This one was so fun to write and look back on. I am a huge nerd, and love the power that speculative fiction has to shape our dreams, futures, fears, and possibilities. This was originally published as a paid subscribers only article, but I’m happy to now share it with everyone! I am still so grateful to all the folks who help sustain this project.

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Once I start talking or writing or even just thinking about books, I immediately feel my blood pressure cool. This also applies to the magical companion playlists for many of my favorite science fiction stories. If you want to increase the calming sci fi magic while you read this article, check out the playlist for Monk and Robot, my favorite series of all time.

So, why science fiction?

I tell people that I read all the time, and sometimes they assume that I only read nonfiction because they’re like, “oh, you know a lot about so many things. It must be from all reading nonfiction”. And I do absolutely love a good nonfiction, but the bulk of my reading time is usually spent with what’s called speculative fiction, the combination of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. This talk was about science fiction in particular (don’t worry, there will be a follow up queer fantasy list one of these days), which I absolutely love for a variety of reasons.

People who think science fiction is pure escapism with no connection to our current world make me laugh. It has everything to do with it. At its core, science fiction allows us to take our problems and put them into fictional situations with aliens and spaceships and all this crazy stuff so that we can dream up better solutions without someone immediately saying, well, here’s why that wouldn’t work. No one’s going to debate me on realism when my book is about a bunch of aliens deciding how to take down astro-fascists. It allows us to brainstorm totally radically different ways of being, of relating to each other, and I think that’s awesome. Then once we’re thoroughly inspired, we can start to brainstorm how to bring these big ideas into the real world.

Why the focus on Queer Sci-fi?

I love science fiction, and I love queer science fiction in particular because even when I need an escape from the problems of my day to day life, I don’t need to escape from my transness. My transness isn’t a problem. It’s the rest of the world that I’m trying to leave behind. Now I’m not someone who’s loved queer science fiction my entire life because I’m not someone who’s *known about* queer science fiction my entire life. But in 2020, I was gifted by my family a private browsing session at my local bookstore, Left Bank Books in Saint Louis, and everything changed.

I went in for my browsing appointment, and I looked around for a little while. I had just started getting back into reading and wasn’t sure what would reignite that childhood book devouring that had defined my young life. Nervously, I went to the front desk and said,

“Hey. I know this might be a little weird, and it’s totally fine if not. But I was just curious. Are there any science fiction or fantasy books that have trans protagonists? I don’t even know if that’s a real thing.”

The person there started to laugh, and she grinned and said, “buddy, everyone who works here is trans.” And all of a sudden, two other people come out from the back of the store, and the next thing I know, they’ve shepherded me downstairs to the science fiction and fantasy section. They’ve plopped me down in a chair and are now running around the store collecting all of their favorite queer and trans books for me, and it was magical. There was so much possibility being formed in that moment. They gave me more books than I could possibly afford, and I certainly didn’t buy all of them. But I did buy more than I could afford. Sooo worth it.

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They were so absolutely over the moon at the opportunity they had to show me these incredible stories. I went home and immediately read those books, I fell into the arms of Sarah Gailey and Becky Chambers and NK Jemisin, and my brain felt like it was stretching to see whole new galaxies, metaphorically and literally. From there, I was all in on queer science fiction and fantasies.

These books and countless others brought me tremendous joy, tremendous peace, tremendous inspiration as a movement leader, and a vision of myself as an author with books that local booksellers can’t wait to hand to someone wondering if there are any stories about people like us.

If you take nothing else away from this article, by the way, I hope you internalize that independent bookstores are a gem, and change and save lives in very real ways, and librarians and booksellers are the closest things we have to superheroes. If you read this newsletter and are a bookseller or librarian, you are basically a celebrity to me. If you want to order any of the books I’m going to recommend in part two of this newsletter, I hope you’ll order them from Left Bank Books in St. Louis or go pick it up from your own neighborhood indie bookstore!

Joyful Imagination!

Octavia Butler, one of my favorite joyfully imaginative revolutionary authors once said: “I never bought into my invisibility as a black person. As a woman and as an African American, I wrote myself into the world. I wrote myself into the present, the future, and the past.” This is exactly what we’re doing with joyful imagination. Science fiction gives us the paintbrush, the paints, and the canvas to envision totally new ways of being and connect these visions to as many people as possible.

Dystopian and Revolution Fiction

One of the most well known categories of science fiction is dystopian and revolution narratives. These stories, in part, gift us with a blueprint for fighting back. They also show us that we can, in fact, survive even when things feel so dramatically fallen apart. These are stories that include a slice of life, or a romance plotline, or a personal dream, someone having hobbies and personality traits. Even when the world falls apart, you still can exist and live while we fight to make things better.

On the flip side to that, dystopian science fiction also gives us an opportunity to show people real fears in a way they’re more likely to engage with. In 2008, if you’d tried to tell people that an overreliance on screens and technology was going to disconnect us and ruin our planet, you’d be laughed out of the room and would reach, at best, a few hundred people. But by releasing WALL-E, which shared the same fears, countless people engaged with and internalized the dystopia that movie represented.

Storytelling gives people a safe container to engage with the “what if”, and makes them so much more likely to explore those possibilities rather than just sitting with the cognitive dissonance of not worrying about what happens we keep using AI to write all our emails.

Here are a few examples of some of my favorite queer dystopian revolution stories.

Dystopian & Revolution Recs

The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin

• One sentence pitch: Epic sci fi/fantasy genre-bender about othering, fear, power, family, and the end of the world.

• Quote: “I don’t give a shit what the something-somethingth council of big important farts decreed, or how the geomests classify things, or any of that. That we’re not human is just the lie they tell themselves so they don’t have to feel bad about how they treat us.”

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

• One sentence pitch: The horrors and revolution of the antebellum south set on a massive spaceship.

• Quote: “I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn’t decide what it wanted to be?”

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

• One sentence pitch: Hardcore imperial space politics, drama, murder, brain sharing, intrigue, revolution.

• Quote: “We’re arrested. But—fuck it. Let’s unarrest ourselves.”

This is How you Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

• One sentence pitch: Two time-traveling secret agents on opposing sides of a time-bending war between technology and nature leave each other secret notes and fall in love.

• Quote: “I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. Listen to me. I am your echo. I would rather break the world than lose you.”

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

• One sentence pitch: Brilliant physicist from an anarchist commune planet decides to visit the capitalist society to exchange ideas. Contradiction, connection, and revolution ensue.

• Quote: “You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit or it is nowhere.”

Solarpunk

In addition to “end of the world” types of stories, the genre of solarpunk shows us what a better, more beautiful world could look like. Solarpunk often includes rich pictures of survival, beautiful integrations between technology and nature, and found family. Solarpunk encourages us to imagine something kinder, and to imagine ourselves living within that world.

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Solarpunk has a real track record of encouraging people to think of new ways to be hopeful, like climate activism book “What if we Get it Right?”, “earthship” houses meant to be totally self contained, or stories of people repurposing old stadiums to become beautiful green spaces.

Solarpunk Recs

The Monk and Robot Duology by Becky Chambers

• One sentence pitch: Nonbinary tea monk learns to take a break, while a wild robot joins them to learn what humanity needs.

• Quote: “No matter what, I’m wonderful.”

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

• One sentence pitch: Revolutionary wild-west librarians cross the country to distribute banned books

• Quote: “Fight the State. Be a Librarian.”

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aioki

• One sentence pitch: Young trans violinist makes a deal with the devil in exchange for violin lessons and a safe place to live. Found family, romance, and donuts ensure.

• Quote: “With no need for a beginning, nor any reason to end, the music continues. And so, no matter who you are, where you came from, what sins you have committed or hurt you have endured... when you are alone and there is no universe left to remember you. You can always, always rewrite your song”

It’s also worth noting that while most of the things we do in our regular lives don’t feel solar punk because they feel normal given that they are part of our real, day to day lives, it’s actually extremely cool that electric cars are becoming so common. It’s amazing that we have solar and wind and water powered energy and that these energies are beginning to surpass coal, oil, and gas.

Your community garden where you gather every week for potlucks and organizing meetings and you share food systems and you use technology to help you plan the right foods to plant and when based on our ability to predict the weather for a YEAR? that’s solar punk! Building resilient communities outside of the state is solarpunk as hell!!!

What other books do you think everyone needs to read in the joyful imagination category? Give us your best one sentence pitch or a favorite quote! I’m optimistic that this comment section is going to break my TBR.

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The End… For now

Rest assured that you will continue to hear lots more of my thoughts on books, sci fi, and all things nerdy joy. For now, I’ve already spent more hours than I care to admit researching this, staring longingly at my bookshelf, and reconnect with old friends (also books), and I need to get back to work!

This article was originally published here on November 10th, 2025 and was edited for clarity and quality (lol).

Like last time, here are a few categories:

1. 5 Attitude adjustments

2. 5 Electoral actions

3. 5 Ways to expand our knowledge

4. 5 Places to get involved

5. 5 Actions for direct support

Ok, let’s get into it!

Five Attitude adjustments

I couldn’t think of the perfect name for this section, so this will have to do. These are five ways to reframe the ways we’re thinking about allyship, and the things that might hold us back.

1. Your voice as an ally MATTERS! I meet a lot of allies who feel guilty for speaking up, or like it isn’t their place. I promise, I do a happy dance every time I meet an ally helping to share the load of speaking up with me.

2. You don’t have to be an expert to start! Sometimes people get so caught up in feeling nervous about language or not knowing everything that they keep reading books waiting to feel like they know enough. There’s always more to learn, but there’s work to do today.

3. You can join another movement and make sure they’re being trans inclusive! If you’re in voting rights, or bodily autonomy, or climate justice, or racial justice, or any other movements, it’s incredibly impactful to make sure they aren’t forgetting about intersections with the trans community in those rooms!

4. Disempowerment and empowerment are both cyclical emotions. If we do not act, we do not believe our actions can make a difference, so we do not act, so we do not see a difference. The only way to break that cycle is to DO SOMETHING!

5. You may never feel fully “ready”. Here’s the secret: none of us do. No one is coming to save us but us, folks.

Five Electoral actions

Everyone has lots of opinions about electoral politics, so what I will say in brief is that I do not think they are the silver bullet solutions to our problems. Electoral politics create the conditions in which we fight for change. Sometimes it’s just harm reduction, while other times it’s a city council having the votes not to renew their Flock contract, or a school board refusing to ban queer stories, or a state legislature that’s broken their supermajority and doesn’t have the votes to pass an anti trans law.

1. Learn your state’s voter registration deadline. Until that date, start every conversation by asking everyone if they’re registered to vote. Drop the link to register in your work Slack. Add it to your church’s mailing list or your sports newsletter.

2. Volunteer to text bank and ask people if they’re registered to vote or sign up to register people IRL in your community.

   1. If you do this with Headcount, you can even get free concert tickets out of it!

3. Democrats seem to be treating these midterms like a referendum on progressive versus centrist futures of the democratic party. That means there are a lot of really cool candidates. Learn about some of them here! Pick one and donate to their campaign!

4. There are also a lot of candidates that are uncool or just kind of boring. They live and die by polling and what their potential constituents want, so tell them! Reach out to them on social media, email, phone call, or show up to a campaign event to make sure they know their potential voters want to see them show up for the trans community.

5. If the future of the democratic party feels like a really important issue to you, join the state or local Democratic Party who’s shaping many of those important decisions.

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Five Ways to expand our knowledge

It’s great to learn more, and remember that the learning only matters if you use it to act. There will always, always be more to learn. And we will learn while we act, not just before.

1. Unsure how to move public opinion on trans people? Start with this incredible recorded event on the Trans Organizing Narrative Shift project!

2. Struggling to stay emotionally regulated while having challenging conversations? Check out this amazing book by Valerie Kaur titled: See No Stranger, a Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love This book is a cornerstone of my effectiveness as an advocate.

3. Check out the newly released Blue Canary Project for parents of trans kids to work their way towards stronger support of their loved ones!

4. Curious about how to reach people deep in the rabbit hole? Check out this recorded webinar with Rick Logis, the founder of “Leaving MAGA”!

5. Looking for small ways to make advocacy a habit as part of your life? You are the right audience for the Chop Wood, Carry Water Daily Newsletter!

Five Places to get involved

I know, technically, this isn’t a list of actions, but a lot of people tell me that they feel really frozen because they’re not sure where to actually start.

1. Many faith congregations have some kind of justice committee or book club that you can join or galvanize to action!

2. Ask an independent bookseller or librarian. They know what’s up.

3. Join a local PFLAG chapter!

4. Farmers markets or local craft fairs frequently have different nonprofits tabling, individuals handing out flyers, or cool people you can chat with to learn about what kinds of work is happening!

5. ‘Ol reliable: Reddit. Your city/metro area likely has a dedicated forum, that you might be able to post in or read through the post history to learn where the advocacy is happening. Just exercise caution, because it’s the internet and people don’t usually know how to behave

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Five Actions for direct support

If you’ve got a specific person in your life that you know and love and want to help out right now, here are a few extra tips (in addition to all the great ones in the first list tagged at the top of this article) on how to support them.

1. If you know a trans person who’s looking for a job, go through your LinkedIn network or your Rolodex or however you keep track of who you know professionally to think of everyone you can introduce them to. The job market is brutal for everyone, and trans and gender expansive people who were already being regularly left out of professional spaces may be facing even more difficulty.

2. Invite them to go to nature with you. Nature is good for everyone.

3. Buy them a copy of your favorite book by a trans author.

4. Send them hopeful news stories whenever you see them!

5. When you are out in the world taking action for trans rights, take a selfie and send it to them. When a loved one lets me know that they’re taking action to protect my community without me needing to tell them specifically to do it, it makes my heart sing. Show your loved one how big their network of allies is!

I know I’m not the only trans person reading this newsletter though! For all my trans folks in the crowd, what other things would you love to see from allies and loved ones? What specific actions can folks take that would make the biggest difference for you?

