Back in the Saddle!

Where I've been, How I'm coming back from Burnout, and some love for Kansas

Hi there, lovely people. I am back after a bit of an unplanned sabbatical. Hopefully, we are approaching a return to your regularly scheduled programming!

Before some updates on where I’ve been and what kind of work I’ve been up to, as well as some thoughts on what’s going on in Kansas, I want to share some quick hits of good news stories and actions you can take today!

Though I’ve been offline for a minute, there have been quite a few things keeping me incredibly hopeful. In the spirit of using our energy with intention, in this moment I want to uplift some wonderful, exciting roundups that others have already written about what’s going on lately. A friend and personal favorite, KB Brookins, wrote yet another fantastic roundup of trans news that doesn’t suck from around the country.

Long Live Drag Kings

Jess Craven posted her weekly extra extra recap of all the wins across many, many issues. I am always struck by the sheer enormity of the victories that we are fighting for and that we are winning.

Extra! Extra! 2/23

I am also so excited that the ACLU has sprung into action and launched a speedy lawsuit against the horrible new anti-trans law in Kansas impacting driver’s licenses and identity documents. Hopefully they will be able to find some speedy relief from this harm.

While we wait for the litigation arm of our strategy to work, though, there are trans Kansans who are struggling NOW! If you have change to spare, consider making a donation to:

• Transformations, an organization started in Kansas City by Black trans women looking to keep their community safe.

• The LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas

• The ACLU of Kansas

As always, if you make a donation to any of these organizations and tell me about it (honor system), I will upgrade you to a paid subscription to GQN!

Also, I know folks love tangible ideas of how to get involved besides donating, and I’ve got a crystal clear ask today. My PFLAG chapter in St. Louis needs someone to help design some new buttons. We hand out our buttons at tabling events all over the region. I have spent countless hours standing behind our volunteer table watching gaggles of queer and trans kids absolutely gleeful over the number of options of ways to show their pride in their own identity, their siblings, their parents, their journeys, their pronouns.

We are in need of someone with a little free time and a creative spark to help us out. You do not need to be a professional artist—we basically just need someone who’s willing to spend a couple of hours on occasion helping set up some new designs in our Canva template that our volunteers will then print out and turn into works of art that travel all over Missouri. If you’re interested, feel free to send me a message, and I’ll get you connected with our president.

There will be longer good news roundups to come, but for now I want to share some updates on what I’ve been up to!

What happened?

At the end of last year, after nearly five full months of constant travel for my advocacy and speaking work, I thought about taking a break. Instead, I ended up signing up to do a whole lot more. Foolishly, I assumed that because my travel time had been largely enjoyable, I wouldn’t really need a break. That was, of course, Hubris!

While I made it through most of January, staying on top of all my new projects and goals (including finishing edits to the paperback version of My Child is Trans, Now What?) I started to run into a wall. Increasingly, I was feeling disconnected from the work that I genuinely love to do. I wasn’t really excited for any part of my day. Add that to how challenging it’s been to make friends since moving, and you end up with a bit of a cloud around you most days.

An unbelievably detailed mural celebrating queer history and culture in Sydney!

Fortunately, I knew there was some rest on the horizon. My wife and I had planned a trip months ago to spend ten days adventuring around Australia and New Zealand while she had some time off from work. It was awesome!! We got to visit a major queer history museum, spend time out in nature, and visit some very cool botanical gardens. We even found my book in a library on a small island off the coast of New Zealand!! So cool!!

Our cute outfits on our walk to see a show at the Sydney Opera house!

While the trip obviously didn’t fix my burnout right away, it gave me a chance to hit the brakes and start to think about what changes I might be able to make so that the work that brings me the most joy: speaking, writing, good queer news, advocacy, and connecting with families; can be work that keeps bringing me joy. Sustainability is the name of the game.

