Published May 30, 2025
Nightmares routinely force me awake, whereupon I realize I am screaming. Not one of my bad dreams is about my 401(k).
One of the worst found me in a detention facility outside the U.S. There have been more like it. There will be more.
They’d cut my hair. Stripped my fingernails of polish and cut them as short as possible. They hurt.
I was wearing ill-fitting men’s clothing. My ear rings had been cut off my ears. Sloppily. There was blood and a wound.
A man who seemed born to run boot camps came into my cell and berated me. He called me by the name on my birth certificate, which hasn’t been my legal name in seven years. He screamed it at me because he knew it would hurt me.
In military fashion, he tore me down so he could build me up. Make me “a man again.” My conversion therapy was underway. Reeducation camp had begun.
I’m terrified
What worries me? Well, a lot. I still sleep at least 12 hours a day, wondering if it’s my last nap in my own bed, even in the U.S.
Will tomorrow be the day I’m detained and flown to a facility outside the country, or maybe in Jena, Louisiana?
Every time I tell this fear to someone, they say something like, “That’s not an outlandish concern. That actually could happen.”
It’s out of my control. So I warn you and plead with you about what I can:
• The upcoming Senate vote.
For my @msnbc.com column this week, I wrote about exactly what the Republican anti-trans budget bill would do to trans people on Medicaid.
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb…
— Katelyn Burns (@katelynburns.com) May 28, 2025 at 2:55 PM
• The upcoming Supreme Court decision.
In advance of what will likely be a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in the U.S. v. Skrmetti case, the Trans Journalists Association offers the following guidance to reporters, newsrooms, and others responding to the ruling.
www.transjournalists.org/2025-skrmett…
— Trans Journalists Association (@transjournalists.org) May 30, 2025 at 6:57 AM
And I plead for journalism to do better.
I don’t mean to downplay anyone’s financial worries, but come on.
“No one voted to deport moms.”
Trump supporters in MISSOURI have regrets after a beloved community member, mother of 3, was taken by Trump’s Gestapo.
Sadly, they were warned this was never about gangs. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/u…
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Admit that you were fine with deporting moms, just maybe not the ones you like. Same with dads. Grandparents. Children. Teachers. Scientists.
If in today’s world you believe what targeted ads on Facebook are feeding you and how your comfort zone shapes the perception you have of reality, you really aren’t trying. Also, we now automatically equate being in a gang with being a criminal?
I mean, who are we?
What infuriates me so much about this new operation is that it is literally punishing people for following the rules and showing up to their court hearings. It is so toxic to the basic concept of following the rules.
It is an operation designed by people who hate the concept of the rule of law.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 5:32 PM
And can we keep people’s life-and-death fears top of mind?
GOP Sen. Joni Ernst responds to voters saying that cutting Medicaid will kill them: “Well, we all are going to die.”
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 7:27 AM
No, I guess not.
The “apology”? You guessed it. WORSE.
Against all odds, Joni Ernst has made it worse
— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Yes, that’s a cemetery in the background. The ruling party in America is led by monsters. Horrible people.
¶ ¶ ¶
In closing:
If I disappear, you should know I’m grateful to those who checked on me from time to time.
Main photo by sonicbox via Shutterstock.
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Thank you
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