endless strategies of tedious indifference

[sui, grief]  saying (explicitly or implicitly) that suicide is an inevitability for trans & gnc cyp does nothing but bolster the narratives of ppl who want us dead. it is more than possible to tlk abt the realities of trans & teenage suicidality w/o giving into fatalism 2/14

[sui, grief]  i have spent my teenage years as both a v suicidal trans child & involved in vast amounts of care work for suicidal & psychiatrised trans cyp. suicidality is everywhere in trans youth spaces. i know this , All Too Well 3/14

[sui, grief]  but every day thousands of informal carers, youth workers, peer support facilitators & more up & down rainy fash island get up & put all our energy into not only keeping trans cyp alive, but working to build a world that trans cyp *actively want to exist in* 4/14

[sui, grief]  this work often happens in isolated, underfunded & desperate places. trans cyp do it for each other with no resources bc we *need* to. no one else has our backs. on my most cynical days i feel like no one acc cares abt our lives, only tlking abt our deaths 5/14

[sui, grief] too often i see the shit situation of trans cyp who finally feel like they might understand themselves seeking connection online & finding nothing but vicarious grief that makes them/us think being trans = a life of a misery, a life that is not a life 6/14

[sui, grief] i don’t think this is okay. it’s more than possible to tlk abt the horrific realities of transphobia & how that impacts us *& also* tlk abt trans resilience, our abilities to build things for each other, our abilities to love & grow & *live* 7/14

[sui, grief] i want a world where all trans cyp have resources & unconditional love that supports us in & through distress inc distress brought on by existing in an always increasingly hostile world. atm we just have adults online who keep countdown clocks on our suicides 8/14

[sui, grief] i respect & miss my dead friends but i am committed to a world where *no one* feels like they have to make the choices they did. i’m learning to untangle feelings of guilt & despair & blank rage at all the systems that not only let us die but *facilitate* it 9/14

[sui, grief] every day i care for cyp who r let down by adults who r supposed to support them in *every single way*. i don’t believe in ‘community’ but i believe we have a collective responsibility to create structures & resources that make trans lives livable & safer 10/14

[sui, grief] if no-one else has our backs, we have each other. i understand a lot of us r incredibly isolated but we need a collective commitment to break that isolation & never ever see it as inevitable. we need to combine to love each other & tlk abt & model that 11/14

[sui, grief] stop reducing trans children & teenagers to mythologised figureheads & respect that we live in messy, unpalatable, confusing humanness. ask us what we need materially & stop assuming u know what it is like to be us *right now* or at any future point 12/14

[sui, grief] i understand that fatalism comes from a place of deep fear & desperation & distress but that doesn’t make it helpful. tlking abt ur own hard feelings wrt transphobia with trans friends & comrades >> accidentally feeding into sui cycles in trans cyp spaces 13/14