When we got home from our trip, I immediately left again for a trip to visit many of my favorite people and places across Missouri. I got to hang out with some cool queer teens at one of my favorite library branches. The next day, I got to speak at a PFLAG meeting in Jefferson County, an area that many people assumed would never be able to have a PFLAG chapter, but now is thriving and working hard to bring even more safety and equality to the area.

I got to go to a soccer game and see the countless displays of resistance to the stadium’s attempted ban on trans pride flags.

In a sea of fans, a coordinated display of signs in a pride flag reading “supporters will always stand up”

Then I drove down to Springfield in Southwest Missouri to speak about joy at PFLAG Springfield’s Leading with Love Brunch. Though you might not guess it, the Springfield chapter is an absolute powerhouse. In my opinion, they might just be one of the most impactful, empowered chapters in the whole PFLAG network. They have paid staff and amazing grants to build housing equity in their community. When it was their turn to host a traveling photo gallery highlighting trans folks and their supportive families, they decided that rather than just leave the gallery in a gallery, they’d pair up with local businesses all over town to help the exhibit reach as many people as possible.

Once the brunch was underway I was talking to too many cool people to take any pictures, but look how awesome this setup is!

We spent the day talking about joy and burnout and fear and what it means to love your community and to choose to stay and fight for something better.

From there, it was back to Saint Louis for a day and then off to Kansas City to speak with a variety of queer, trans, and allied students and staff about what it means to dream of a better future and how we put those dreams into action.

Kansas

Between my departure from Kansas City and today, there has been a mix of good news, bad news, and resistance. The legislature passed a terrible bill, bad news. The governor vetoed, good news. The legislature overrode the veto, and the law went into effect. Very bad news. The ACLU is already suing them over the law. Good news.

Each time the scales flipped, I looked forlornly at the partially written article I was attempting to work on amidst all of those travels with the latest updates. I had to decide whether the things I was pulling out as good news that had been overwritten were still worth sharing. Ultimately, though, the name of the game of what I’m doing here at Good Queer News is nuance.

Good news does not only mean resounding victories with no opposition or pushback. Good Queer News does not exist to say that it’s time to stop fighting. Good queer news exists to say, look at how many of us there are fighting back. Look at what we can accomplish. Look at how we survive.

Having a state governor willing to veto hostile legislation year after year despite knowing that it may be overridden does not mean nothing. Laura Kelly is showing the courage it takes to be a governor that does not throw trans kids under the bus to win political points. (I’m looking at you, Newsome).

Red States are not just places to look at with pity, are not failures of the American experiment, or places that everyone should leave. The activists I know living in Red states are some of the most brilliant, passionate, strategic, resilient people in the world. More than that, they are states filled with human beings who deserve to be able to stay in their home and fight to improve it if they so choose. Red states are also a proving ground for anti-LGBTQ legislation and the things that we can beat back in the South and Midwest, we can stop from spreading around the world.

AND, many of the people I love in red states right now are terrified, are exhausted, and feel so completely alone. I want you to know that I see you, that I am with you, and that I will continue to do everything I can to fight to make the world safer for you.

I know it is tempting to look away and say, “this can’t reach me”, or to look too closely and say, “the battle is not worth fighting. It is done. We have lost.” The reality is we do not know the future, and the only way to guarantee the future is to not act at all.

Then let us act!

In that spirit, I want to start trying something new. I have a lot of people following me here who are either amazing grassroots advocates who are doing their scrappy best to fight for change in their communities OR people wondering what else they can do, how else they can show up. If you are in the first category and you have an organization in need of a specific skill, a specific volunteer, especially something that can be done virtually, Share that need in the comments. If you are someone who has a skill that you’re not sure how to use, put that in the comments too.

If I’m going to gather almost 17,000 people here, the least I can do is help them connect with each other, help mobilize this community to make the biggest difference we can.

I’m back in action now with better boundaries and more ideas on how to build rest into my day. Rest assured, though I might need a break from time to time, as we all do, I am not going anywhere. We will never run out of good queer news to celebrate, nor will we run out of work we can do to fight for change. Day in, day out, I am proud to do that work with all of you.

All my love, Ben.