the Mandate for Leadership - really reading it, not skimming like I did before the election - has been wild. Routine has been crucial here: I give myself an hour a day, and I’m practicing a lot of discipline to make sure I don’t get swallowed by it or sink into depression and despair.

When I’ve shared that I’m reading the Mandate, a few colleagues have responded as though it’s a form of self harm: “why would you put yourself through that?!” I understand where this comes from, but we need to understand the implications of this playbook (a nearly 1000-page document that contains policies and initiatives that the Heritage Foundation has been working on in some form or another since the late 1970s) for our work and for ourselves.

I’m not engaging with this document as a form of panic or performative rabbit-hole-diving. Each time I sit down with it, I have a few questions in mind:

• What implications does Project 2025 have for the organizations supporting trans youth in counties that voted heavily in favor of Trump and the Republican party? How might funders provide poltiical and social cover for folks on the ground? What work do we need to do with Boards and staff members to get clear on messaging and boundaries, so that when a grantee and the folks they work with are threatened, they have support and we don't get mired in "we don't want to get political" traps?

• What implications does Project 2025 have for reproductive healthcare and reproductive justice movement workers? How can Knowledge Management and organizational learning practices provide support and safety to these folks?

• What implications does Project 2025 have for data security? Should I be advising my clients to stop collecting sensitive data all together? Or should we be more focused on tech stacks? How much can we rely on tech providers? Will data that are secure now be secure in the future?

…among a number of other concerns, such as the implications for 501(c)(3)s deemed to be supporting terrorist or ‘woke extremist’ causes (according to the Mandate, these include supporting trans youth, reproductive healthcare, racial justice, health equity, immigration justice and advocacy, and more). This is far less about who the president of this country is, and more about where folks at all levels of government are looking to implement (or further implement) the policies outlined in the Mandate.

While the scope of my client work hasn’t actually changed much, the tone has. This is something I’m working into all of my projects—if this is something you’re working on, too, or would like to collaborate on, please let me know!

So, that’s work. Spending this time reading through the Mandate is helping me think through practical, accessible actions I can take in my personal life. Some of these were already happening, but others are new:

• Moving all of my personal communication (even if it doesn’t feel relevant right now, it might be) to Signal, rather than using iMessage

• Continuing to NEVER track my menstrual cycle in an app - always on paper, always destroy-able

• Working with my doctor to ensure the medications I need to function well in day-to-day life, which all happen to be gender-affirming hormone-based care, are the most available, accessible, and reliable they can be over the long term

• Focusing on physical health - physical strength feels more and more important to me - I am mostly able-bodied and that can be a helpful thing for other folks. I am also incredibly aware of the “your body, my choice” narrative and I feel the need to trust in my ability to defend myself

SOME OTHER NOTES ABOUT THE CURRENT MOMENT

CONFLICT

Something I’ve been thinkgin about a lot lately is the capacity (or, in some cases, the lack thereof) for generative conflict on the progressive side of things. The “left” (whatever that means in current American politics) is sort of famous for infighting. I’m not saying “we need to unify” - I think that can actually be a quite harmful narrative when it’s not centered in justice and repair. I do think that we need to strengthen our muscle for disagreement. Not “agreeing to disagree,” but really figuring out how to come together and work through disagreement to the point where the things we disagree on don’t pose a threat to ourselves or our work. There are folks who have really figured this out - hello, Black Feminists - but I think disposability culture is still incredibly strong within our organizations and across the larger progressive nonprofit sphere. Now is a great time to read adrienne maree brown’s we will not cancel us.

PANIC

I saw this tweet the other day, and I think everyone else should, too:

“I mean this when I say I empathize with people’s pain and fear but your panic is white supremacy parading as care if you’re not doing anything to make a difference, however small. your panic about politics is only as useful as what you’re willing to plant to build a better world.” - @literElly on Twitter (or whatever it’s called) - they’re an organizer who is compiling a Welcome Packet for those who would like to get into organizing. You can learn more about them and their work here.

