WEDNESDAY ESSAY: Make or Break Me: On Voting

This is a portrait of two potential voters. 

Gender Defiant: Raising a Trans Teen is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’ve been working on “mindfulness” for three years now in various settings: yoga, somatic abolitionism, antiracist practice, Pilates, etc. 

How’s it been going? Check back with me later.  

But wait. My “mindfulness” has got me noticing that I’m judgmental of the mindless.

That’s a cruel joke, I know, but nowadays just hearing a pick-up truck drive by my house is triggering.

As you may already know, JJ volunteers as a “Reptile Care Intern” at a local pet store on Sundays. It’s there I’ve recently become acquainted with two young Mainers. 

Holly is 16 and plans on attending cosmology school to become a hairdresser so as to support her reptile habit. 

Madysen is 25, has a GED, and no plans of college because, as she says, no jobs she’s interested in require a college degree. 

In my day job as a college professor, I work with a lot of young people who are fresh out of high school and don’t know what to do. Their parents are making them attend college. Lots of them didn’t like high school. I get it. Our educational system is seriously fucked on the 7-12 level. (And please understand that I am not criticizing the teachers; it’s the systemic racism and homophobia, as well as the outdated curriculum and endless bureaucracy with which I take issue.) 

So I wasn’t too surprised when Holly and Madysen said they weren’t interested in college.

But that didn’t stop me from launching into my academic advisement mode.

“Here we go,” JJ muttered, rolling their eyes, eager to head to the car and get home after a three hour shift of feeding snakes and cleaning cages.

“I, too, disliked high school,” I began, “but college was so much better. Have you thought about taking a class at SMCC [local community college]?-- it’s free . . . ”

In the course of this conversation, through which I pointedly had to ignore JJ’s eye-rolling and heavy sighs, I learned that these two girls did not care one whit for politics. Salt and freshwater aquariums burbled in the background, their inhabitants looking out and nosing the glass, eyes always sideways on either side of their heads.

Holly, on voting: “I don’t care about any of it. There’s nothing I can do, so I don’t bother.”

Madysen, on the upcoming election: “Who’s running? Biden and Trump? Just those two? Really? Oh.”

It was clear that Madysen couldn’t make out what was different between Biden and Trump, and that she hadn’t engaged in the news lately, if ever.

Of course, I wanted to unleash a scream that would have shattered all of the aquariums in the store, spilling their colorful creatures onto the linoleum floors, or twist Mandy’s bleached blond hair with my fist so as to pull her ear to my mouth and mutter something about how many people in this country fought for the right to vote.

Instead, I told Holly and Madysen, matter-of-factly, that we, as women, are particularly vulnerable in this election because our reproductive rights are at stake. I added that there’re lots of vulnerable people out there who will be way better off if we vote for Biden.

I stayed perfectly calm. 

I don’t think Holly or Madesyn cares one way or another if JJ, who they work alongside, is trans. JJ’s identity doesn’t matter to them because 1) it’s not unusual for their generation, and 2) they don’t know what’s at stake because they are, themselves, utterly disenfranchised. 

I do not know Holly or Madesyn all that well, of course, but I have been privy on many an occasion to their wise advice and deep knowledge when it comes to reptiles, amphibians, and fish. These are not mindless people. They are both white. They are not wealthy, but their futures are not limited.  

My point is that folks who don’t “care,” like Holly and Madesyn, don’t realize the impact they could have, through declining to vote, on JJ’s life, rights, medical choices. Do they even know how their own rights are being affected? Madesyn mentioned she lives with her boyfriend. What happens if (and when) a condom breaks, or taking the birth control pill doesn’t work? What happens when she doesn’t have access to Plan B, the pill?

My twitter feed is like watching an all-out brawl between righteous trans folks and their deniers. Reading the news on any LGBTQ+ platform is alarming, unsettling, and should be done only in brief sessions followed up with whatever restorative practices you engage in. 

Every day legislation is being passed which directly affects the lives of trans folks, some for the better, a lot for the worse. I’m getting a neck cramp from all the back and forth. It’s fraught.

A cup of tea? A brisk walk? A HIT workout? Heavy weights? Running as fast as you can through the woods? Chill, Tina. You’re trying to calm yourself, not extinguish yourself.

Join me in taking a deep breath. This is hard. But we have a responsibility.

Talk to everyone you can, candidly, about why you think it is important to vote. Tell them, candidly, who you think we should vote for.

In the check-out lines. At the library. At the auto repair shop. 

Tell them it does make a difference.

Gender Defiant: Raising a Trans Teen is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.