How to Find Hope when Everything Feels Hopeless - from a Trans Immigrant
CW: Political fear, transphobia, sexual assault
I feel like as a business owner, I ‘should’ be wary about being political here in my articles, however current events have made my very existence political. We’re already in the muck so let’s wade in deeper and talk about it. (I have a whole other article planned on the word “should”).
It's a hard time to be trans in America. I'm a trans immigrant, I moved here from New Zealand in 2023, my wife and I were hopeful that the country was moving out of the chaos that was the first Trump presidency. Clearly we were wrong.
I see so many people saying that they're getting the hell out of here and New Zealand is among the top choices for people to flee to. I'm not going back. America is my home now. I'm going to fight for my home and my freedom to exist as a trans woman in America.
I have felt politically silenced through fear. I haven't been to protests in person for fear of being snatched and taken to an ICE detention center or shipped off to some irrelevant country willing to take Trump's political prisoners. Part of that fear was waiting for my updated Green card to arrive with my legal name change - a process that took 7 months. I finally have it back, and as a pleasant surprise, it even has the correct gender marker!
My biometrics appointment for my green card was in January, as executive orders were petulantly signed to damn me and my community for daring to live our lives freely. I remember choosing to wear running shoes to the appointment, just in case. Turns out my fears were a few months early, they hadn't started grabbing immigrants who were doing the right thing and following the process just yet. I was prepared to run for my freedom. Something I never expected to have to prepare for in a supposedly civilized country. Especially not “The land of the free”.
Prior to that appointment, I updated my name with Social Security. At the appointment, I quietly asked the person helping us if I would be able to change my gender marker, fully expecting pushback or the answer to be “no”. It was worse than that, they teared up as they told me that they would love to do that for me as an act of defiance but the federal government had literally removed the option for them to do so. They also urged me not to update my name with USCIS, they said “they will come for their boogeyman soon enough” and wished me luck and safety.
Unfortunately I had to update everything with USCIS, I needed my green card to update everything else.
I've heard older, straight, cis, white people who likely have nothing to fear saying that they're looking for other countries to move to. If all the privileged people moved away from America, who would be left to fight for those who don’t have that privilege?
I've also been told that I don't need to worry because I'm white, as if that should bring me some comfort. It never has. If they are willing to disappear people who aren't white, it's only a matter of time before they start targeting other undesirable demographics - especially trans people who they are obsessed with. People who tell me not to worry because I’m white clearly don’t remember the poem that’s been on all of our minds recently. How many lines will they allow us to get through before they realize there’s a bigger issue? Even if I wasn’t personally at risk, the fact that our neighbors are being snatched should be enough.
The venn diagram of being trans and an immigrant has felt like a bullseye on my back.
Nevertheless, I'm not going anywhere. I still have hope. Here's how:
I’ve stopped consuming news in order to ‘be informed’
This constant barrage of unprecedented times has proven one thing to me - they* want us to be TERRIFIED. It's in their best interests. A scared populace is more controllable, docile, and unlikely to resist. That's why we don't hear about the massive protests that are happening, like the thousands marching in DC, or the thousands of children marching against gun violence in Tennessee. These stories are being repressed here, I was only aware of them through TikToks posted by the people at the scene. We are being kept in the dark and we're actively being scared into submission.
The few times I have caved and looked at different news sites, they all have one thing in common - wall to wall stories about Trump and the GOP sowing seeds of chaos and fear. There's no hope being presented. Just news of executive order after executive order, as if they were immediately gospel as soon as the sharpie ink dries. Yet we keep seeing these executive orders being stopped by due process and common sense, good people doing the hard work on the ground to keep a leash on this incontinent madman.
Since I've severely limited social media and access to the news, I've found myself able to be more functional, my fight or flight is not constantly being triggered. If there is news that will affect me directly, I have asked friends to inform/warn me. But until that point, ‘being informed’ is only going to limit my ability to help my clients and function as a human being. Their algorithms are designed for maximum retention, right now that looks like scrolling past slow moving train crashes from the first person perspective. You can’t look away. They don’t want you to.
*when I say ‘they’, I mean those in power, Trump and the GOP Goons who enable his bullshit, billionaires who are openly working with him, everyone complicit in making our current reality the way that it is
I’ve realized they want us to believe they have absolute power - because they don’t
Trump wouldn't have to rule like a despotic king if he had the ability to push through laws and actually have them go into effect. He wants us to believe that executive orders are law, so we will bend over and acquiesce immediately. As mentioned, they have been repeatedly struck down as unconstitutional and halted. It's only through us believing he has the power and complying in advance that he would then actually have that power. Hence the strategy of terrorizing his own population: make everyone live in fear and comply in advance so you can then rule over them uncontested.