A PERSONAL (POLITICAL) UPDATE

NOTE: I debated whether or not it was ‘appropriate’ to share this on a public/work-focused platform, but we tend to act like we don’t have bodies attached to these heads we see on Zoom, and I think that hurts us. So, here’s some values-alignment! :) TW: mentions of depression and suicidal ideation! Close this window if you’re done reading!

October was exhausting! I’m realizing that the last six or seven years have been exhausting. And I’m figuring out why!

I’ve been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS - an endocrine disorder) and Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD - a depressive disorder). Neither of these are directly life-threatening, but wow, are they impactful.

I won’t get too into the symptoms (you can google on your own, or if you have either of these disorders, you already know, and I’m sorry), but I will say that I had become so accustomed to fatigue and pain that I forgot those things had names. Now that I’m on a mix of hormones and supplements, I’m realizing just how tired I’ve been. Not tired, fatigued. For years, I haven’t been able to get through a day without at least one nap, I’ve struggled with my mental health, and I’ve struggled with injury and pain - pain that, until now, I didn’t realize was called “pain.”

This is reframing a lot for me, and I’m nowhere near finished processing this, but it’s got me thinking about how we think (or how I think) about illness, disability, fatigue, and everything that comes with those things. For years, I’ve thought “if I only catch up on sleep,” or “If I get skinny,” or “If only I wasn’t so lazy,” and “maybe this is just what getting older is like - surely other people think about dying this much?” I’ve even thought that I was imagining my struggle! For a long time, I’ve only been able to accomplish one or two groups of tasks per day, which has usually meant I’ve worked, and, if I was lucky, I cooked a meal.

I’ve carried a lot of shame about this. I want to appear as though I’m an incredibly strong and put together multi-tasking ball of energy and brilliant ideas. When I travel for work, I spend many days in recovery. I cancel plans. Often. This has all had a massive impact on my social life, my work, and my overall quality of life. As a person whose rent, clothing, and food depends on how valuable other folks find my brain, these disorders (both of which result in brain fog) have been FRUSTRATING.

Turns out (surprise) I don’t have to white-knuckle being alive! While these symptoms are common, they’re not a life sentence. I feel so lucky to have found an OBGYN who heard me talk about my symptoms and said “nope, you shouldn’t be living like this.” (Shout out to Dr. Suleskey at NYU Langone!)

It’s also been wild to learn that I haven’t been imagining my pain. I haven’t been dramatic, I’m not lazy, I’m not weak … and I can trust my body. For the first time in years, I feel like I’m on the same team as my body. My body is my home, after all.

I guess all of this is to say, especially to fellow uterus-havers: get your hormones checked! Turns out, suicidal ideation before your period and heavy, painful periods isn’t “just a luck of the draw.” To those of you without uteruses, get your bloodwork done! If you need it, take your vitamin D! A lesson I’m still learning: CHRONIC PAIN IS NOT “NORMAL.” While it is a part of the human experience, you can get support.

This is political because:

1. I am receiving gender-affirming care for these diagnoses. Even though I am nonbinary, I am super femme. I’ve not had to navigate any barriers to care based on my gender.

2. I have incredible insurance that I can afford to pay for out of pocket. The costs without insurance for some of the testing for these diagnoses are WILD.

3. Though I will be less impacted by the incoming administration than other folks (I am white, I am in a heterosexual-presenting relationship, I am for the most part able-bodied, I am cis-presenting, I live in NYC - though this election resulted in some BONKERS power grabs for the Mayor’s office and the NYPD), I am concerned about the implications of Project 2025 on the accessibility of my new-found health support.

I guess this is to say that the personal is political, we all have bodies, and it is a necessary political act to take care of these bodies and to make sure others also have the ability and option to take care of their bodies, too. I feel incredibly lucky to have the friends that I do, who love me so well, and to have a partner who has only ever known this fatigued, sad (but still hilarious) version of me, and who has taken such good care of me and our home when I've been unable to do so.

It feels strange to feel this way, but brighter days are ahead. This is not to minimize the danger many folks are and have been facing. So are darker days, but we really do belong to each other. We can keep us safe, but we have to choose to do so, every day. The work that this will require is for another discussion, which many folks have been having for years.