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You made it all the way to the end! Thanks for sticking to it with me. As a reward, here is a picture of Oliver: the Chief Barketing Officer for Good Queer News.

For your inspiration pleasure, here’s an interview with Mia Schachter, creator of Consent Wizardry! Don’t forget to check out their 3-month entrepreneurship incubator here. Applications are accepted until August 22nd!

Ben: Mia!! Let’s start with the story. How did you get into running your own business?

Mia: It was totally an accident. I had trained to be an intimacy coordinator and I was fascinated by what I was learning about consent. This was in 2019 so I only did it for a year before sets shut down for Covid in 2020. I was twiddling my thumbs in my childhood bedroom asking myself, “What on earth can I offer my community from home?” and then I realized I could teach consent. I posted about a class on Instagram and much to my surprise, given that we couldn’t touch each other at the time, 10 people signed up. Then they wanted more, and people who didn’t make it asked me to offer it again. It snowballed and became Consent Wizardry, the school I run to this day. I didn’t start the business on purpose but I don’t regret it. I love working for myself, making my own schedule, and making a living off of my mind, my ideas. I pretty much invented my job and I get to change it as I want to, too.

Ben: That’s bold!! I love that for you. I know a lot of people have a lot of impostor syndrome about stuff like that. Where did your confidence come from?

Mia: My dad has run his own business most of my life, so I had him as a resource. His dad ran his own business, too, so I guess it runs in the family a little bit. I also hired a business coach, Dez Davis, and that was so incredibly helpful. Just to have a person whose role was to help me spitball and try things out, as well as help me hone my own judgment and instincts. But to be honest, I was a baby entrepreneur at 12 years old. I was baking banana muffins to sell at school during lunch in 7th grade. I learned to make jewelry in high school and was selling it. I used to make all the birthday gifts I’d give friends. I made my own lotions and shampoos in my 20’s—not to sell but just for me. I then turned my ceramics hobby into a business at 27 and I felt somewhat equipped to do that because I had assisted a jewelry designer a few years prior who showed me how to invoice, make a lookbook of wholesale items, and so on. It was a bit of a hodge podge of experiences. But I certainly never thought, “I want to be an entrepreneur” or even run my own business and definitely never had any formal training.

Ben: Yes!! I relate to that a lot. I kind of just fell in to running my business and then was always looking for people I could ask more questions to.

I don’t know about you but I made a lot of mistakes in my first years of business. Looking back on those early days, what do you wish you’d known?

Mia: I learned pretty quickly that I was the one responsible for holding my own boundaries around time. If I want to take time off, a vacation, a lunch break even, I was the only one who was going to make that happen. I still struggle with that. I wish I’d known that the adage “do a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is total bullshit. Because when you do a job you love, the risk is that you will always be working and it’ll be really hard to stop. When I get a great idea at 10pm, I have to restrain myself from opening my computer. “But it’s fun” doesn’t mean it’s not work, and if I start writing at 10pm or drafting a new post for IG, my wheels start turning and it’s harder to sleep. Plus, there’s always stuff you just never want to do, and now you’re responsible for that. Some of it you can outsource, like bookkeeping, or even marketing, outreach, etc. But a lot of it you have to do. Like your bank will only talk to you with your social security number. Only you can handle your health insurance stuff. There’s also a lot of stuff that’s very hard to let go of control of, like I really feel like I have to do my own social media so it’s in my voice and my aesthetic, even if I don’t want to. I have to do my own communications via email when people cold email me. I’ve had assistants in the past but I still have to do a lot of it myself.

I learned that when pricing my offerings, I’m not just asking people to pay for the time they get with me. They’re paying for my entire backend operations: my website, my video course hosting site, my unpaid time I spend on marketing and Instagram which is where most of my clientele comes from, my CPA fees, the $800 I pay yearly to the state just for existing as an S-Corp…this all gets factored into my prices. People don’t want to think they’re paying for this, but anytime anyone buys anything—a shirt, a flight, a tomato—they’re covering all those costs.

I also went through a certain amount of embarrassment about the self-righteousness I had when I was an employee, as a barista, where I thought I knew how my boss should be operating their business even though I had not experienced doing so myself. Now that I was running my own business, I understood much better a lot of the regulations and protocols and profit splits and I had to get through that period of feeling like, “Wow I was pretty judgmental and naïve.” I try to be less so now, but I’ve also been on the receiving end of that same kind of scrutiny from much younger aspiring entrepreneurs and I’ve had to come to peace with that. I see myself in them and I try to be gentle and kind.

Ben: Oh gosh I resonate with a lot of that. Being your own boss can so quickly become never getting to really take any time off. You gotta go hardcore with those boundaries!!

What advice would you give somebody who is at the very beginning of their journey with this?

Mia: Ask yourself what kind of boss you want to be, and then practice on yourself as your first employee. If you want to offer paid vacation time, let people take doctors’ appointments during the work day, provide financial support for education and R+D, or anything else, practice doing this with yourself. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Ben: It’s really not!! Okay, last but not least, give us the pitch for your new program!

Mia: If you feel stifled working for other people and want to feel freer to express yourself authentically and get paid well for work you love, we can help you figure out your business plan, what you do and don’t do, who your work is for, how to set rates, market yourself, and build your brand identity without crashing out.

If you run a business and you feel you’ve hit a wall, want to rebrand, need community support, want to feel more creative in your work, or just need some accountabilibuddies, we can help you figure out next steps while connecting you with business experts in finance, social media, content creation, marketing, strategy, and more to help you feel more confident putting yourself and your business out there.

If you feel like a jack of all trades and master of none, if you feel like you do too many things and they’re not related at all (they probably are!), if you feel like you’re supposed to choose just one career, goal, artistic medium, or idea and you want to feel like an integrated, whole person with a coherent and cohesive business who never gets bored, you’re gonna like it here.

Not sure if this program is right for you? Email us!

Ready to apply? Click here!

September 8th to December 8th, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6-8pm PT / 9-11pm ET.

All on Zoom.

Applications due August 22.

Let’s start with unpacking the bad news. On Tuesday evening, HHS issued a new rule banning federal funding for gender affirming care for youth under 18 through medicaid and under 19 through CHIP. (If you’ve seen other headlines about HHS and gender affirming care lately, these have been proposals or letters. This is the first rule actually to go into effect—this one on October 13th.

What the rule doesn’t do:

• The rule has no impact on the use of a given state’s allocated medicaid and CHIP funding, so some families may still be able to receive coverage of care

• It won’t stop hrt care right away; the rule includes a 6-month grace period of coverage after the 10/13 start date for hormone therapy that’s already been started

• While the rule will make gender affirming care more difficult to access, it is not a ban and has no civil or criminal penalties for providers, parents, or patients.

On a larger scale, something worth noting is that this rule is one of two originally proposed by HHS. There was a second rule that was much, much worse but after a string of court losses and nearly 30,000 public comments against its proposal, that rule was quietly scrapped last month. This was cause for a huge sigh of relief.

HHS and the DOJ have spent most of the second Trump presidency using that potential rule as a blunt force weapon to intimidate hospitals into precomplying and stopping care as we’ve seen around the country. The rule they have finalized, while still terrible, is nowhere near as bad.

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That said, some hospitals may use this as an excuse to stop providing care even though it does not in any way require them to do so. If you have a first hand account of a hospital that has stopped providing care due to this rule, please let me know and I will connect you to the appropriate resources ASAP. Knowledge is power!!

Resources:

• For trans youth and their families struggling to access care due to cost, state restrictions, or a lack of nearby hospitals providing care: https://southernequality.org/tyep/

• For trans adults struggling with access to non-medical transition resources like IDs, wigs, medical tattooing, prosthetics, and more, Point of Pride has opened up applications for their annual THRIVE fund with microgrants to trans folks up to $2,500 each. Applications are open until August 31st! Throughout the year, they also have lots of other applications for grants to cover HRT, surgery, shapewear, and more.

• Do you have other resources you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments!

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Knowledge is Power!

“Staying Informed” can feel like a daunting, torturous prospect these days. For me, I lean heavily towards learning about problems from the people already working on solutions. I love attending the various webinars held by organizations I believe in that focus less on fearmongering and more on the actions I can feel empowered to take.

If you feel overwhelmed or frightened thinking about what the future of trans healthcare in the US might be, I encourage you to learn more from folks who are deeply in the know. In a few weeks, FUTR (families united for trans rights), is hosting a phenomenal webinar on the present and future of healthcare in the trans community. The event will be held Wednesday, August 26, from 8:00 - 9:00 p.m. ET / 5:00 - 6:00 p.m. PT, featuring Dr. Diane Ehrensaft (founder of the UCSF Adolescent and Gender Center) and Kellan Baker (Senior Advisor for Health Policy at the Movement Advancement Project).

Register here!

Last but certainly not least, a few quick hits of great news stories:

1. In Michigan, Joanna Whaley has won her primary and become the first trans woman nominated to the state legislative body!

2. The inimitable KB Brookins has a great roundup of all the wonderful trans news that doesn’t suck here:

   Trans News That Doesn't Suck

   We Love You, Cheryl Reeve

   Friends, foes, and other h*es…

   Read more

   18 days ago · 34 likes · 6 comments · KB Brookins

3. PFLAG National has launched a great new voting campaign called “Turning Pride Into Power!” If you’re looking to get more involved as a queer person or ally, consider joining your local chapter and getting involved with the campaign!

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Keep finding ways to build empowerment and community—sitting at home alone is a surefire way to make us think we’re isolated and powerless.

I’m also working on another deep dive piece to come out some time next week. Which of the following would be most interesting to you?

Okay, thanks y’all! I couldn’t do this without your support, and I promise there will always be more good news to share. Don’t give up hope.

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All my love,

Ben

I think these strategies really helped make the crash less terrible than it could have been, but it came all the same, and it was brutal. I still had a week and a half left to go of pride and had just landed in St. Louis for a five day adventure with 12 events on the books.

Before we get further into the burnout toolkit part 2, I want to share one of my favorite good news stories from the past week: Four republicans voted with all democrats to affirm that transgender people should be allowed to join the military! However you might feel about the American military complex, seeing republicans cross the party line to vote for the dignity of transgender servicemembers is a win in my book.

The Crash

I realized pretty quickly upon arriving in St. Louis that I was not well, and a really important part of supporting yourself through a burnout crash is being able to identify that you’re in it.

Within twenty four hours of arriving, three of my most trusted friends had all independently told me that I had never looked so tired in my life, and they were very worried about me. Here I was, thinking I was putting on some excellent display of energy and commitment. And my god, what a relief it was to put that down and be a real person.

So once I had accepted that it was going to be a rough week, what were my “airbags” that I could use to be in survival mode without having much room to actually slow down yet?

• Assign jobs to my loved ones. When I get stressed out, I forget to eat, and I’m not great about drinking water when I’m running from place to place. I specifically requested the people I would be around most keep me accountable and ask me constantly whether I was eating and drinking.

• SLEEP! Usually, I’m someone who avoids naps. When I’m struggling with other mental health lows, naps tend to make me feel more depressed. But I knew that this flavor of exhaustion was not the same as the depression urge to climb into bed and stay there. I needed to sleep. And so I popped in for as many tiny naps as I could squeeze in, went to bed earlier than usual, and prioritized rest in a very different way than normal.

• Feed my heart. I knew that I would have time in July, fortunately, to recover. My focus that week was on survival. For me, this meant ICE CREAM!! I love ice cream, and spent the week doing whatever little things I could do to bring myself some joy.

• Be outside. Sometimes, our stresses can make the borders between ourselves and the rest of the world feel really intense. We feel isolated, disconnected, and hopeless. When I feel like that, I go tell my problems to trees that are waaaaay older than me and birds that don’t stop flying to try to fix it. Sometimes it’s great to talk to the people we love. But sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that the world will keep turning, and the sun can patiently dry my tears for me.

• Say no to stuff (a lot) I had 12 hard commitments when I got to St. Louis on top of a much larger list of things I was hoping to do. People I wanted to grab a coffee and catch up with, favorite places I wanted to visit, things I wanted to write about, etc. Once I realized I was mid-crash, I did almost zero of these things, and guess what, it was fine! I shared honestly (and briefly) with my friends why I wasn’t free. They love me anyways, so I went back to sleep.

• Meditative arts and crafts The friends I stayed with in the city were the proud owners of the button machine for our PFLAG chapter, which is basically just a crank. I would be lying if I told you that it healed me to know that I was doing an action that would make so many people happy. People really do love the buttons, but to be honest with you, the healing of the button machine had nothing to do with the impact of the buttons and everything to do with how nice it is to turn my brain all the way off. Making pin after pin, sitting quietly in the sun and staring at a really pretty houseplant was a kind of meditative state that was really peaceful.

Next week, I’ll write about part 3 of this journey: the recovery. I’ve spent the better part of July putting myself back together, recharging my energy, and figuring out what I want the second half of this year to look/feel like.

If you know someone on their own burnout recovery journey, send this their way to give them a little extra love. Then read this article about how to show up for someone and actually help!

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The world is exhausting, and demands on our time, attention, and empathy are constant and overwhelming. I know I’m not the only one by a long shot to have fallen deep into the clutches of burnout, and I hope my openness and the strategies that have helped me might find their way to you, too.

Since I know most folks are not wanting to read a loooong article these days (myself included, more often than not!) I am going to break this down into a couple of parts.

If you’re new here, don’t forget to subscribe to get the rest of the series over the next couple of weeks!

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Part 1: Yellow Lights

Early in the month, as some of you may have read, I passed out at the gym during a normal workout. It was a huge, screaming red flag to me that I hadn’t been properly taking care of myself (particularly as it pertained to remembering to eat or drink). I started to be more thoughtful about my food and water intake, but that could only help so much.

As the month progressed, I had more and more travel and speaking engagements and could feel myself becoming more tired. Something that’s important to me on my mental health journey is learning how to identify my “yellow lights”. Basically, what signals does my body send me that something needs to change?