I remember that America is all about freedom and rebellion
I maintain that Americans are a bunch of rowdy geese who will refuse to be herded. It was a genius move on their part to convince the side with the most weapons that they're in the right and their freedoms aren't being taken away - they're only “owning the libs”. The problem with that strategy is that as the lies become harder to believe and the reality becomes more and more apparent, their support will crumble. The right is already fracturing and people are beginning to feel the effects of tariffs on their bank account. The red states will be the ones most affected as their rights get stripped away faster than the blue states.
Why do you think we're getting the political theater of troops patrolling democratic cities? They want to keep the right thinking that they're ‘winning’. But that's only going to keep them distracted from their bank accounts being siphoned and their own cities degrading for so long.
Eventually things will get so bad that the “Don’t tread on me” crowd will realize they’ve been licking the boot as it stomps on their own faces. It’s taken far longer than any of us ever expected, but I still have hope it will happen. I’m not making the mistake of waiting until that happens though - that will be far too late.
I “looked for the helpers”, then became one
The famous Mr. Rogers quote about scary times: “Look for the helpers, you will always find people who are helping” is absolutely true in this situation, there are so many civilian leaders standing up for everyone else around them. Those who are organizing and leading protests, those who risk their lives to help others who have been hit with tear gas, the crowds running ICE agents out of town - using their privilege to stop their fellow Americans getting illegally kidnapped by their own government.
However, simply looking for the helpers isn’t enough these days. We all need to become helpers in our own ways if we are to get through this. As stated, I can’t be on the frontlines as I’m at risk; but that hasn’t stopped me from doing what I can, often from the safety of my own home. I started my free support group in Centralia (a small city in a red pocket of Washington), and expanded that to online support groups as well. All it cost me was my time and energy organizing it, what it gave me in return was hope and connection. I see people who are paralysed by fear coming together to see that they aren’t as alone and isolated as the constant barrage of news would have them believe. That even in a red town, there is a queer population who refuse to be silent and invisible. They can have community instead of isolation. There’s mutual aid and support available.
I’ve written about the importance of visibility before, we cannot hide ourselves away, we cannot detransition to fit in, we cannot give up. I can’t even entertain these as options, I would rather die than not be myself now that I’ve done so much work to find her. I wish that talking about this regime killing me was merely hyperbole, but it has a non-zero chance of happening. But I also believe that the chances of it happening are far lower than they want us to think.
Look at it this way - they want us to be so scared that we detransition and assimilate, but to what end? They want us to eliminate ourselves. Either through assimilation or self-destruction, either way, they want this ‘threat to the patriarchy’ to disappear. The existence of trans people proves that gender is not as straightforward as they want it to appear, and that terrifies them. We have a bunch of weak, old, white men who have spent their lives asserting their ’natural dominance’ over women - infecting the minds of the younger generations with sexism and misogyny.
If it really was natural for men to be more powerful than women - why would they have to spend so much energy asserting that dominance?
I’ve realized why trans women were targeted
This one is a doozy. They chose trans women as a target because it fits their “think of the children!” narrative nicely, however I believe the real reason is far more insidious.
They wanted to threaten cisgender women indirectly.
Think about this, they were so close to losing power to a woman, to having the concept of a female president become a reality. They knew that once the glass ceiling of The Oval Office was shattered, there was no putting it back together. If a woman can be president, then it proves to all women that they can be anything - that terrifies them.
Hence the boogeyman of the predatory trans woman. They can’t outright threaten women and say “we want to sexually assault you” and still get their vote. They can’t let that mask slip while maintaining their ‘conservative’ values. So they needed to create the scapegoat of the “Evil men in skirts” who want to invade their spaces and violate them. “Those ‘men’ are demonic spawn of Satan, we’ll protect you little ladies from them, we just need to strip you of more of your rights to do so”. “Think of the children!”. “They’ll wear skirts to get into women’s bathrooms and sports to indoctrinate the youth and assault our womenfolk”.
Who knew a circle of fabric held so much power??
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how insane and stupid this accusation is. If my goal was to assault women, I would have a much easier time doing that as a man. I’d be protected by ‘the brotherhood’. “Oh it’s just boys being boys, what were you wearing?”. Instead I’ve given up what little ‘male privilege’ I had and have become one of the most at risk minorities for being on the receiving end of sexual assault myself.
But let me say the quiet part out loud - it’s entirely unlikely that a trans woman would commit sexual assault if she’s on HRT because her equipment doesn’t work the same way any more.
Of course there’s always outliers, there’s always bad people no matter their gender, the potential to use Viagra and such; but the way our brains work sexually is different to a cis man’s brain.
I’ll speak candidly from personal experience: I no longer have random erections, I no longer view the world as sexually as I did when my brain was running on testosterone. Sex is more emotional, it takes time. It takes connection.
If I was an evil man in a skirt who wanted to sneak into bathrooms and rape every woman in there, why would I take hormones that make that nearly impossible?
Why would I spend all this time and energy to be a trans woman when this country treats rapists better?
