Published May 2, 2025
Alternate Universe Carly, who probably wouldn’t be so beaten down by her ongoing trauma, would tell you more than I can today. So I’ll narrow my focus before going back to bed. I am so, so tired. Almost six months after I last worked at my job, I am spent.
My long-term disability claim is under review. Wish me luck. As someone said yesterday, “SSDI is surveillance with a monthly deposit. It’s not care. It’s not stability. It’s conditional survival.” I’m sure the people weighing my eligibility are reading everything I post online from under my covers, looking for any reason to deny it.
Anyway …
The week began with a story I was lucky enough to see in the local paper. I bought a $500 ticket to support trans people. The event was last night, and it was so good I cried.
Rather than start by telling you how wonderful it was to be there, I want to back into my point. Beep. Beep.
Let’s start with this …
Where would you rather be: a place where you feel safe enough to be yourself or a place where you could be critiqued, judged, lectured, condescended to and made to feel less than?
Would you want to be with someone who says, on the hottest day of the year, well aware you’ve been sleeping 12 to 16 hours a day since November, “You’re taking a Lyft? It’s right there!” Or would you rather be with someone who says, “Oh, good self-care” and seems to mean it.
Would you want to be with someone who says, after seeing a project you were able to cobble together despite your severe limitations, “Oh, excellent work!” Or with someone who says, “You really should have done it this other way” after the fact?
With people who offer full-throated, unconditional support for trans people, or with those who say, “I consider myself an ally, but …” and say things that are a big part of the problem?
… and continue with this
Would you rather be with people who won’t stop fighting for you, or with people who say they won’t stop fighting for you but in reality have never actually started fighting for you?
Would you want to be with people who oppose all anti-trans legislation and politicians, or with those who say, “I do support your right to do what you want, but yes, I voted for him” … twice?
Do you want to be with people who understand what’s important in a crisis, or with those who consider the use of italics in informal writing lazy, and the use of “okay” instead of “OK” a horrifying error? Those who can’t wait to pounce on a spelling error or “rules” violation as taught by their sixth-grade teacher?
With people who don’t impose pre-pandemic and pre-Trump expectations and standards on anyone, or those who do?
I have lost most of my storytelling abilities and struggle to write in a day what I easily could have done in an hour last year. But tell me: Have I made my point?
Can you guess what sort of people I was with last night? What sort of people I wasn’t with last night? As I told queer friends today, “Safe spaces. My god.”
Can you guess? My god. The difference it makes.
I cried last night
For most of the night, I held it together, with joy and a resolute spirit behind my mask. But in the dark, during the final performance, I teared up. I cried. That continued after I got home.
I thanked one of the people who organized the event. Twice, I did. Three times, I think.
I had to tell people some harsh truths about The New York Times and other legacy media organizations. Not to be that person who breaks the news about Santa Claus, but they need to know. They also need to know the Times does important work, but that they should take its trans and political coverage with a big dome of salt. I also suggested, when asked, how to round out the news people consume. Someone asked me for alternative news sites, and I promised to drop some right here.
And I talked about how I wake up screaming from my nightmares.
Last night’s event came a few hours after the Trump administration released its report on gender-related medical care for trans youth. What timing. The Trans Journalists Association offers guidance on how to report and talk about it.
If your go-to news site doesn’t appear to even be trying to handle it with that kind of care, you probably need new information sources.
Spirits having flown to my aid
The last time I’d gone to a public event was in September 2018. It featured such an unexpected once-in-a-lifetime moment, I had to write about it. You should read that. It’s amazing. You couldn’t make it up.
Last night’s event was in a venue a stone’s throw away from where the 2018 event took place. I was hoping for anything close to a similar vibe. Sure enough, I happened to sit behind the woman who’d organized that one, and I even saved her seats for her with my walking cane draped across them when she briefly stepped away.
I didn’t know if the paper would cover last night’s event, but I was ready if a reporter asked to speak with me (I don’t exactly blend in, ya know). Because sensitive legal matters are in the working stage, I prepared some answers. Yeah, it will probably seem a bit self-important to some, but I know how things work, I know how shattered I am, and I didn’t want to say something I’d regret. Also, there’s been so much turnover there, I know only a couple of the reporters anymore.
Anyway, no one asked, but …
My prepared statement
After nearly eight years of being openly trans, I’ve come to wonder whether I matter at all to the community I live in. I’ve been stalked and followed across the city in ways that could not have been a coincidence. I hide and sleep a lot. It’s a frightening time to be trans.
I’ve been on leave from work since the election, but after reading about this event in The Columbian, I knew I had to come if I could. Some people have never seen a trans woman in person. Some people don’t know the difference between trans and drag. We’re a month and a day past Trans Day of Visibility, but I wanted this event to be an extension of that for me.
I don’t have words to convey how worried I am. It wasn’t like this just a few years ago. A well-funded campaign based on disinformation changed all that. I want to believe I matter to my neighbors. The election made it hard for me to feel safe, and my representatives don’t seem to care much. Even my employer and its owners, The New York Times, bear responsibility for being complicit. If you want to know more, I have cards, printed and electronic, that lead to my website, CarlyJDubois.com, where I wrote about that at the risk of being fired.
I’m struggling to put my words together while on leave and don’t want to say the wrong thing on the spur of the moment. As a longtime reporter and editor, I realize it’s less than ideal. Shoutout to The Columbian and the Campbells for being so supportive of me when I came out. I worked on the copy desk from Aug. 29, 2013, through Jan. 16, 2021. I came out as trans on Oct. 1, 2017.
I really needed this
That would have been my unprepared statement if asked. “I really needed this.”
So many beautiful people. So many beautiful performances.
I also had in my digital wallet an electronic version of a card leading to my website, but for some reason it wouldn’t Air-Drop to anybody who wanted one. I’m glad I had the physical cards made.
A main theme of the night was that our stories matter. “Here’s mine,” I said when I handed out a card.
♥
I’m sorry this is such a mess. What I am trying to say is this: Safe spaces matter!
This country no longer feels safe to me. Last night, for a few hours, the city I live in did. My storytelling chops are so broken, I don’t have a way to drive home the point, to nail it down for you in tight, this-story-soars fashion. I slept for 12 hours last night and will sleep 12 more soon. This is the best I have for you.
I’ll probably cringe and update it when I wake up and read it.
But the one thing I want you to take away from last night is this:
Safe
spaces
matter
to
trans
people.
I’m so grateful for a taste of it again last night.
Sending love.
♥
Thank you
If you appreciate what you find here and feel generous, you can check out the Tip Jar. Thank you for reading. Here’s a butterfly for you.
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This is worth watching
Here is some context for it.
And one more thing
“Safe spaces” is and has always been a relative concept in the United States of America.
My great uncle was lynched after coming home from WWI because he went to town & wanted a drink and they refused to serve him— a VET who just fought for this country
After missing for hours my granddaddy found him hanging from a tree
THATS why I protect my peace
Every time I shine it’s for THEM