Listening to and noticing these signals then allowed me to start taking action. I knew that not everything about my month was changeable, and that there would likely be a crash and a recovery to come, but there were some things I could start to do right away to mitigate how challenging that crash would be.

Here are a few of my personal yellow lights, and the things I tried to make it a bit better. In the realm of the first aid kit, these are the band aids. Not at all long term solutions, but they helped me scrape through a difficult time without making it worse.

• Signal: I was seriously struggling to concentrate, and frequently switching between tasks. Even if I was getting done a task that was time-sensitive, important, or enjoyable, I felt a constant, anxious restlessness.

  • Band-aid: This was honestly a really tough one, and I spent a lot of time talking this through with my therapist (whom I increased my session frequency with for the month). I had to give myself grace to be less productive.

• Signal: My sleep got way, way worse. It took longer to fall asleep, was harder to stay asleep, and when I woke up my brain was already working—it was like I was showing up halfway through a meeting every morning!

  • Band-aid: Melatonin, more screen time rules around bedtime, and planning my days so that when I got exhausted at 3 I had already finished my to do list and could take a break until dinnertime. I also picked more calming books for my pre-sleep reading time.

• Signal: Caffeine had much worse effects on me, and instead of helping me wake up it made me terribly anxious.

  • Band-aid: Caffeine ban. This one is still in effect.

• Signal: I wasn’t finding joy in things I usually loved to do, like writing articles for good queer news, emailing people about book recommendations, or giving speeches about my favorite topics

  • Band-aid: Not forcing it. I looked at my normal commitments, projects, and habits, and if something wasn’t mission-critical, I wasn’t going to work on it during June.

• Signal: I am usually a very, very patient person, but I found myself much quicker to get frustrated at friends, family, myself, even my audiences! Yikes.

  • Band-aid: Asking my loved ones to help keep me accountable to noticing this behavior, and helping me slow it down.

• Signal: My social media and scrolling cravings became way, way stronger. For me, identifying that my social media use was a capital A- Addiction has been an important part of my boundary setting. It gives me the tools to understand that, like with other forms of addiction, these cravings will be particularly strong at times when I’m feeling exhausted, stressed, or vulnerable.

  • Band-aid: Make the boundaries stricter. On my social media blocking apps, I turned up the amount of time I was required to wait before using these apps/websites from 20 seconds to 60 seconds. I also did not allow myself to re-download the apps onto my phone and could only use them as websites.

• Signal: People I loved were mentioning to me that they were worried about me. They said I seemed more tired, stressed out, and less present than usual. I felt myself simultaneously grateful they were noticing and scared of what that meant.

  • Band-aid: Resisting the urge to pull away and forcing myself to keep a small number of social plans with people I felt most able to open up to, but taking time at the beginning to be candid about how much I was struggling.

Critically, a lot of these band-aids are ultimately about gentleness and comfort. I wasn’t really trying to start brand-new habits as much as I was leaning into older ones, and finding ways to structure my day that meant I felt less guilty about my lessened energy levels. Spending more time in parks than coffeeshops made it easier to avoid buying a coffee, and removing the social media apps from my phone meant the urge to scroll wasn’t as present because the option wasn’t available.

I also knew that none of this could happen alone, however much the urge to isolate called to me. I didn’t set ambitious expectations for maintaining constant phone calls and text threads, but I tried to avoid spending too much time alone or in spaces where I needed to pretend I was doing okay.

None of these were long-term fixes, but I also wasn’t in a moment where I had time or energy for a long term fix. It was important to me to know that moment was coming in July, and we can’t push healing off forever, but it’s still important to know what your band aids are.

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I’ve been spending the beginning of July checking in with myself, figuring out how to start recovering my energy and setting up some new boundaries so I don’t stretch quite so far past empty again.

While the official announcement is still pending a finished contract, this summer is going to be spent largely focusing on hitting the deadline for my next book!! I’m attempting to put together a modified “sabbatical” to allow me to prioritize writing and re-building my dwindling energy reserves.

I’m figuring out what, exactly, my publishing schedule will be for Good Queer News during that time. I’d like to still be publishing somewhat regularly, but tbd what exactly that will look like. We’ll figure it out together!

Just because I haven’t had the time to sit and write about it doesn’t mean good news isn’t happening constantly! Let’s get into it!

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Onto the Good Stuff!

In the courts:

• Florida has been blocked from enforcing the 2022 Stop WOKE act, which will protect the free speech rights of university professors and students!

• Yet another federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s attempts to subpoena the medical records of trans youth who received gender affirming care!

• A group of professors, along with Lambda Legal, are suing Texas Tech University over their outrageous curriculum censorship policies

• The elephant in the room on court rulings is, of course, the awful BPJ ruling on trans athletes. The ruling does not enact new bans in any states without sports bans, but it does allow existing sports bans to continue. I have found this piece by Sebastian Barr to be a gentle bolster as I react to this painful, but expected, ruling.

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In the statehouses:

• New Jersey is the latest blue state to pass a shield law protecting the healthcare and privacy of patients and providers of gender affirming care and reproductive healthcare.

• Illinois has passed additional robust protections for trans and queer residents, and they continue to lead the charge in showing what creative ways blue states can defend their people. Hell yeah midwest!

• State legislative sessions continue to end, giving advocates room to breathe. Hundreds of proposed bills are left dead on the floor, and our total number of bills passed nationally is far lower than it’s been in previous years. The goal is zero bad bills, but I’m proud that our skills and manpower for fighting back just keep getting better and better.

• Gavin Newsom has finally signed the proposed California budget that includes $26 million dollars for protecting transgender healthcare! There is also a $30 million dollar line to protect access to reproductive healthcare. This is in large part due to extensive lobbying efforts from trans rights orgs on the ground like trans family support services!

And don’t forget: I’m not the only source of good news out there! For a more robust “stack” of hope-forward news, check out:

• Trans news that doesn’t suck (and the page KB is partnering with for this article, called “Amplifying Trans Joy”!!!)

  Trans News That Doesn't Suck

  A Case for Trans Joy

  Author’s note: Yo! I know y’all are used to getting a list of news every week, but this is a special newsletter, co-written with the fabulous Jin of Amplifying Trans Joy. I said in my last newsletter that I’m trying out new things with the paid tier; these are the types of things I imagine for it! I’m making this post av…

  Read more

  2 months ago · 16 likes · 2 comments · KB Brookins

• Jess Craven, who posts short daily actions you can take to make a difference plus a weekly Sunday roundup of wins all over the country

  Chop Wood, Carry Water

  Extra! Extra! 7/5

  Hi, all, and happy Sunday…

  Read more

  2 months ago · 513 likes · 78 comments · Jess Craven

• Run for Something, an organization helping recruit and elect young progressives in local races, has a weekly “Feel Good Update” with their most hopeful wins!

Run for Something feel-good updates

RFS feel-good update (7/6): Welcome back!

Hi all …

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2 months ago · 24 likes · 1 comment · Amanda Litman

• Good Climate News, which is exactly what it sounds like!

  Good Climate News

  Edition 46: July 10, 2026

  French Court Orders Fossil Fuel Company to Stop hiding Customer Emissions…

  Read more

  2 months ago · 29 likes · 5 comments · Alaina Wood

• Of course all time reigning hope-champs: Good, Good, Good who have a daily newsletter of good news stories as well as a monthly physical good newspaper with reasons to be hopeful! I cannot recommend them enough.

Okay, keeping things short and sweet today. Do you have any hopeful stories from pride month that are getting you excited? I am always eager to hear about what’s happening (the more locally the better!) in your world.

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Keep looking for the joy, folks. It’s always out there!

We’re 11 days into pride month, I hope you all have been finding moments for celebration! For some reason, on June 1^st, I set about planning an ambitious content calendar for the first time—something that has never worked for me in the past but hey, maybe it’s time to try it during my busiest month of the year!

One of the funniest, and most apt words to describe that frame of mind is “hubris”. I generally like to write my articles and books in plain, accessible language, but sometimes a hoity-toity word is just too perfect to pass up.

The dictionary defines it as “excessive pride/confidene”, but I like the Greek tragedy definition better: excessive pride/confidence to the point of defiance of the pantheon of Greek gods, usually invoking a response from Nemesis, the goddess of divine punishment and revenge.

In my utter hubris, I planned out 2-3 articles a week on top of multiple trips a week, multiple presentations a day, for all 30 days of June. I started working with a new trainer at the gym, told myself I would be able to run a 5k without any walking by the end of the month, AND that I wanted to start setting a higher bar for organization in my house.

If there is some kind of transgender pantheon (a la the delightful book Future Feelings by Joss Lake), Nemesis is a drag queen, and she came to squash me under her Louboutin.

This is a roundabout and dramatic way to say that last week, I passed out at the gym.

It wasn’t even that hard a workout, but I hadn’t eaten or drank enough, hadn’t been sleeping enough, and had pushed myself too hard. Luckily, my trainer caught me and laid me down until I woke up, I was checked out by the paramedics, and then my brilliant, beautiful doctor wife came and picked me up for an afternoon of R&R.

Talk about a wake up call! I’m feeling a lot better now, but I also recognize that I got really lucky last week. What if I’d been on a dangerous piece of equipment when I’d passed out? What if I’d been driving? This isn’t something I can allow to happen again. I spent the remaining days of last week focusing on eating enough food, drinking enough water, resting extra, and asking myself to look more closely at which of my to do list items were actually urgent. I’m rereading some favorite queer books, and some outstanding new books, too. Mid-way through an intense week of travel, I’m still keeping these things at the top of my priority list.

I’ll still be doing my best, at a more measured pace, to send out some great writing this month, but it won’t be nearly as ambitious as it was originally planned. I’d love to save you all some trouble: feel free to borrow my “sign” as your own. Have you been eating enough? Had water yet today? What conditions allow you to feel fully rested?

Don’t worry, I won’t leave you yet without a few major top ups of hope for the road.

1. If you’ve been following me for a hot minute, you know I’m obsessed with the GoodNewspaper and the free newsletter version Good Good Good. For their pride edition, I have a featured article on 50 things you can do to support trans people!! AND I was able to partner with them to make a discount code for signups to the Goodnewspaper using the code GOODQUEERNEWS for 25% off! It’s the best $8 I spend every month. Check out the digital version of the article here, and get yourself some hope in the mail!

2. A reader recently sent me a trailer for a documentary they’re making on Gotham Cheer, New York City’s adult queer cheerleading team. I watched it and immediately was OBSESSED! Ear to ear grin over here, folks. Check out the trailer and then donate to the fundraiser for the film!

3. GREAT news: Anti-trans congresswoman Nancy Mace, who left her seat in congress to run for governor of South Carolina on an explicitly anti-trans platform, came in FIFTH in the primary! Now she isn’t in congress or the state house. HALLELUJAH!

4. For a deeper roundup of the best trans news out there, check out KB Brookins’ latest episode of Trans News that Doesn’t Suck!

Trans News That Doesn't Suck

And That's on Marsha P. Johnson

Friends, foes, and other h*es…

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3 months ago · 30 likes · KB Brookins

5. I’ve got a live, virtual event coming up next week with the aforementioned brilliant KB, as well as the wonderful Dany Gonzalez! We’ll be having a panel discussion called “Pride Everlasting: The History of Trans Joy Outlasting Oppression”. Check us out next Saturday, June 20^th!

RSVP here!

6. For a bigger swath of hope, check out the loooong good news roundup from Jess Craven, which is one of my favorite rituals of the week.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Extra! Extra! 6/7

Hi, all, and happy Sunday…

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3 months ago · 409 likes · 52 comments · Jess Craven

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for you for now! I’m off for some family time, research, hiking, and event hosting all over Oregon (and if you’re around the Florence area on Sunday, come join me and PFLAG Florence for a live event!)

All my love,

Ben

Good afternoon and happy pride, beautiful people!!

I’m gearing up for a beautifully busy pr…

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But the more time I spent at the capital fighting for trans rights, the more those assumptions were blasted apart. I was new to the scene in 2023, but the pastors, priests, nuns, rabbis, and various other clergy had been organizing for years on all kinds of progressive and human rights issues. Now, houses of faith are some of my favorite spaces to speak because of how much passionate love and desire to spark change that folks bring into the room.

Still, I know these experiences are unique. For many, many LGBTQ+folks, there is a long, painful, even traumatized history with faith whether political, personal, or both. I’m not here to tell you you’re wrong for however you might feel—your experiences are yours.

But I am here to play my favorite game: popping the bubble! Let this interview with one of the founders of the Missouri LGBTQ+ Faith Alliance break down our binaries a little bit more.

Also, this is a super fun addition. During this interview call, Deb and I talked about how it might be fun to host an event together while I’m in St. Louis in a few weeks on June 22nd, and then we worked together with my favs at PFLAG to make it happen!

RSVP for FREE Here!

Come hang out, talk about hope, and eat some ice cream!!

Okay, let’s get into it!

Ben: Deb!! I am such a huge fan of the work that you all have been doing and I’m so excited for this interview. If Missouri taught me anything, it is the power of love in faith communities. And I’m so grateful for that lesson.

Deb: I know! I have heard from people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, and they’ll say to me, I had no idea there were people like you out there.

Initially, I’m like, “can I hug you?” And then almost right after that, I’m like, wow. What are we doing wrong where somebody says that to me?

What can we be doing better? And there’s a lot of work that we have to do.

Ben: And is that where the faith alliance comes in?

Deb: Yes! One of the first things that the Faith Alliance did, when we convened almost two years ago, was to have a real conversation about how some faiths, especially churches, have done horrible harm to people in the LGBTQ+ community.

We gotta put that in a statement. We know this, and we own it, and we own what has been not only done in the past, but what continues to be done. We are here to try and make a bridge and to let people know that not everybody that professes to be, whether you’re Christian or whatever faith, is anti LGBTQ+.

I think sometimes just having people from faith communities in the space where queer people show up is important because it’s sort of a reverse representation, if you will.

Ben: It does send a message! When I go to a pride festival, I love going to the section where the faith groups are, and often I meet people who are so excited to be there, like, “How glad I am to be here giving love, showing up to say, I am right here with you to give a glitter benediction!”

