Queer People Denounce Politics Erasing Trans Folks and Snatching HIV Meds
Prism & Pen Weekly Digest, 2 February 2025
by Tucker Lieberman and James Finn
This week in Prism & Pen, queer writers share intensely personal stories in the face of hatred emanating from Washington D.C. — hatred so intense that HIV medication is being deliberately withheld from patients, including over 6 million children, who will die without it.
This week’s highlights:
- Disney returns to its conservative roots
- A trans man remembers the Catholic Church discriminating against his great grandmother on ethnic/racist grounds
- The Trump administration cuts off HIV medication to millions
- A queer woman shares how she handles increasingly offensive questions
- A queer therapist offers five suggestions for resisting Trump while (or with the purpose of) maintaining good mental health
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* P&P Highlights *
Disney’s Transgender Reversal Is as Unsurprising as It Is Dangerous
Disney has a long history of cutting out queer content in its films for foreign and sometimes domestic releases. While it may be cutting out a trans character in America now, not too long ago, it was doing the same for same-sex kisses in Star Wars and the like. Its inclusion of diverse characters now only makes sense as a milestone when you factor in the company’s historic conservativism.
If the Catholic Church Were Tolerant, this Trans Man Wouldn’t Be Alive
My great grandmother believed that all of our lives were threads in an endless tapestry and that each one changed the pattern of existence as a whole. A single thread missing could unravel everything. She was the sort of Catholic who honored every thread of life.
I offer my great grandmother’s lesson as a gift to you, no matter what you believe. We each decide the power that hate has over us. We each decide what to do in response to what is done to us.
Trump is Snatching HIV Meds Out of the Hands of People in Desperate Need
Look, we as nation have a certain amount of self interest at stake. If HIV resurges globally, the virus isn’t going to stop at ICE checkpoints or line up at passport control. More HIV around the world means more HIV in the U.S.
* * *
The point is that PEPFAR is saving lives in 25 developing countries, treating 20 million people, including 6.5 million children — all of whom might die if they have to stop their meds.
Well, to be clear, they already have stopped their meds.
How I Handle Offensive Questions About Being Queer
I was not experiencing inner turmoil, because I was not fighting against the current. Instead, I was going with the flow, surfing the wave, letting the tides of conversation lift me higher and higher while the opposing person got sucked under.
“Weird? What do you mean by weird?” I asked casually.
5 Alarming Ways Trump Policies Harm LGBTQ+ People (and What You Can Do)
Today, we refuse to be invisible.
They’re counting on our silence.
But this time, we know better.
We have the tools, knowledge, and, most importantly, each other.
* This Week’s Essays & Creative Non Fiction *
They, Them & Thon
In 1934, the dictionary that today bears Webster’s name added a gender-neutral pronoun, ‘thon’ a probable contraction of ‘that one.’ It was removed from the dictionary on 1961. Coined in 1858, it suggests someone’s belief in a need for such a word and the belief it’d be adopted, because something was missing from English in their experience — something they needed to express but couldn’t. The neopronouns ‘E’ and ‘’Em’ were also coined in the 1840s.
What I Learned from My Transgender Student Ten Years Later
She had fully transitioned and was in a long term relationship with a man. Also, her mother has been supportive.
Telling this story even now makes me cry. That’s no surprise, because I cry at everything. I realize that I am not the cause of that woman’s success in life. She is the cause of her success in life. But maybe I was a little help along the way by simply accepting “Paul” as he was before her transition. Maybe making no big deal about Paul’s gender or sexuality at the time allowed her to eventually accept it and decide to be who she was.
My Trans Kiddo is Free To Be X No Longer
I’m glad my kid experiences this as a hurdle they can leap. But it’s a hurdle nonetheless and adds to the general rattle and clank of having to navigate this kind of difference in a country that is currently passing orders to stop issuing the passport they applied for.
As a Queer Mom and Teacher, Offering Calm to Children Who Need It Most
Emotional support tools like those provided in the Calm Corner Bundle can be a valuable addition to classrooms, helping children build resilience, empathy, and self-confidence. Programs that focus on social-emotional learning, like creating spaces where kids can find calm and process their feelings, have been shown to help reduce bullying and support positive interactions in school settings. I’m extremely grateful to such organizations as the Trevor Project, who have also embraced the tools of mindfulness.
U.S. Advertising Reflects a Growing Anti-LGBTQ+ Trend
Seeing diversity reflected in commercial after commercial can’t help but have a normalizing effect. And normalization is what conservatives fear most. They live in constant terror that multiculturalism and non-normativity are becoming less objectionable …through the deliberate omission of diverse representations, it seems the public is being unwittingly primed to be more receptive to biased reporting, LGBTQ+ erasure, and anti-queer, anti-trans policies.
Was His Love Worth My Life?
The transcendent Triad of Michael, Tommy, and me lasted three years until one winter night in November 1973, when I found myself standing on the upstream railing of the Arlington Memorial Bridge at midnight in the same position and state of mind I had been in for an hour, glaring down at the dark, cold Potomac waters swiftly flowing by, and wondering why I was not already in them.
Must the LGBTQI+ Community Kiss in the Shadows Once Again?
You may have heard a quotation “The love that dare not speak its name”, a phrase from the last line of the poem, “Two Loves” by Lord Alfred Douglas, written in September 1892 and published in the Oxford magazine The Chameleon in December 1894.
It was used at Oscar Wilde’s gross-indecency trial and is usually interpreted as a euphemism for homosexuality.
WE ARE HERE, WE ARE QUEER. Elders and Youth Must Collaborate.
Queer elders have the hard-earned skills and knowledge to survive, as queer people, in a world more hostile than many young queer people can imagine, myself very included. Queer youth have the narrative and rhetorical skills to change hearts and minds.
We must collaborate. As a matter of survival.
Trump Makes Outing Trans Kids National Policy
I spent 30 years in the public schools and I will tell you what is going to happen. Schools are going to run scared, terrified that federal funds will be cut. Their teachers will be barred from allowing a child to change their pronouns or name. Teachers who violate the policy will face suspension and firing.
This will be particularly bad in school systems with transphobic leadership.
* Fiction Series *
Demons Are Coming Out!
“You smell like victory,” he said.
I dropped my sword on the carpet, then kicked it under my bed in case someone (Marnie especially) came into my room without knocking.
“And yet you’re in a negative mood,” he added.
“We defeated most of the demons. A few got away, though.”
Zip clapped his tiny claws together. He was giving me an ironic round of applause.
Read in P&P:
An Absolutely Momentous Dinner — Part 25
Our (Sort of) Demon-Free Date — Part 26
Mom? Dad? We Need to Talk — Part 27
That’s it for this week!
Courage to all of you! Keep resisting, reading, shining your love, and sending your stories to Prism & Pen.
We need you all!