Like so many prongs of their propaganda, it doesn’t hold up to any logical scrutiny. But it stokes the hatred latent in people. It’s also a way to get women on their side “against a common foe” - hence the rise of TERFs. It’s also a way to get women to self-police and pressures them to perform hyper-femininity for fear of being mistaken as a trans woman.
Going back to women’s sports - the defense of those accused of being trans is always “but I’m a cisgender woman, I’m not trans” rather than “why would it be so bad if I was trans? Why is it okay to treat trans women that way?”.
I do think the absence of trans men from the narrative is interesting, I don’t think they know what to do about our trans brothers. The weak argument seems to be “well you’ll never be a real man” - as if those accusers would be a good standard to measure against. They seem to want to push the detransition aspect more on the trans masc side - “Oh you’ll regret it, why would you deface your body like that”. Seemingly they’re more afraid of losing ‘women’ to ogle, than they are about the existence of trans men. I don’t feel fully equipped to speak on the trans masc experience, I would love to hear it from them rather than just guessing myself.
Ultimately, their boogeyman of the “evil trans person” is just that, a boogeyman and nothing more. It’s so divorced form the reality of who trans people actually are that I’ve done my best to emotionally distance myself from the constant abuse hurled at our community. It’s more of a reflection on them and their twisted desires of what they want to do to women, than it is a reflection on us. I know that’s little comfort, but we cannot internalize these messages - that’s what they want us to do, so I refuse.
Hope isn’t just a noun, it’s also a verb
I can write my heart out, share my views and wish that they will give you the hope I so desperately want for you - but hope is not just given and taken, it’s also created. You need to actively seek it yourself. You will get snippets of it from others sharing their own hope, but true hope comes from within.
How do you create hope?
Invariably I think it comes back to connection. Finding like-minded people, joining or starting groups to find that community. Connecting with others on an authentic level, putting aside pretense and ego to genuinely see others and be seen yourself. To be fully present and human with others, to share your fears with each other and find out that you aren’t alone. Shedding shame and fear together. Standing together, hand-in-hand, staring up at this intimidating colossus and saying “We are not alone, we are strong together and we are not afraid of you”.
Stop doom-scrolling, start connecting. Find your people. Hold each other close, help each other. Share your heart, be vulnerable and shameless. Do the work to shed everything that has kept you trapped. Be a rowdy goose and refuse to be herded. Find your gaggle and get rowdy together.
There’s a reason why my business cards have always had the following design on the back:
Here's the secret about hope that they want us to forget, just like it's bastard cousin, fear, it's a virus. It spreads and multiplies through its hosts. That's why they've worked so hard to isolate us, isolated people are more controllable and profitable.
Here are some actionable steps you can take RIGHT NOW:
Reach out to a friend - ask how they're doing, push past the small talk and have actual big talk about how you’re both feeling
Look up local support groups - then join one! Go and find community. They are usually awkward as shit, but you’re in the same boat with everyone else there.
Look for volunteer opportunities - if you have the bandwidth
Limit social media access - I use an app blocker that Hannah has the code for, it prevents me from sitting on my phone and doomscrolling
Join the Queer Peers discord server! - My free online community where I host support groups
Seek out good news - There’s a great list of positive news sources here
Seek mental health support - therapy and coaching are super important more than ever these days, if you can't afford it or don't have insurance, get in touch with me, I want to help YOU
Shed shame that keeps you trapped - I have an article in the works about shame, the antidote is vulnerability and disclosure with a trusted person
Recognize the relationships/friendships that are just draining you - set necessary boundaries, especially with MAGA family members, if they're not willing to see sense
Look for local protests, make a sign and go PROTEST - Do it for those who aren’t able to protest. Use your Freedom of Speech as an American to protect your country’s soul. it will help you feel like you’ve done something, which is the path out of feeling powerless.
Most controversially: Embrace your fear
Not the paralyzing fear they want you to feel, the fear that stops you in your tracks. They want you to freeze or flee when it's time to fight.
Your fear of current events means that you are still sane. These are not normal times and everyone should be terrified. Everyone who is trying to go about their daily lives is probably just as scared as you - they also don't feel like they can show their fear.
Maybe if we all admitted how shit scared we are, then we can stop chasing normalcy and start making change? Everyone feels like the plane is crashing so screaming isn't going to do anything, we're sitting silently in our seats and hoping the pilot can get us home safely. Except this isn't a plane, we don't have a pilot, we need EVERYONE to do something. No matter how little, it will all add together to make monumental change.
How do you move a mountain of rocks?
Pebble by pebble.
Find your pebble, find your people, together you can lift bigger rocks.
You are NOT alone.
-Hazel Bloom
If you need support, I am an Online Queer Life Coach. I help people through their own transitions and support them in living their best queer and/or neurodivergent lives.
I aim to be as affordable as possible with a sliding scale rate available for my One-on-One coaching - reach out to me for a free 15 minute meeting! I have Online and In-Person support groups that will always be free, click the buttons below to find out more!