So take me back to that first meeting or the idea behind the LGBTQ+Faith Alliance. How did this all start?

Deb: I had been doing some affirming work first through free mom hugs. I was one of the people that sort of started the chapter in Missouri, and in the church I was attending at the time, I was leading a family support network of people who are family members of LGBTQ+ people. It was like PFLAG, but through faith.

I knew that there were other congregations in the Saint Louis area that were affirming and advocating for LGBTQ+ people in the community, but it didn’t seem like we were talking to one another. And I thought, okay. There’s gotta be a way to connect people better. I knew that there were some people showing up from Faith Communities in Jeff City, and I just thought there was a way for us to get together.

I knew Sister Nancy Corcoran because she had spoken at the church I was attending at the time to that family support network, and I reached out to Nancy for a coffee chat, and she was just so supportive. There was something on my heart, but sometimes you need somebody in front of you to say, go for this. That was sister Nancy.

(An addition from Ben for my non-Missouri readers that sister Nancy is a firecracker nun who is one of the most passionate allies I have ever met. One of these days, she’s getting her own piece here.)

Deb: And so I currently am a member of, if I may plug, Parkway United Church of Christ. We have a wonderful pastor there, Kevin Cameron. And he said, “let’s have the meeting here!” So on a Saturday we convened for a meeting, and it was kind of off and running.

That was in July, and then we figured out a structure. We started meeting monthly. We were lining up speakers to come to every other meeting. We alternate between virtual and in-person, and we always have an educational type speaker to talk to us at our meetings in person. I was lining those up and it just kept rolling and rolling, and more people were coming on board from good word-of-mouth. Before I knew it, there’s 25 congregations.

We base our work on four pillars: community outreach, advocacy, issuing of resources, and education. So, one of the first things we did was pride because I knew there were a lot of churches that were already showing up, but it’s not inexpensive to do prides. So we all shared a tent, and this coming year, we will be there with another ecumenical booth. There’s six different congregations all under one tent!

Ben: That’s so much fun!

Ben: I’m curious, between when you started and now, what has surprised you the most?

Deb: Honestly, I think it’s just been the way things have fallen into place. I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m not a wallflower, but I would definitely describe myself as a happy introvert. To be the face of something is weird for me.

And so I often tell people, I’m just winging this y’all. But it all seems to fall into place somehow. Whether it’s planning an event or getting speakers, that kind of tells me that the higher power, whatever you recognize that to be, is saying, “good job, kid”, and helping this along.

I really feel like the spirit has been working amongst all of us. And what is so beautiful is that I see it speaking all different kinds of languages. Right? I mean, so many times, if you belong to a particular faith community, it’s really easy to think this is the way. But you’re putting the holy in a box. You’re not letting the full beautiful diversity of sacredness out. You know?

Ben: That’s so beautiful. Tell me more about that.

Deb: As an example, we had a big strategy meeting with PROMO [the Missouri group leading the charge in fighting for queer rights in the legislative, electoral, and deep canvassing spheres]. We had about 30 people of all different ages, different faiths. And I was so busy helping to pull the meeting together, I did not hear about the shooting that had happened in San Diego. And one of the Jewish members of our group, Phillip, wanted to offer support to one of the young people that was there who was Muslim.

It was beautiful to see Phil take the lead, in that moment for that person and then lead the whole group at the end of the meeting in a moment of silence for our Muslim siblings. And that’s a wonderful thing about this faith alliance is that people just step in to do the work that needs to be done either in the moment or, you know, in the larger picture. It’s just been a super beautiful, collaborative kind of experience, these past couple of years. And, as our diversity increases and more people come on board, it’s just gonna get even better.

Ben: That just fills my heart so much. I love Missouri. I want to dive a little deeper into some of the faith side of things. There are a lot of LGBTQ+ people who have a strong gut reaction to hearing about faith communities. They have a lot of fear or trauma or anger. What would you say to people who are carrying that fear or that trauma or that baggage with them?

Deb: I first want to say I hear that, and I acknowledge that fear. I hear what you’re saying, and I acknowledge the harm, and there are way more people of faith from various traditions that believe you’re perfect just the way you are, and you were made in God’s image, and you are sacred and holy and whole. And know, as we said in our statement of support, there’s no politician or pundit that can tell you anything different.

Ben: That’s so beautiful. Thank you so much.

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Diving Deeper Into Allyship

Ben: How about for folks who are allies, who are religious, and who are holding this pain of I love my faith, I love my LGBTQ+community, and I hate knowing that when people hear that I’m religious, they get nervous around me. What would you say to somebody figuring out how to hold those things?

Deb: I just think it’s so important if you identify as a person of faith, whether you’re a member of a of a faith community or you’re a faith leader, It’s just important to find a way to to speak out against the Christian Nationalist movement that we’ve got in this country right now.

I would love more people of, progressive or even centrist faith communities to speak out. I don’t know if it’s a Midwest thing or what the deal is, but so many people are afraid. They don’t wanna offend anybody. I was raised on, you don’t talk about politics or church. Y’all those days are gone. They’re gone. If people who love the LGBTQ+ community are silent, then all the LGBTQ+ community hears is the hate.

And that’s why you have to somehow find your voice, whether that’s within your faith community or you reach out to organizations in your area and say “I’m a person of faith. I want to volunteer for your organization.”

I would just hope that people stop being afraid of alienating anybody and start praying with your feet.

Ben: YES!!!! I love that so much, my goodness. Get out there, and let’s do some work.

Deb: And it can start with something very simple. And then you kind of want to flow naturally to the next step because it just feels so hopeful.

Ben: EXACTLY!!! Empowerment really feeds on itself. I hate to say it, but we’re starting to come to the end of our interview here. How can folks support the work you’re doing?

Deb: We’ve got a raffle fundraiser going on right now until the 10th to support our work. Right now, any person of faith or organization that’s faith based or group that’s faith based can join the faith alliance. We don’t ask for any money. We just ask, be active. So one of the things we’re doing is two of our members donated an antique quilt raffle or an antique yo-yo quilt for us to raffle, and it’s online.

Buy a ticket!

Ben: How can folks who are in Missouri join you all?

Deb: Right now, we are pretty much in this greater St. Louis area, and I know your folk are all over. But anybody can reach out to me with any questions or, you know, whether they’re from Missouri or anywhere. Our email is LGBTfaithalliance@aol.com. We’re old school.

Ben: Deb, this interview has been fantastic. It has solidly recharged my hope reserves. I am just so proud to have called Missouri home.

Deb: And I tell you, I’m a native Missourian, and this nonsense that’s going on right now, it just makes me so mad. This is not the Missouri I knew as a kid. I’d be happy with the purple Missouri back, and I think we can get there. I know so many people who want that.

As Katy from PROMO said last night, “If there’s only one thing you all get out of this meeting, I want you to know Missouri is winnable.” Yeah. And she made us repeat it a couple of times, but that’s what we’re going to try to help do.

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Join us in Missouri!!

For all the folks in the MO/IL area, we’d absolutely love to have you join us for an evening of hope, history, and ICE CREAM! Monday, June 22nd, 7pm Central. Be there or be square! RSVP here and invite anyone who’s cool :)

​​RSVP: https://partiful.com/e/a4vRYJN7ImR8U070loHc

PS If you’re jealous this is in Missouri and not your city… reply to this email and we’ll make it happen! These are my favorite kinds of events, and I can be lured basically anywhere with the promise of ice cream.

Her work has been a keystone of my own passions for years, and I wanted to share with you all a beautiful email she sent in the wake of the devastating shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday. I know it is tempting to look away, and to become numb to the violence. Valerie provides a beautiful model for what it actually looks like to hold this pain, to help ourselves and each other heal, and to move forward.

She also included a form she made to submit love letters to the survivors at the center, which she will be personally delivering next week. I think this is incredibly beautiful and was eager to submit my own messages of love.

To all my muslim readers, I grieve with you deeply this week. Through the screen here, I want you to know that I see you in your pain, your fear, your grief, and your anger. I am here with you.

I have built a platform of over 20,000 people looking for community, hope, and action. It is such a gift to be able to use this platform to amplify the voices of brilliant people that deserve to be heard by as many people as possible. As soon as I read this article, I reached out to Valerie for permission to republish her newsletter in its entirety, and she generously agreed. I know it can be frightening and difficult to engage with this subject matter, but I truly trust Valerie to have the grace and wisdom to hold us through it. What follows are exclusively Valerie’s own words & work, not mine.

If you want to learn more about her work, you should start with my favorite book of hers, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

You can also support her work with a donation:

Donate Here→

My Love Letter to You After San Diego

by Valerie Kaur

Beloved family:

On Monday, two gunmen opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego and killed three people before taking their own lives. One was a security guard who died protecting the 140 children inside. The mass shooting is being investigated as a hate crime linked to white supremacist extremism. The community is deep mourning.

Let’s show them they are not alone.

Write a message of love and solidarity to the children of the Islamic Center of San Diego. I will hand-deliver your letters to the mosque next Friday.

Within a few days, the news cycle will move on from this shooting. And the painful process of healing will begin. Your messages of love and support will be bound a book as a gift for the children’s school — so that in the hard days ahead, they know they are never, never alone.

Write your message here →

You can write a message to the children. Or to the parents and grown-ups there. It can be a long or just a couple lines. It can be typed or handwritten. If you are a teacher or parent, you can invite your kids to write messages too. Forward this email. Gather and write together. We carry each other through the impossible.

If you are able, make a donation to support the survivors and families here.

The Revolutionary Love Project delivered tens of thousands of prayers and letters of love and solidarity in the wake of the mass shootings at the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and mosques in Christchurch. Let us pour our love into San Diego now.

My Love Letter to You

To our Muslim family: We see you. We love you. We grieve with you. We stand with you.

To all of us who are hurting: You are not alone. The terror of this mass shooting is reverberating in our hearts across the country.

Houses of worship are sanctuaries — where we feel safe, where we raise our children and build community, where we sing and pray, where we find refuge and peace.

One of the deadliest attacks on a house of worship was the mass shooting by a white supremacist in the Sikh gurdwara of Oak Creek, WI in 2012. I documented the aftermath for my community. I will never forget the look of agony in the children who survived, or the steady voices of our elders as they repaired the broken glass and ripped out the blood-soaked carpets with their own hands, singing and praying.

All these years later, we are still mourning our loved ones— just as we will forever mourn the three heroes who died on Monday:

Amin Abdullah, 51, father of eight, the security guard who sacrificed his life to protect the 200 children inside the mosque. His final act was to call to warn the teachers and put the school on lock-down. He is credited for saving many lives.

Nadir Awad, 57, husband of a teacher at the school, the neighbor who ran towards the mosque when he heard gunfire and was killed while trying to distract and delay the shooters.

Mansour Kaziha, 78, the beloved elder and caretaker who served the community since the mosque was founded in the 1980s. All three are being honored as martyrs for giving their lives to slow the gunmen and save lives.

We hold in our hearts the teachers who kept the children safe, and the parents who waited through hours of terror. We mourn with the families whose loved ones are not coming home. And we stand with resolve and conviction to tell the truth about the climate of hate in America today.

This shooting is not an “isolated incident.”

This act of violence comes at a time of extreme anti-Muslim hate from the federal government — hate speech, extremist propaganda, and authoritarian assaults on immigrants and people of color.

For the last 25 years since 9/11, Muslim, Sikh and Arab communities have endured enormous white nationalist rage. Loved ones killed and beaten in hate crimes. Mosques and gurdwaras routinely vandalized. Surveillance, detentions, deportations, travel bans and family separations. Forever wars and genocidal campaigns abroad keep fueling the hate at home — and those who profit from it have overtaken the highest seats of power.

Now our children, born long after 9/11, grow up in a nation more dangerous for them than it was for us. And a new generation has been trained in white supremacist hate — the two gunmen in San Diego were teenagers who found each other online and shared “broad hate.”

I grieve for all that we have lost. I rage that the violence goes on and on. And I search for signs of hope…

When I look back at the last 25 years, in the wake of every act of hate violence, there were people who did what the nation as a whole did not — they showed up to grieve with us, to offer flowers and letters and donations, to listen to our needs, to share our stories, and to organize with us.

Anytime people who have no obvious reason to love one another come together to grieve, they build new relationships—they power movements.

May we be brave with our love now —

• Honor your grief. It is a sign of how deeply you love.

• Honor your rage. It carries information and energy. It connects you with the power to fight for matters to you.

• Take time to breathe. Your fatigue means that you are awake to the gravity of suffering. Rest. Reach out to someone who can breathe with you. Only then —

• Let’s push together. Choose one brave thing. Scroll down for ways to show up for San Diego.

In heartbreak and resolve,

Valarie

P.S. Send your love letter by midnight next Wednesday!

Write Your Love Letter

We are collecting love letters from across the country and around the world and will hand-deliver them in San Diego next week. Your message of love and solidarity can bring hope, healing, and courage. It can be long or just a few sentences. Even after the news cycle moves on, families and children can read your letters and know that they are not alone.

• Type your message in the form. Or take a picture of a handwritten letter or artwork and upload it.

• Address your letter to children at the school. Or to the parents and grown-ups in the community.

• You can choose to give your name and contact, or leave it anonymous.

Make your submissions by midnight on Wednesday, May 27th.

Submit your letter →

Take Action for San Diego

1) Make a donation to support the Victims and Families: Make a donation to the Official ICSD Victim & Family Support Fund to help provide direct assistance to the families impacted by this tragedy. Donate here.

2) Grieve in community:

• Attend local vigils and stand in solidarity in your community.

  • You are invited to a community vigil tonight in San Diego — Wednesday, May 20 | 6:30 PM in front of Geisel library on UCSD’s campus. We will continue to share other local vigils as we hear about them on our social channels.

• Reach out to loved ones, neighbors, family, and friends in the Muslim community with love and support.

• Build a community altar using this toolkit from Black Feminist Futures.

