Trans

haha, as a shy prude I don't even show up for the local trans-led dance classes run by a friend of mine, let alone go to munches 😆

I love your optimism though.

There are also a local anarchist punk group that does needle exchange programs, helps the unhoused, etc. but as usual they are more interested in ideological purity than pragmatic politics, so that was a hard group to break into.

I highly doubt guns will help me, if anything I think they are a liability (and early data coming out of urban areas suggest having a gun during a conflict increases chances of being killed).

You can't (individually) use them against the state (who is at this point my biggest enemy), and even without guns trans people are not treated sympathetically by the justice system. For example, CeCe McDonald who was convicted of second-degree manslaughter for stabbing her assailant with scissors after he yelled anti-trans and racist remarks at her, smashed a beer glass into her face, and then followed her into the street. Guns as self defense increasingly seem to be for white men (and even then, interactions of white men with guns and law enforcement often lead to police killings of innocent but armed people). The law penalizes minorities whenever they try to use guns in the same self-defense manner as white men, and the double standard makes using guns as self-defense a bit of a legal liability.

Besides that, handguns are honestly difficult to properly train with and most people don't have the time or money to properly train and keep up their training. This makes them a liability in other ways.

It's also harder to bring guns into blue states with shield laws in an emergency situation where you have to flee, so it increases risk of ending up in jail (which is the main thing I am trying to avoid at this point), or in best case creates hassle in terms of having to properly prepare for how to either dispose of or transport ammunition and weapons.

Still, I am semi-trained and armed 😅 Despite my overall assessment of the risk/reward of guns, there is a part of me that is proud that trans folks are so militant, I just hope that translates to positive outcomes.

I have surgery scheduled this summer, then I'm hoping to focus entirely on moving. Unfortunately the legislative session might only give me a few weeks between my surgery and when new laws come into effect that might force me to leave the state. It's a chaotic time, but I'm trying to stay focused on what is concrete and right in front of me.