Like many of you, the Supreme Court decision reversing Roe v. Wade has hit me hard, coming in the wake of my native Philippines electing the son of our former dictator and continued attacks against trans folks from healthcare to sports. Pre-pandemic I’d be writing tons of op-eds by now and going out into the streets, which is harder to do since I currently live in the woods far from the city.
Protest and collective action are vital ways of achieving goals, though ever since I interviewed Torrey Peters in Electric Literature for the launch of Detransition, Baby (subsequently reprinted in the paperback edition), and she reminded me of Toni Morrison’s quote, “[T]he very serious function of racism is distraction,” I’ve been re-evaluating my relationship to reaction as a writing mode.
Having spent the time I have in the midst of debates around gender, race, and transness both as a journalist and essayist, I now also see the importance of focusing on the goal of advancing my perspective as an author in the long-term rather than only being focused on reacting to the agenda that those who oppose people like me are advancing. And doing that requires focus that can be hard to make space for when I’m inundated with how those negative forces are bearing upon me.
There’s no one right answer, but one thing I’m learning is not to feel guilty for working on my writing projects during tough times, knowing that they aim to elucidate the world about the lives of marginalized people, apart from also just being works of creativity in themselves. And finding the space to be creative in these times is itself an act of resistance, when the far-right is trying to rob so many people of our fundamental autonomy and humanity.