3) Learn about and combat anti-Muslim bigotry:

• What is Islam (The Pluralism Project at Harvard University)

• What is Islamophobia (Facing History & Ourselves)

• How do online networks spread Islamophobia (The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University — podcast with Dr Marc Owen Jones, expert on disinformation and digital authoritarianism)

• Countering and Dismantling Islamophobia (Toolkit by the Institute for Social Policy & Understanding)

• How can we create school cultures that counter Islamophobia (Southern Poverty Law Center)

4) Talk to the young ones in your life to help them process: The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) recommends:

• Talking to Children About Tragedies (American Academy of Pediatrics)

• Helping Kids After a Shooting (American School Counselor Association)

• Explaining the News to Our Kids (Common Sense Media)

• Helping Children Cope with Frightening News (Child Mind Institute)

• Helping Children Cope with Terrorism: Tips for Families and Educators (National Association of School Psychologists)

Recipe for Resilience

The Revolutionary Love Project envisions a world where love is a public ethic and shared practice in our lives and politics. We generate stories, tools, and thought leadership to equip people to practice the ethic of love in the fight for social justice.

Donate Here→

First, a win very close to my heart: Missouri has defeated ALL 58 PROPOSED ANTI-LGBTQ+ BILLS!!! They’ve done so with tremendous grace, power, and strategy. There are bigger fights to come at the ballot box this fall, but I am so thrilled the community has been protected from so many attempts at harm this session and will have a chance to breathe before they get back to work.

South Carolina’s session has also ended, with the successful defeat of 44/45 anti LGBTQ+ bills. Oklahoma defeated 52/57 anti LGBTQ+ bills as well!!

Remember folks, we can and must make room for both: none of these bills should have been proposed. None of them should have been a priority. None of them should have been passed. Every one that did pass deserves to be fought in court. Every one that passed will hurt people. It is important to grieve, to rage, and then to act. Pick which of these sentences resonates with you the most strongly, then pick an action.

None of those bills should have been proposed → Which of the legislators proposing hateful legislation are up for reelection this fall? Who are their challengers? Sign up for a shift volunteering to unseat them.

None of those bills should have been a priority for hearings or debate → Through calls, emails, testimony, town halls, voting, and in-person conversations with your legislators, we must let them know there are ACTUAL PROBLEMS that people in your state are dealing with. Ask them where they were on the cost of living, on data center regulations, on renters protections. They are wasting YOUR MONEY. Let them know how you feel about that!!

None of these bills should have passed → Look up the champion legislators who fought against these bills. Call or email or write to them to say THANK YOU. We need to make sure they continue to fight for us.

Every bill that passed deserves to be fought in court → Who is leading litigation strategy in your state? Is it GLADLaw? Lambda Legal? A4TE? ACLU? Send them a donation to help them keep working. If you or someone you know is negatively impacted by a new law, tell them!! They cannot bring a case until they have a plaintiff!

Every bill that passed will hurt people → Look up “mutual aid” in your city, region, or state (or if you’re in a safer area, pick a red state to adopt with your mutual aid donations). Donate your time, spare clothes, money, expertise, or labor to help people survive while we work in other domains to undo this harm on a larger scale.

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Feel the anger. Take action. AND celebrate the victories. Just because hateful bills passed, too, doesn’t mean that our efforts to defeat hundreds of attacks on our community are meaningless. Efforts towards cultural change, electoral shifts, harm reduction, and brilliant strategy to protect LGBTQ+ folks (and particularly trans folks + trans youth) are worth celebrating. Insisting these are not worth celebrating sends only one message: No matter how hard you work, it will never be enough, so stop trying. By making time to celebrate what we’ve achieved, we give ourselves the energy we need to get back to work and make some more good queer news of our own!

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Some wins in the Courts:

• A Kansas judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of the state’s ban on gender affirming care for minors and has said the law likely violates the state’s constitution. I think this is the first ruling on youth gender affirming care post-Skrmetti, so this feels like an extra bit of fresh air for me.

• A federal court has released an outstandingly scathing ruling against the DOJ for their intimidation campaign against hospitals providing safe, legal gender affirming care. Judge Mary McElroy (who was appointed by Trump!) came down hard on the DOJ for lying, forum shopping, and even said “DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case.” Read more in this great article from Erin Reed.

• Last week, the EU high court ruled that Poland must recognize same sex marriages registered outside the country, even if the unions are not yet legal in Poland. Now, they have registered the first same sex couple in Warsaw!

People power:

• After spending 7 months practicing a winds concert in ode to Marsha P. Johnson, the high school band in Watertown, Wisconsin was banned from performing the piece by the school board. They planned a walkout, and though the school and many of the teachers (cowards!!) tried to stop them, the students are quoted as “bursting through the wall of teachers to protest anyways!” Hear more from the students here

• You likely know by now that I am a gigantic fan of Jess Craven, the author of “Chop Wood, Carry Water” a newsletter focused on hope through action and taking action every day to make a difference. Every Sunday she sends out a special edition focusing on what went right this week, and it’s so beautiful to see. Check out this week’s update!

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Extra! Extra! 5/17

Read more

3 months ago · 469 likes · 71 comments · Jess Craven

In the beautiful world of voting:

• Hey, you! Are you someone who likes to complain about having the same sucky milquetoast candidates on the ballot in November? THIS is the time to change that! Right now, there are some INCREDIBLE progressive candidates running for office (and winning) all over the country. The more successes we have in small towns, cities, and red and blue states, the more success we can use to push for more progressive candidates on a national scale. There are some great progressives, DSA candidates, and independents running incredible primary campaigns RIGHT NOW! Learn more about some of the candidates and victories they’re already winning through Run For Something’s Feel Good Update!

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Did I miss anything? The best part of my job is realizing there will always be more good queer news than I can possibly know about, and that ROCKS. Let me know if you have a hopeful story in your own city, country, town, or organization worth celebrating! Every win is a meaningful win–they will all add up towards the world I know we are building together.

There is always more joy to be found!

Xoxo,

Gossip Girl

(just kidding it’s still Ben)

((or is it?))

It is a continuous delight to me, as a nerd myself, that I get to use this platform to speak not only about the news and the reasons to be hopeful that you all signed up for but also about the books and other art that are allowing my hope to continue to persist.

Also quick sub-note. For anyone currently impacted by social media’s latest wave of INTENSE fearmongering, please please check out this wonderful article by Dr. Sebastian Barr.

Weathering the Storm with Dr. Sebastian Barr

This (Trans) Therapist Is Begging You to Divest From the "Trans Panic Clickbait Economy"

If you’re a trans person (reading substack) in the United States right now, chances are high that at times in the last year and a half you have been immobilized by fear about the escalation of anti-trans violence, and particularly what comes next. There is a collective experience of panic that many of us have felt and/or are currently feeling. Immobiliz…

Read more

4 months ago · 98 likes · 11 comments · Sebastian Barr

Ok Back to Books!!

Last month I was generously sent an advanced copy of Camryn Garrett’s new book, In Between Days which was pitched to me as follows:

It was a hardcore, immediate yes, and I read the book in one sitting (aided by my many hours of travel during my trip to Lithuania, but also by the fact that I could not. stop. reading.)

This book was so beautifully written, so perfectly balanced. One of the things I’m most deeply impressed by is when an author trusts their readers to read, to think, and to feel without being spoon-fed. Camryn so wonderfully trusts her readers to walk through difficult situations and feelings. At the same time, this is the most fun grief book I’ve ever read. It wasn’t intentionally depressing without shying away from the painful isolation of grief. That is not an easy line to walk! I could go on and on about how much I loved this book, but it would be even more fun to invite Camryn in to GQN for an interview!!

Let’s Get Into it!

Ben: Camryn!!! Beautiful cover. Beautiful book. I literally read the whole thing in one sitting. Oh, wow. It was so good. How did you decide that this was the book you wanted to write?

Camryn Garrett: I actually wrote this first as a screenplay in one of my classes, and I basically was like, I don’t know what to do with the screenplay, let me make this into a book! And it was really about wishing that I had a community in ways that I’m kind of building now, but I didn’t really know how to start finding it at the time.

My first book was about a girl with HIV. She has two dads. She lives in San Francisco. And when I was researching this, I was learning so much about the AIDS crisis, about older queer people, and I was like, I really don’t have connections to older queer people in my family or outside of my family.

So this new book is about a girl who becomes friends with her dad’s boyfriend that she didn’t know existed. Obviously, there’s a lot of grief. There’s a lot of sadness. But I was like, I really do sometimes wish that I had an older gay to tell me “this is how you do it.”

I think especially at that time, I was really like, I don’t know how I identify. I really am not sure. I feel like I’m doing things wrong and I really want someone to be like, this is how you do it. This is how you be gay.

Buy the book!!

Ben: Richard’s character is just so cute. And Vera is so classic Gen Alpha that she’s like, “how do you be gay?” And he’s like, “Here’s an idea of an answer.” And she’s like, “ew. You’re embarrassing.” Iconic.

Ben: One of the things that I found really, really beautiful about this book is that it’s shaped by grief, but sometimes you read a book that is sad and heavy and just stays in that sad place the whole time. I was really, really impressed that I was reading this book smiling most of the time. I’m laughing. It’s hilarious. Tell me about how you walked that line.

Camryn Garrett: Yeah. That makes me really, really happy to hear because that was definitely the goal. I lost my father, oh my gosh, almost seven years ago now. I was like, I don’t feel like I’ve seen grief represented the specific way I’ve experienced it. I was like Mira, and I was making random jokes and sort of laughing at the ridiculousness of these situations. And it was really difficult for me to engage with my peers about it.

Camryn: When I wrote the book, one of my professors was 80. I would talk to him a lot because he said “I understand what it’s like to lose parents. And a lot of your peers don’t understand, and they won’t for a really long time.” And so that sort of ties back into the idea of multigenerational community and being able to connect to people who are older than me about these things that maybe my peers or people my age don’t really understand.

I know it’s very cliche to be like, oh, hang out with older people and you’ll learn. But I do think we can find a lot that we can share. Richard lived through the AIDS crisis. He’s lived through all sorts of things. He has this sort of understanding that maybe Mira doesn’t, that her friends at the bookstore don’t, and her friends at school don’t. And that can be really validating.

Buy the book!!

Ben: Yeah. And I think you show that relationship in a way that’s really realistic. Here’s what it looks like to put effort into that relationship. Here’s appropriate boundaries. Sometimes it’s gonna be awkward, and that’s okay.

Camryn Garrett: And that’s something that a lot of young people don’t necessarily process that if it’s awkward, it can still be okay.

Ben: Oh, I really love that!!

Ben: Okay. Here’s another question. One of the things I think a lot about for myself as a writer and when I read other people’s work is that, like, at least for me, I write in part to heal myself.

I write something I need to figure out, something that is hurting, something that I need to make meaning of, etcetera. Was there something that was healed for you by writing this book?

Camryn: That’s a really good question. I think I really wanted to write not just about the grief, but also about this fear that you’re doing it wrong. That there’s a wrong way to be queer, which there isn’t.

Especially when I was, like, 20, I used to have this very intense anxiety about how I identified. For a long time I identified as bisexual. And then in college I started wondering if I was a lesbian? I had to pick one. And everyone was kind of like, who cares? It was really funny because it tormented me. It was all I thought about.

The online queer spaces I was in, it felt like if you don’t fit specifically into certain ways of expressing this identity, then you’re not as valid or you’re not a “real gay”. And my friends were like, just touch grass. It’s okay.

There’s confidence there now, and this assuredness that the way I exist is fine. I think writing this book and writing Mira and having that hindsight where it’s sort of like, it doesn’t matter. It’s okay. You find community and you find your own way of expressing what queerness looks like to you and that was healing for me.

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Ben: Oh, I love that, and I think that came across in the book really well, you know, especially with this journey that she was on of, like, how do I relate to people as someone who has a dead dad? And it wasn’t that, oh, actually, they can all understand. You didn’t try to tie it up with a fake bow and “we’re all gonna get it and understand each other perfectly by the end.”

Ben: There are a lot of readers and a lot of people who dream about writing or about telling their stories, but who feel like there isn’t a place for my story. What would you say to somebody who’s wanting to write something, who’s wanting to tell a story, and feels like there’s not a place for it?

Camryn: Please do!!! I think we all fall into that feeling of: if my story isn’t commercial or if I don’t think people would wanna read my story, it’s not worth telling. And I think you do yourself a disservice with that. The most important question is, is the story important to you? Would you wanna read the story? Because with everything I write, that’s the first question I ask myself.

If I’m writing for young adults, I ask: would teen-me want to read this story? When I wrote my middle grade book, would 12 year old me wanna write read this? And if the answer is yes, then I owe it to myself to write it. Just the journey of writing your story and taking it seriously is a really beautiful gift that you can give yourself, because it’s so cathartic. It’s so therapeutic for me anyway. There’s so much joy in it.

Ben: Yeah. Oh, I love that. And that too really divorces the storytelling and writing from publishing. Publishing is hell. Publishing is hard, and it’s so much about luck and finding the right person at the right time. But you could tell the story.

Camryn: You could. I just saw an author who writes queer romance, and she just sold a book that she said she wrote ten years ago. So even if you write a book now or it isn’t a book and you just write your story now and you don’t know what to do with it, hold on to it because you never know what you could do with it.

Ben: Okay. I have another question for you that I’m really excited to hear your thoughts on. I am very much of the belief that we use books to write our way into the future. We figure out what we want. We figure out how to get there. We make other people wanna get there with us. Butler, Brown, Jemisin, Le Guin, like, all those. So many authors have taught us what it looks like to write our way into the future.

As a writer, what future are you writing towards? What are you most excited about? What do you dream about individually, collectively? What are you hoping that your writing will push us towards?

Camryn: It’s a really good question. Oh, man. I really try to write my books so they feel sort of like a safe space specifically for black queer teens. And I think I’m writing towards a future where those safe spaces are bigger, that they’re more accessible.

