hey y’all,

it’s TDOR again, and it’s my 14th year in the fight for trans liberation. it’s also day 3 of I.C.E.’s relentless onslaught on our most vulnerable communities here in the triangle. i am deeply, terribly afraid. i am furious, i am numb, i am frozen inside my apartment.

i find it difficult to talk about my fear of the state, as i have scraped my way toward a stability that so many people like me just do not have. i realized recently that i am grappling with the intersection of survivor’s guilt and the real, material danger that i am still in.

i have always been at risk of being disappeared by law enforcement. i grew up with a family of immigrants and Black folks on an insulated, rural, largely conservative island. i have been violently searched and probed by cops in my youth for walking alone to a friend’s house in my neighborhood.

i have been suspended and kicked out of the honor’s society for shoplifting, while my white peers openly bragged about stealing make up during lunch time in front of our teachers.

i have been sexualized by male teachers, and dress-coded by female teachers (it’s worth noting my school was officially dress-code free). i have family members with substance abuse issues and experiences in the criminal justice system.

i started smoking cigarettes and being sexually active when i was 13 years old. this starting point led to a struggle with substance abuse and being a victim of domestic violence from 17 - 22 years old. i haven’t touched a pharmaceutical for 11 years now, and i don’t drink at 10:00am on wednesdays anymore, but i didn’t quit smoking until 2 years ago.

i don’t share all of this to be a victim or a martyr or to demonize my family or my hometown. in fact, i deeply love my family and my hometown. they are part of what makes me strong and empathetic and grounded in the real experiences of people living in the margins. i share this because i am a sociologist, and i am what we would call a statistical outlier.

let me put some numbers down for you:

according to a columbia study, children with two parents who smoke are 3x more likely to begin smoking themselves. and daughters in particular were impacted by the nicotine habits of their mothers.

according to the NIH, adolescents who smoke regularly are 95% more likely to have substance abuse issues as adults.

the school-to-prison pipeline is a well-documented phenomenon, which explains that increased adolescent experiences with school discipline directly correlates to an increase in criminal activity as an adult.

we also know that LGBTQ+ youth who are racialized are more likely to drink, smoke, do drugs, and attempt or complete suicide than their white cisgender peers. this is largely due to minority stress trauma and unaccepting families.

but did you notice none of these studies consider AAPI identity in their samples? we are the largest immigrant population in the country, and the least studied when looking at the intersections of racism and other identity-based scholarship. dr. anthony ocampo has a great body of work exploring the similarities between outcomes for queer filipino youth and other youth of color.

by all accounts of social science research and statistically predictable outcomes, i should be either homeless or dead. it is because of, not in spite of, these beginnings that i have built a life for myself that is safe, stable, gentle, and yes, immensely privileged.

i have done so because the #1 way to prevent these statistically probable outcomes is to have resources. in our violently capitalist society rooted in the imperial siege of indigenous land and people, money will improve your outcomes. it is extremely fucked up, but that is the god’s honest truth.

access to capital and generational wealth is the single highest predictor of positive adult outcomes. just ask duke.

getting scholarships and student loans so that i could have a fully-funded education is the only reason i was able to go to college and i worked the entire time. in fact, i got my first job when i was 14, and haven’t been unemployed since. and while i’m not the only one like me, the vast majority of people born into the same circumstances do not find a way out.

i am not exceptional. i am relentless and exhausted and lucky. i deserve my safety, but so does everyone else regardless of their statistical probabilities. so no, i’m not necessarily the target for I.C.E. at the moment. i’m not undocumented, i’m not working a trade or service job, i’m not dark-skinned. but i have been a target all my life, and i am still very much afraid.

in many ways this moment feels like 2020 again, as my husband and i hunker down inside and try to weather the storm. except in 2020, i was also on the frontlines of public health and worker organizing. i was righteously furious and brave. i had the fight in me, and that fire in my belly pushed me forward to demanding freedom no matter the cost.

i still have the fight in me, but it looks very different now. this day has me reflecting on what my trans youth coalition kids used to tell me when i was first starting out in this movement “professionally” - they saw hope in me as a trans adult who was living a full and meaningful life.

those youth are all young adults now, and in reflecting, i realized i was only 24 at the time - only 3 years sober and actively being abused. i still counted as a youth myself per the eligibility requirements of the grant that was funding my work at the time. i had no idea what i was doing, or whether or not my life was full or meaningful. i was just showing up, every day, doing the very best i could.

now, as a true “elder” in our community (per the statistics anyway), i am having to reevaluate what a full and meaningful life actually means. what hope really means. on TDOR this year, i remember every trans elder that has ever held my hand, broken bread with me, and called me in for my bullshit. i remember the kind of ancestor i hope to be someday.

i remember that myth-making does not ultimately serve our collective liberation. our freedom cannot rely on the brilliance, resilience, and reputation of a few seemingly incredible people. every hero you’ve ever had was also just a person trying to make sense of the world and leave it better than they found it. what truly matters is that we all show up every day, doing good work we believe in to change the world.

you, too, are a hero.

so honor our lost loved ones, and give the trans people in your life their flowers while they are still here. and if you don’t have one, i’m available 💐

xoxo,

kuya von