My dear friends,
I will start this with a fond memory.
One of my formative life lessons, and most liberating experiences, was realising I was pangender. It was the mid 90’s, when I left home to live with my partner at the time, who had revealed to me 6 months into our relationship that she was transgender. It occurred to me in the blink of an eye, that I didn’t care what body she inhabited, it was who she was that I loved.
It became the foundation for how I set out to treat everyone I met…not that I’m a saint, by any means, but I feel grateful that I got to learn a lesson about equality and basic humanity so young in life.
It was framed, and maybe emphasised, by the fact that, although my country had just held our first democratic election – and been dubbed “The Rainbow Nation” – public attitudes toward trans rights would only start to catch up to anything worth writing home about a decade or two later.
I don’t really need to point to the agonising irony and the devastating effect that America’s most recent election has and will have on those rights and freedoms.
In the years leading up the election in 2024, a noticeable and promising upwards shift in both the visibility of, and societal attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community was something that had me (and many others, I’m sure) thinking “about damn time”. This burgeoning hope has been cruelly hobbled, it would seem, in a few short months. As Amanda said in her brilliant piece on fever dreams, Jinkx Monsoon and the creative ache, on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/last-night-drag-122713077):
“…the attack on trans rights has been swift and will be deadly….and the attack on trans rights won’t end there.
Once legal rights begin to fall, they fall for everyone.
It does not end here. It begins here. The arts. The queers.”
As with the other Liberty works, I don’t feel I need to explain or contextualise this.
It BURNED TO BE MADE. It is a narrative work…it tells a story; it whispers a poem.
“Thousands of years ago, our poems kept the tribe safe and connected, with memorable information. It wasn’t just about catharsis. If we, as a tribe in a cave, were going to stay safe from harm, there had to be a memorable, memorable story about how to escape, how to run, how to tend to the fire without letting it go out at night, how to keep the bears out of the cave. The fire has to stay lit.”
When times are hardest, as she says, there is a song (for her), a painting (for me)…they shine brightest in our minds when chaos and devastation are all around.
Here it is: TRUE liberty is the freedom to be who you are, to be with whom you wish and to embrace your authentic self, without judgement, or fear, or discrimination. True liberty embraces diversity.
Remember this story. Keep the fire lit.
Living with a transgender person and being accepted by the then-cautious LGBTQ+ community, opened my eyes to the harsh realities they experience every minute of every day. Their resilience and authenticity were inspiring. It devastates me that their ongoing challenges will only worsen under Trump’s regime, and I can only plead each and every person reading this to do everything you can to STAND TOGETHER, build communities, foster tolerance, and protect the vulnerable members of your society.
The journey toward full equality must become a battle if that is what is called for. With continued advocacy by people like Amanda, who has always been courageously outspoken about the rights of this vulnerable community, there’s hope for a more inclusive future. With open-mindedness, bravery, action and community, the rights of all those currently being marginalised and disenfranchised, will be saved. That starts in your heart.
Amanda told Jinkx she was going to have to stay quiet for a while. Jinkx said she knew.
“I am protecting my internal organs, I told her, like a person getting frostbite in the arctic. Send the blood to the organs that can’t die: Ash. My family. My very life itself. My heart, my lungs, my motherhood.
Don’t worry, she said. Jinkx is going to sing. Jinkx is going to keep the fire lit.”
So am I.
SO CAN YOU.
With love,
Niki
Cape Town,
February 2025