Because I feel like it’s very trite to say “our stories are important”. I think we all know that. For me, it’s writing towards a future where there’s enough space for nuance, like, space for everyone to be who they are and be different and still be in the same community and still be supporting each other.

I’m writing toward a future where we have more intergenerational community, community across lines that we might think are really hard to cross.

Ben: Oh, that’s lovely. And I do feel like that tenderness and that safety really comes through in your writing.

Ben: Time for the last bits, and I’m so sad this interview has to end, but where can people find you??

Website to learn about all Camryn’s wonderful books and art (or to hire her for school visits!):

https://www.camryngarrett.com/

Follow Camryn on Instagram!

https://www.instagram.com/camryngwrites/

Fin

That’s all folks! Get out there and get a copy of In Between Days! As annoying as it is, sales numbers are the metric by which queer, black, nuanced, and any other beautiful and necessary and “diverse” stories are judged. These numbers determine whether publishers are willing to take on our stories in the future, what kinds of advances they give us, how much support they give us with marketing, and whether they judge our stories as “valuable”.

I had a really wonderful time reading this as an adult (and am very picky about which YA books I like) and even if you aren’t a big YA reader:

• You can donate a copy to a local PFLAG chapter or a school library!

• You can put copies in a little free library in your neighborhood!

• You can keep it on your shelf to lend it out at the perfect moment!

It was so fun for me to collect recs for Black Queer YA books in the chat last week, so if you have other recs PLEASE drop them in the comments here!!

Leave a comment

That’s all for today! Love you all so much <3

Ben

In 2022, When I began my quest to give a free presentation for every PFLAG chapter in the country, I was lonely and was making frequent visual judgments of the people around me to guess who did and did not look like an LGBTQ ally. My worldview was one that was shared among many of my peers:

Blue states good. Red states bad. Big cities good. Small towns bad. Young people, mostly cool and supportive, while the older or more “typical” somebody looked, the more likely they were to hate me.

Put differently, I thought I was mostly alone in caring about LGBTQ people. That was reflected in the kinds of trainings that I was otherwise running in my public speaking work. All the presentations I gave had three parts: what it means, why it matters, and what you can do. I shared the language and vocabulary focused followed by a statistical and emotional plea to care about the transgender community, followed by some easy action steps for people who wanted to get started in an allyship for the first time.

One of the most beautiful moments early in my PFLAG quest was when I realized that when attending these PFLAG chapters, I didn’t need to convince anyone to care. I also found a level of love and support that wasn’t coming up at any of my other events. In the Q&A section, we branched far beyond the typical definition or political or personal into questions like, is this job sustaining you? Are people kind to you? Are you eating enough? Do you need a place to stay? All of it.

The care that surrounds me as I surround myself with PFLAG chapters heals me over and over and over again. I am absolutely giddy about how resolutely I’ve been proven wrong about where there is and is not love to be found. Turns out, the love is everywhere.

The Stories I Get to Hear

I’m also deeply and fundamentally heartened by my ability to see allyship from a simultaneously macro and micro level—I’m joining one to two different chapters pretty much every week since 2021 which gives me a close-up look at what’s going on all over the country. I get to notice when more grandparents start filling the rooms. When more chapters pick up advocacy initiatives and start asking “what more can we do? How else can we build safety for our trans loved ones?” I get to speak with a father who was a Southern Baptist minister and left his career and community in order to support his trans daughter.

If you had my job, how could you be anything but hopeful?

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One of my favorite things in the world to see is when I get to be present for someone’s first PFLAG meeting. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings. Seeing someone show up tearful and wide eyed and totally lost and be completely enveloped in love and respect is a pretty magical moment. They’re given a soft place to land and gentle encouragement to grow, to be able to love their family member the way that they need.

Some of the lessons I’ve seen about that early support are captured in my article from 2024 where I was celebrating my first 100 PFLAG Presentations!

Deepening the Commitment

When I joined PFLAG, in my own city, the impact of PFLAG on my life expanded immensely. Before I joined my chapter In 2023, I was deeply involved in public speaking, but doing very little in the realm of advocacy. Then I met our board president during a trip to the state capital. We worked in a coalition to plan a counterprotest turned Trans-Joy-Party, and she asked me to become the inaugural advocacy chair. I’d only been to the capital twice, but no one else was doing the job and it needed to be done. So we built it together.

One of the things that I and many other leaders across PFLAG have learned is to ask ourselves: what’s better, me doing it imperfectly or no one doing it at all? If you’re looking at involvement of any kind, perhaps the question isn’t, am I the most qualified person for this job? Maybe it’s more like, what do I need to grow to meet this moment?

PFLAG, and so much of the radical queer history of every day people stepping up to do something has taught me over and over and over again that we save ourselves. That I am not alone. After three years living in a state away from home with very few friends, my St. Louis PFLAG chapter genuinely became my family.

Check out a chapter!

By the way, you don’t have to be a parent to join. I, as a transgender person, love being involved in my PFLAG chapter and I get a lot out of the relationships I’ve built there.

When I hear from someone who’s feeling isolated or frightened or ready to get to work or in need of support, the very first thing I do is look to see if there’s a PFLAG in that area because I know they are almost always ready to jump right into action. It’s incredible.

If you want to check out the local PFLAG scene, you can use this website to do so!

Find a chapter!

ALSO, PFLAG national is an amazing organization using their power, connections, and resources to build organizing power on the ground and file major lawsuits against the federal government to continually fight to protect trans and LGBTQ+ youth. I am consistently awed by their strategy and commitment to taking major risks in order to protect this community (and to work on public education enough to make the world a bit safer by default, too).

If you’ve got some extra cash to throw around and some extra love in your heart for the great work this organization is doing, don’t forget to check out their donation page!

Donate to PFLAG!

Fin

The love I have both given and received from PFLAG has changed me more deeply than I think I’ll be able to understand. And I know this for certain. My hopefulness, my dedication, my energy, my safety are constantly being lifted up and replenished by the power of PFLAG.

If you’re a member of a PFLAG, by the way, and you want to do an event together, please let me know! As I hope I have proved by now, these events are completely free, and I am getting so much of what I need from them.

With all my love (and a little bit extra because my heart is so full today),

Ben

I know. I have a lot of anniversaries. But part of choosing joy for me is about seeing lots of pieces of my life as worth celebrating and finding many opportunities to reflect on how far I’ve come! I’ll have as many parties as I like 🙂

Today is the two year anniversary of the release of my book: My Child is Trans, Now What? A Joy-Centered Approach to Support.

To celebrate, I want to share some of my favorite strategies from the book as well as a little bit about how much my life has changed because of this book. If you’ve been around for a while or even if you’re relatively new here, you probably know by now that joy is a very deeply held value of mine, and it’s something that I bring very thoughtfully and strategically into everything that I do. That most certainly includes supporting trans youth.

For so many parents and families, I found that people were getting stuck on fear and anger and suicide statistics. The whole reason people were getting involved or stepping up as allies was because they didn’t want their kids to kill themselves. Don’t get me wrong, neither do I. But centering joy means supporting trans kids not just because of what I’m afraid of but because I want to see them become joyful, lovable, resilient, loved, safe, fulfilled, trans adults. Having something we are fighting for, something we are working to build, will always be more sustainable in the long term than just something we are trying to run away from.

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Since I know attention spans are short and I want as many trans kids as possible to feel as safe as possible, we’ll start with the strategies:

Number one: Celebrate the journey. Often.

Mark the date of their coming out or their legal name change or their top surgery, and celebrate that date. Treating that date as worth remembering and worth putting effort into sends the message that you view their journey as something good and beautiful. If they’ve just come out, What would it look like to honor that? Maybe they want to have a redo of a gendered ritual, like a bar mitzvah or a quinceanera. Maybe they want to host a gender repeal party or have the slumber party they always dreamed of being invited to.

Number two: Make intentional efforts to make them feel seen.

That means trying as a verb to get their name and pronouns right—the verb component of this being critical. I learned very quickly the difference between people who would say “I’m trying” just to get me to stop being upset, versus the people who were actually practicing and correcting themselves. Trying means effort! Two things can be true at once: you can give yourself grace for the truth that it can be very challenging to learn a new name and pronouns for someone, AND working towards getting it right matters a lot.

We can also help them feel seen beyond names and pronouns, like by having a formal family dress up dinner or they can wear clothes that make them feel affirmed, asking them what kind of compliments make them the happiest, or asking them directly, “how else can I make you feel seen?”

Number three: Look at grief from a different lens.

Often, when parents and families describe the grieving process they go through when someone comes out as trans, a significant portion of this is grieving expectations.Reflect more deeply. How do you know that you had those things? How do you know that they’re gone? I may not be my mom’s little girl anymore, but our relationship is so much closer now that I’ve seen her prove that love is actually unconditional and that she’s willing to go to bat for me when it isn’t easy. How might your relationships be deepened by this journey? And finally,

Number four: Don’t let this journey be shaped by the negatives.

Ultimately, life is one long story we are telling ourselves about the meaning of the various things that happen around us. If we choose only ever to think or talk about the bad news, about the problems to be solved, or the unsupportive family members, or the fears we have, those will become the entire story because it is the only story you are telling.

Take time to look for and sit with and celebrate the good news happening around you. When you’re preparing for a family gathering, don’t just ask what are we worried about, but also ask who do I think will surprise me the most today? Who will make the best effort on pronouns? Who will ask the best question? Who am I most grateful for? These kinds of reflections make space for us to tell ourselves a different story.

The challenges will exist either way, But we can and must choose to look for moments of peace and joy amid those challenges.

My chief barketing officer would probably bite me in my sleep if I didn’t include at least one link to buy the book. So here it is! But, really, all I want to say is that it’s up to all of us to build something better for trans youth. They deserve it.

I know I’ve got a lot of trans people and their families on this newsletter. I’m certainly not the only joyful person here. I’d love to hear from you. What has been the most joyful part of your journey of support with your loved one? Or how have you used joy as a strategy for support?

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The Story of the Book

When I started working as a public speaker in 2019, I knew in the back of my mind I wanted to write a book that was somehow about transgender inclusion, but I wasn’t exactly sure what that book would look like. Once I started deepening my work with different PFLAG chapters and beginning my official quest to do a free event for every PFLAG chapter in the country, I realized that a book about supporting trans youth was the most important place to start. Over and over again in these meetings, I heard parents arrive mired in grief and fear and saw chapter leaders lovingly and patiently redirecting these fears towards love and joy, reminding those family members that no one has died and that this journey isn’t just about what you will lose, but about what you stand to gain. It was beautiful to witness.

Around the same time, I noticed a huge proportion, though certainly not all, of the most popular books for families of trans kids weren’t written with any trans perspectives. I figured it was about time we had a book about supporting trans kids written by a trans adult who had fairly recently gone through the journey of being a trans kid in need of resources. It was incredibly healing to write a book with all the things I wished my parents and school and community had known at the time.

Realizing I could be the reason a student could feel safe by default in their classroom or can feel totally supported at their next Thanksgiving was such a moving experience for me. So moving, in fact, that I ultimately made the dedication of the book: to little Ben in 2015. Thank you for choosing to stay so that I could write this book for you.

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There were a lot of publishers who told me they didn’t need another book on the subject, that I didn’t have a big enough platform, that people didn’t care enough about this issue, or that I wasn’t the right person to write this book. There were some pretty dramatic moments in which we genuinely thought this book was down for the count. And yet, here it is, having blown past expectations of sales numbers, preparing for a paperback release in October. And more importantly, having meant something to so many people. The stories I have heard from people who’ve been touched and changed by this book are held very, very close to my heart.

Since its release, I’ve been fortunate not just to hear those stories but to fall in love with the process of telling stories in a totally new way. Though I’d always seen myself as a reader, this book journey gave me the confidence to see myself as a writer, and the dreams of what that could look like, and it’s driven me to build a career in writing here on Substack and to have a list of about 10 more books in various stages of development. I didn’t see myself as a writer at first, but everything is impossible until it isn’t.

If you want to learn more or you’re ready to get more involved, check out some of my favorite articles here:

That’s all I’ve got for today. Thank you all so much for being on this journey with me!

All my love,

Ben

As many of you may know, I have spent the last seven years working as a public speaker on any topic I can think of surrounding trans rights, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and building a better world. I’ve identified that cultural change work through storytelling and judgment-free spaces for questions is my best way of contributing to the world I want to be living in. Pride month, which will be upon us in short order, is basically my Super Bowl.

There are a lot of things I’m good at. Marketing is not one of them, which is why I’ve hired my chief barketing officer, Oliver.

On our walk this morning, he helpfully (probably) pointed out to me that I have a platform of over 20,000 people that would probably love to support me if I told them how to do so. Either that, or he was barking at a squirrel. It was probably both—he’s a multitasker.

Last year, almost 50% of my presentations were either free or paid less than $100. That on top of all my political advocacy, writing, parent support, and work here on Good Queer News. This isn’t a complaint, this is a good thing! This is what I want! I am absolutely over the moon that I do enough paid speaking and have enough paid subscribers on here to have the bandwidth and the stability to do so much free work (and to help my wife and I afford the IVF process we’re undergoing!!!!!!!). Many of you are already contributing to making this happen. Thank you!!

One of the things that I find the most challenging about marketing is that once I can actually get into the room with somebody on a call or in their email inbox, they’re so excited that we’ve met. I know that the presentations that I do are joyful, are well researched, are meaningful. I’m good at my job once I have the chance to prove it, but it is really hard to get into that room.

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What does help look like?

No matter how hard I try to make it clear that the marketing emails I’m sending are human generated and that I am genuinely reaching out because I love my job and want to bring more joy to a workplace, they are still marketing emails, and the people I’m emailing don’t know me. There will never be marketing that is more effective than personal referrals and introductions—on cold outreach my success rate is about 3%. For referrals, it’s about 60%.

I would love it if you would help connect me to people in your personal network that might be interested in hosting an event together. Here are the kind of people I’m looking for:

• Leader or member of an employee resource group, business resource group, or affinity group

• Job titles that include things like Diversity, People, HR, Culture, Belonging, Learning & Development, and Inclusion

• Anyone at a cool nonprofit

• A friend who is really passionate about supporting their trans kid and works a corporate job

• Maybe you don’t have the names, but we’re one degree of separation away, who do you know that might know some of these people?

There are so many things that I speak about from foundational trans 101 trainings, to storytelling panels, to queer history, to misinformation, to trans youth, to getting more involved in allyship and advocacy. All of these events, and my others, have the through line that makes good queer news so lovable: joy and hope and humor and storytelling.

Also please note: my priority is not finding companies with the hugest budgets possible or that have gigantic rooms full of people. In this moment in time budgets are tight, and my top priority is just to be having as many conversations as possible. I celebrate just as hard booking an event for a few hundred dollars as I do for a full priced event. I speak for companies, hospitals, schools, nonprofits, parent support group, religious congregations, book clubs, you name it and I want to be there.

I’ll make it even easier with some language that you might use:

Good morning! I was wondering if we/you were planning on doing any programming to celebrate pride month in June. It has been a difficult few years for LGBTQ+ people, and any show of support or efforts for education really mean a lot right now. If you’re still looking for a speaker, I know somebody who could be perfect. He focuses on joy and hope and storytelling. You can also look at his website here at www.bgtranstalks.com. I subscribe to his substack, good queer news. [If you’d like to include something here about what this newsletter means to you or the impact it’s had on your life, that personal addition can sometimes be very special and very helpful.]

Would you like me to make an introduction?

I’m so appreciative to you for reading this article. I know the reality is that some people will see that the headline of this article is me asking for something instead of providing something and just scroll by, so just the fact that you were willing to open this email and spend some time thinking about how to help me genuinely means a lot to me.

As a thank you, here is an additional photo of the chief Barketing officer being perfect:

There’s plenty more good queer news to come. If you have thoughts, ideas, questions, you’re welcome to respond to this email, leave a comment, or send me a message. If you want to learn more about the story of how I got into public speaking or some of the other topics I speak about, you can check out the longer form article I wrote about it a few months ago.

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I think that’s all the news that’s fit to print. So for today, I’ll bid you adieu.

All my love,

Ben

First a quick request: If you are a trans person who has changed your name, one of my community members here is working on a workbook to help people figure out their new names. Would you take a couple of minutes to tell the story of your name here?

The survey!

Okay… let’s get into the good stuff!! First I’ll share one of my favorites, which was sent to me by someone who is both a friend and a GQN subscriber! (if you have good news stories from your neighborhood or community, please send them to me, too!!)

Looking at this picture just makes me smile. I love Missouri so deeply, having lived there for five years, and I know that this picture would shatter expectations that a lot of folks have about Missouri. It is a state full of tremendous faith, tremendous activism, and these things do not counteract each other. So often they intersect in ways that bring me so much hope.

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Legislative Sessions are ending and we are continuing to see some amazing results from the hard work of advocates on the ground.

Kentucky has defeated all 10 proposed anti-LGBTQ+ bills this session!! Read more about how they did it: https://queerkentucky.com/kentucky-no-anti-lgbtq-laws-2026-legislative-session/

Mississippi has defeated 13 out of 14 anti LGBTQ+ bills proposed this session.

Nebraska has defeated all proposed anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed this year, including many sneaky proposals from a single senator attempting to sabotage/hijack other bills meant to actually help Nebraskans. Neither democrats nor republicans wanted to waste their time on hate! https://outnebraska.org/reflections-on-the-2026-nebraska-legislative-session/

West Virginia has defeated all proposed anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed this year!

These wins don’t happen by accident, and they don’t happen for free either!! If you want to help another state join the ranks of 100% success stories, consider a donation to PROMO in Missouri or Oklahomans for Equality (two of the states with the highest volume of anti-LGBTQ+ bills)

All above here is proof that TAKING ACTION WORKS. Calling and writing to your senators means something. It adds up, even if you don’t think it will. When people talk about staying informed, it’s critical to balance that with a focus on the actions we are able to take.

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Access to Care

In case you haven’t seen, a federal judge struck down RFK’s “declaration” aka threat about federal funding for hospitals providing care for transgender minors. The ruling is truly artful and does not mince words: “unserious leaders are unsafe.”

Since that ruling, the largest children’s healthcare system in Minnesota has restarted their care, and the attorney generals of both California and New York have ordered hospitals to comply with state nondiscrimination laws and reinstate care! (puberty blockers and hormone therapy are available to cisgender minors in these states, making the voluntary care restrictions illegal in many state constitutions)

We still have a lot further to go on rebuilding access to care, so if your state does not have a ban on gender affirming care, reach out to your state attorney general, champion state legislators, or apply direct pressure via calls and emails to hospital leadership. Not the doctors. You don’t need to pressure them, I promise they are fighting the same fight from the inside.

Remember, gender affirming care is SAFE, WELL-RESEARCHED, AND FEDERALLY LEGAL! If anyone under 19 needs help accessing gender affirming care, please reach out to the trans youth emergency project. (and if you don’t need help accessing care, maybe give them a donation!)

Speaking of the variety of brilliant scholars who’ve worked to develop our understanding of best practices in gender affirming care, the Pediatric Academic Societies came under fire this week for planning a panel at their conference that included none of those voices. Instead they opted to exclusively platform speakers tied to the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine, SEGM, a fringe hate group formed to legitimize anti-trans healthcare bans and push christian nationalism and conversion therapy. Erin Reed did some fantastic investigative, solutions-based reporting on the conference in the lead-up. She’s now written a follow up on the conference this past weekend that truly filled my heart with hope.

Erin In The Morning

Trans Youth And Doctors Joined Forces In Protest Of An Anti-Trans Panel At Pediatric Conference

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4 months ago · 478 likes · 32 comments · s. baum

Look at all the disparate groups who decided independently that something wasn’t right and they wanted to DO SOMETHING!

Other Wins!

The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from January Littlejohn—the mom in Florida who has inspired many of the country’s forced outing laws after her trans child was supported by teachers without January’s knowledge. This doesn’t make me a fan of the supreme court, but I am extremely relieved we won’t be seeing a nationwide ruling on requiring forced outing in schools!

A teacher in Michigan was suspended for sharing empathetic words about a trans athlete in an interview. After significant public backlash, and after the broader Title IX investigation that was ongoing was found to be meritless, he was reinstated!

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Australia is changing its rules to allow gay and bi men to donate blood!

Botswana has officially removed anti-sodomy laws from its penal code, creating significant safety for its LGBTQ+ residents. A queer couple is currently suing the government for the right to marry as well, and activists are hopeful they will be able to continue building a more accepting country.

The EU high court has ruled that Hungary’s ban on LGBTQ+ content in schools and on television is unconstitutional, and now that the populace has overwhelmingly voted out the far right authoritarian Orban, we’re hopeful they will take fast action on this!

There’s some fascinating new polling from Fox News that shows, among many things, voters trust democrats more than republicans on transgender issues by more than 13%. There’s been a lot of debate and discussion about what that truly means, but this polling provides a few hopeful glimmers for me. I think Erin Reed has some great thoughts on the matter!

Also, after I thought the deal was dead from a few court dust-ups in November, it appears that comedy/satire website The Onion is close to finalizing their purchase of InfoWars, the far right media platform Alex Jones was forced to sell after his bankruptcy and defamation lawsuit about his repeated claims that the Sandy Hook shooting was faked. They will be using the platform to talk about gun safety and LGBTQ+ rights, and to share funds generated with the families of Sandy Hook victims.

A group of drag queens who sued a city in Utah for violating their first amendment rights won their case…and $350,000 to cover their legal fees!

Students at Baylor University in Texas—a Baptist University with a tangled history of safety for LGBTQ+ students—hosted an LGBTQ+ affirming event with queer christian speakers for the first time. The event was hosted on the same day as a TPUSA event, and drew over 300 people to attend. Props to the students for fighting to make this happen, and to Baylor for being willing to stand up to continued pressure to suppress their queer students!

That’s All I’ve got!

I know it’s tempting to jump right back into “the fight”, to smile about these wins and put them down to go right back to the doomscroll, but I want to encourage you to resist that urge.

If we want to keep taking care of ourselves, we have to sloooooow down. Instead of treating these victories like a shot of espresso, treat them like a cup of tea. The peace we get isn’t just from the act of consuming them as quickly as possible. It comes from sitting with it and letting the knowledge of our power go deep into our spirits.

Which victory meant the most to you? Write about it. Tell a friend about it, send the link to someone you love. Start to build a practice of savoring instead of just sprinting on to the next thing.

Ok that’s everything! Don’t forget to let me know if you see any victories you’re particularly proud of. The wins are all around us if we decide to look for them!

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I’ve written about this many times before for places like North Carolina and Iowa. This time around is my furthest and big biggest bubble pop yet: Lithuania!

In 2023 at the PFLAG national conference, I met a wonderful new friend who was helping to run an organization titled “Mothers for LGBTQplus children”. We collaborated on a few virtual events and have stayed in touch over email. Last summer, she reached out to me to see if I might be interested in collaborating on a grant proposal to bring me to Lithuania. I excitedly agreed, and a few months later, we found out we’ve gotten accepted! With many thanks to the Baltic American Freedom Foundation, I would be bringing my expertise in trans inclusion to Vilnius, Lithuania.

Like I do before any trip, I started out with some google searches: “Lithuania transgender bathroom ban?” (okay on that front) “Lithuania anti-trans laws?” (mostly youth healthcare focused and a lack of affirming protections) “is Lithuania safe for transgender people?” (not a lot of violent crime, but it’s one of the worst ranked for inclusion in the whole EU.)

The results gave me a brief moment of pause. Truthfully, a result like that means very little to me at this point. Many of the places that I travel or the places that I’ve lived—like Missouri from 2020 to 2025—have been painted with the same broad stroke. The politics are regressive, end of sentence. I’ve seen how much people can survive, I know how to assess which laws are an immediate threat to my safety vs an immediate priority to fight back against, and I know that laws cannot possibly reflect the sentiments of an entire population.

So I boarded my flight a few weeks ago, sent the first three books of “Dungeon Crawler Carl” from my library to my kindle, and headed to the Baltics!

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Immediately, I was surrounded with love. I travel a lot for work, and at this point it’s roughly a 50/50 split between work for corporations and work for parent groups. Let me tell you, I can feel the difference!! My posse of brilliant parent advocates weren’t just fantastic tour guides. They made sure I ate enough at every meal, called me to make sure I had my raincoat, walked me home every night, and made sure the entire trip went smoothly.

Getting to Work!

While I know I have lots of great wisdom to share, I also love to learn. I particularly love learning what changemaking and organizing look like in other places, which is why I was thrilled that the first official event of the visit was a gathering of leaders in the LGBTQ+ rights movement from across the country. Everyone shared what they were working on, what they were most passionate about, and what they needed help with.

What I love most about being in rooms like this is the understanding that we align deeply on values and goals while disagreeing strongly on strategies and priorities. While I might have strong opinions on what I think are the best strategies, I don’t have psychic vision so I don’t actually know what’s going to work. I think the more approaches we try at once, the better our odds of achieving the changes we’re working for.

There were folks in the room in medicine, psychology, education, media, government, and parents working hard to advocate directly for their trans kids and the kids that will come after them. I learned a lot from them, and I hope I was able to bring some of my helpful experience building coalitions in St. Louis.

The next day started out with a Jewish heritage tour around the city. Vilnius, like many, many other cities in Europe (and eastern Europe in particular) has a long, beautiful, tragic Jewish history that ends with some glimmers of hope as they rebuild and honor some of the historic sights. Much of my job, and many parts of my transition in general, can be frightening at times. My Jewish faith has often been a source of strength for me. This community has been politically disfavored (if I want to use delicate language here) for most of history, and yet our history is one that teaches me constantly about compassion, trust, resistance, grief, joy, and survival. There is something that feels beautiful about seeing the scars across the city of how badly they wanted to erase us and standing outside the boundaries of the ghetto, using my Jewish values to fight for a better world.

After a much needed siesta, it was time for…

The Main Event!

The next few days were absolutely packed with programming. We held four additional events, including:

• A session on gender affirming healthcare for the medical school and healthcare professionals

• A session on mental health challenges and support for the social work and psychology students

• A session on the global history of the fight for trans rights and strategies for equality in the future for the general University students

• A warm, intimate storytelling session for a group of parents of trans kids

The content for each was about an hour, and the Q&A lasted at least 40 minutes for each conversation. We got deep y’all. We talked about hope, science, fear, politics, and personal stories. Some people were joining who seemed to be engaging with the topic for the first time, which always feels extra meaningful to me.

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In the final session, I even got to talk to some folks about how to start doing what I do (public speaking/advocacy) in Lithuania, and spoke with a very talented writer about their work in queer historical fiction! They told me they weren’t sure there’d be an audience for a YA queer historical romance. Want to help me prove them wrong? Check out this particularly tender piece :)

Ambers & Teacups

Curly Hedgehogs

That day was not a bright and sunny summer’s day, but a rainy and unpredictable one. This mattered little to the little group of boys, however — they revelled in the unstoppable elements no matter the weather conditions…

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5 months ago · 1 like · Lilian

Because the sessions were livestreamed, we also had the privilege of reaching far more people than just those in the room. All in, we had participants join from Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova, Finland, Israel, Germany, Switzerland, and Slovenia, and at least 15 different wonderful local organizations. I won’t be able to see every change that this program made, but I know in my heart this meant something real.

The sessions were deeply meaningful to me, and I know I wasn’t the only one. In the evaluations, one parent shared,

The night before my flight out of the country, my hosts treated me to a trip to a Jazz cellar to see a small Jazz concert. When my grandfather was alive, some of his favorite things in the world were traveling, Jazz, making new friends and enjoying a well-mixed cocktail. Sitting back with my new friends halfway across the world and listening to Jazz music without complaining (sorry about that, Grandpa) left me with a beautiful feeling of connection to him. That wasn’t a particularly queer experience, but I think it is a deeply human one.

In Summary

What an adventure. What a gift it is to be alive and to be able to meet amazing people who are genuinely passionate about building a better world literally everywhere. How could I have this job and be anything but hopeful! Let this trip, and this article serve as a reminder of some of my most deeply held truths:

1. It is almost always worth it to talk to each other, to seek to understand one another, regardless of what blanket assumptions you might be tempted to make.

2. There is no one right way to make change, and the more strategies we have, the better! What matters is you choose the avenue that you are most passionate about so you actually do it!

3. Grounding ourselves in history, both communal, global, and personal, give us the wisdom and the strength we need to push forward into the future.

4. Equality will not happen by accident. Connection will not happen by accident. Change will happen ON PURPOSE when we choose to be a part of it!

And finally, remember that just like we must choose involvement, we must also choose rest. Everything is urgent, so in some ways nothing is. I spent nearly every walk through the city using the Merlin app to identify the unfamiliar birds around me. I read my book during solo breakfasts even though I could’ve been catching up on emails. I demand and protect my time to be a human, and to connect with other humans, and this is what allows me to keep going.

A huge huge thank you again to the Baltic American Freedom Foundation, to Vilnius University and the VU School of Medicine, to Mothers for LGBTQplus children, and to Lina, Dovile, and Rūta in particular. I will leave a piece of my heart in Lithuania with you. Until the next time!

In just a few short weeks (From April 30-May 2), Comfrey Films will be hosting their second annual Black Trans Short Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina, to uplift the stories of Black transgender, gender nonconforming, and intersex artists shaping our cultural landscape through films. The event aims to show future generations that — despite the growing hostility and dismantling of civil and human rights — the trans community has always existed, stunningly, and with great courage.

Learn more about the festival, and the options to attend and support online, here!

Check out passes!

Also, this month Comfrey films is trying to raise $30,000 to support Black Trans art!! Since I absolutely loved the time I spent with Joie Lou, and I think Black Trans artists are some of the most brilliant people of all to lead us out of this mess, I am going to be donating 50% of all new subscriber revenue this month to Comfrey Films!! If you’d rather donate directly, send me a message afterwards and I will give you a complimentary upgrade to a paid subscription!

Direct Donate

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I actually held this interview a few weeks ago, and some of the things Joie Lou shared with me have been bouncing around my brain non-stop since. I can’t wait to share that with you all! Let’s dive in.

The Film Festival!

Ben: Let’s jump right in to the festival. Give me the pitch! What is Comfrey Films all about?

Joie Lou: Our festival is very specific to black trans directors, producers, writers. We don’t just want to see ourselves in front of the camera. We want the decision making power to determine what the story is.

We need something that can build capacity for the work of individual black trans people to the emotional labor that they have to do. And, yeah, we need additional resources to be able to have the power to tell our own stories.

Ben: Something I really love that I’m hearing about this story is that there’s this energy to learn more. When this started you weren’t a filmmaker, and then you realized where the need was and what you loved doing. And you were like, great. I’m gonna figure out how to be good at this because I love it and because it needs doing.

Joie Lou: Yeah. As a person that was, outside of my dignity, I was so not a confident person. I didn’t understand my own power. And this practice of filmmaking really brought me into that. And then it also sort of feeds itself. Right? My film can help someone else understand their own power.

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Ben: That’s so amazing. Tell me a little more about who should be attending this festival? Why?

Joie Lou: So most people are unclear what to do in this time and how to survive this political moment. This political moment is something that black trans people are especially practiced in.

Ben: This is not new for everyone.

Joie Lou: Exactly. This festival is a space to come, learn from, connect with, be with people who are experienced in this political moment. It’s going to be so much inspiration, so much power, so much experience and wisdom shared in community meal conversations and screenings and networking sessions.

A lot of people might think: “how can you focus on art right now in a time like this?” And the truth is art is how we get through times like this. There’s a lot of wisdom that black trans folks have to share in that regard. So just come and experience. Just come with your arms wide open and let your cup be filled.

You know? Let your spirit be inspired. Find love in all the forms because it will be at this festival.

Ben: Oh, love. Love. Incredible. Amazing. And I can tell your your demeanor is so joyful. You are so lit up by this. You are so excited about this festival, which I’m just... I love to see this energy. Tell me more about the filmmakers for this year! What kind of talent do you have going on here?

Joie Lou: The filmmakers coming out are fantastic. We have an excellent slate of films with a mix of genres. We have our documentaries. We have our experimental girlies. We have our thriller horror, maybe a little bit of gore.

We have a little bit of romance, a little bit of sexiness. The possibilities are endless. The slate of films, both from our film screener, and also our directors in residence. There’s lots and lots of topics that’ll be touched on from grief to how to survive as a trans person in prison.

There’s a podcast that is coming out during the festival called sixty seconds remaining by one of our past directors in residences, talking specifically to black trans women in North Carolina’s men’s prisons. Getting their actual voices and reflections, and there’s a whole universe.

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Building Something Bigger

Ben: What has surprised you most about how the festival’s grown since you started it?

Joie Lou: The first iteration of the festival was three years ago, and it wasn’t a festival. It was a black trans short film competition. And in response to that, folks were like, what would be dope would be if the filmmakers could have all been there in person and met each other and get together to fuse minds and all of that.

And I realized what this could grow into. Folks can train each other in different elements. Film is a whole universe. After I had my initial vision for the full festival, what really surprised me was the people who said yes. I remember Brian Brian Michael Smith was one of the first people that said yes to coming and being in person at the festival. And I was just like, woah.

You can really learn from having mentorship and true connections with industry professionals, whereas industry professionals can really get re-inspired and reinvigorated by emerging filmmakers. And those are both such valuable insights to be shared. It also surprises me every year that there are new films. It can be a very expensive art form. It’s a long art.

Each year that we’ve put out a call for submissions, I’m like, “y’all, I don’t know if anybody’s gonna submit.” And there’s a brand new slate of films that grows each year. And so it just points to how much of a yearning is there within the community. And, also, I think folks are getting the opportunity to connect with each other, which is connecting folks to new financial opportunities to be able to fund their stuff and then also new crew.

The festival is sort of that gift that keeps on giving just in terms of connection. You’re able to really connect with people in such a cool way. We have formal events, folks get dressed up or whatever, but the connections are so homey. They’re so informal.

Ben: Yeah. It’s that cycle of empowerment that we were talking about earlier that you have this idea, and people are like, I wanna work on that with you. I wanna watch it. I wanna sound design. Like, let me get in on that.

Joie Lou: Yeah. You know, it’s real connections. This year a really exciting expansion is we’re launching our Level Up Lab, which is gonna be an acting workshop led by Brian Michael Smith for emerging actors. The training itself will prepare you for industry auditions, for self tapes, for all of that you need to know about being an actor in the industry or in independent filmmaking.

I am 100% sure that the folks who participate in this session will have people’s films that are in the room, which will later be submitted to the festival the following year or the years following to then be screened. And then they might be coming in as director. There’s the pipeline.

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Ben: And how amazing is that, to be so deeply defying this idea that it’s just horrible and brief to be alive as a trans person, And yes, it’s scary, but also look at the vibrance and resilience of this community to exist and to be planning out the festival three years from now. Somebody’s saying “is this the end of trans people right now?” and you’re out here actually investing in our future as a community.

Joie Lou: Yes. Yes. That’s why I am very invested in building infrastructure. You know? Building something that will outlast erasure.

Ben: Outlasting erasure. Hell fucking yeah, dude.

For Those at the Start

Ben: What would you say to somebody who’s right at the beginning? Credits are rolling, they have watched their first short film, and they’re having that moment of like, wow. I didn’t know art could do that. What if what if I did something like that? What would you tell that person who’s in that moment?

Joie Lou: Feel inspired by something, do it. You know? It’s not gonna be perfect. It’s not gonna be great. But you have to start from somewhere. I feel like even for my personal life, the things that bring me the most joy are the things that I had to be brave enough to claim.

But, really, don’t underestimate that time and the power of just messing around with stuff by yourself to figure out what it is about something that inspires you. You might start on a path of feeling really empowered by this short film about dance. And you might think, oh, okay. I’m really into short films, but maybe it’s actually dance.

Just have a lot of grace for yourself, and don’t be afraid to just start with what you have. You can only grow from there.

Ben: You can only grow from there!!!! Exactly!! Joie Lou, this has been a treat. Any closing words to the good people of Good Queer News?

Joie Lou: In the words of Ms. Major, we’re still fucking here. We have always been here, and we have found each other. We have found new ways to find each other. And, okay, they’re muddying some of those ways, but we will reemerge. There’s nothing that you can do to obliterate transness from existence. They’ve tried time and time again, and we’re still here.

Thanks!!

That’s all I’ve got for you today!

Here are a few great links from the team at Comfrey:

Join us at the next Black Trans Short Film Festival! There’s a virtual option for the festival here if folks can’t attend in person.

Check out Chemistry: The Trans Dating Show! Like, comment, and subscribe to the channel to support its growth.

Stay connected via our Newsletter! If you are interested in creating or consuming media alongside or by Black trans people, we share opportunities all year long!

And again, I’ll be donating half of new subscriber revenue this month to Comfrey to help them hit their goal of $30,000 of donations in April! Trans rights advocacy isn’t all court battles and immediate survival, it also means investing in trans futures.

If you donate directly, I’ll upgrade you for free to a paid subscription! Honor system here. Just message me and I’ll get you set up as soon as I can :)

All my love until next time, Ben <3

Also, I am about 45 people away from 20,000 subscribers here, which is seriously unbelievable. I cannot thank you all enough for the ways this project has changed my life, and when I return from my travels I will definitely be taking some more time to reflect on what this journey has meant to me.

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I have a few articles scheduled while I’m away, but there are so many AMAZING things happening I couldn’t wait to send out a quick roundup of some great news stories before I leave!

• Georgia’s legislative session has now ended, and advocates managed to defeat EVERY ANTI-QUEER BILL!! This wasn’t by accident or by default. This was HARD WORK. Well done, Georgia!! Here’s their breakdown for how they did it:

• Children’s Hospital of Minnesota, the largest provider of pediatric care in the state, has restarted their gender affirming care program in the wake of RFK’s court loss on his attempts to threaten hospital funding over trans affirming healthcare. https://www.advocate.com/health/transgender-health/childrens-minnesota-restores-trans-care Hopefully more hospitals follow their lead!

• In Wisconsin, despite spending on anti-trans attack ads, the state supreme court election secured a liberal majority for at least the next TEN YEARS! https://boltsmag.org/wisconsin-supreme-court-election-2026-taylor-wins/

• In Georgia, a special election for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s open seat (bye felicia!!! Her departure is its own victory) was MUCH closer than republicans wanted. While the seat stayed red, her district was known for being one of the reddest in the country—but it moved to the left by 25 POINTS!

The Downballot

Morning Digest: Liberals expand majority on Wisconsin Supreme Court

Leading Off…

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5 months ago · 104 likes · 210 comments · Jeff Singer

• In Festus, Missouri, the city council recently held a vote on bringing an unpopular, water/power draining data center to town. In the elections that followed, all four incumbents that voted yes on the data center lost their seats to pro-transparency, anti-data center candidates! https://www.stlpr.org/government-politics-issues/2026-04-08/6b-data-center-festus-voters-oust-every-incumbent-council-member

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• On Wednesday, a federal judge denied the administration’s request to stay a preliminary injunction that bars federal officials from conditioning or terminating funding for health care providers based on their provision of gender-affirming care to patients under 19. Hospitals will remain protected and care can legally continue!

• Idaho banned the pride flag, so Boise wrapped the light posts and lit the state house up in pride colors in protest.

Erin In The Morning

Idaho Banned The Pride Flag. So Boise Wrapped the Flagpoles Themselves In Pride Colors.

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4 months ago · 381 likes · 19 comments · s. baum

• While the Trump administration is attempting to roll back support for trans students, more and more school districts are saying loud and clear that they won’t leave trans students behind. Mesa County in California is the latest of many. https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/federal-title-ix-rolls-back-transgender-student-protections/509-a48edcce-1e25-4f0b-b038-a08a0a24c705

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• The EU’s high court has ruled that all EU member states are obligated to recognize the identity documents of transgender individuals who have earned legal gender recognition in another EU state. This is a huge win for transgender Europeans!!!

ALSO. Last thing. I have had a lot of people reaching out to me directly, or posting on social media, trying to get trans people to absolve them of their guilt for watching the new HP show. I will respond to you all in bulk here (and can write something longer about it later, if there’s interest).

1. If you want to ask a trans person to make you feel better about giving money to JK Rowling, you must pay us at least 15 dollars for psychic damage first.

2. I know it hurts so badly!! I see you in that hurt. I am right here with you. Nearly every queer kid I know fell totally in love with the story of an outsider being the hero who saves the day. This whole mess breaks my heart and it’s okay to feel sad about it!

3. If you want to give money to JK through supporting her work, I recommend giving at least $20 to the organizations helping to support trans people in the UK whose lives she is working very, very hard to ruin.

   1. https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/

   2. https://transactual.org.uk/

4. If you are feeling unsure, or don’t understand why everyone is so mad at JK Rowling for being “mean on twitter”, learn more first. https://theweek.com/feature/1020838/jk-rowlings-transphobia-controversy-a-complete-timeline

5. Ultimately, so so many actions can be traced back to harm directed at different marginalized groups. We cannot be perfect, we cannot avoid inadvertent harm. If you feel SO strongly that you want to watch the show, I don’t actually care. Just please stop telling trans people about it! Make it your guilty pleasure and keep it to yourself.

6. There are SO MANY great queer and trans affirming witchy books, shows, and movies to engage with instead. My personal favorite is “Her Majesty’s Royal Coven.” What’s your favorite?

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Ok that’s all I have!!! I am off to begin my out of office adventures in trans rights in the Baltics, and I’ll see you all in a few weeks!

All my love,

Ben