On Being Seen
Whoa. I just channeled the person I needed in this moment and wrote this. The wildest bit is you could too (maybe not the writing if that’s not your jam).
Love is always a leap of faith.
I know things are bleak. I've known for years. And this grants me the perspective to tell you - I have NEVER seen energy like this.
People are waking up. Welcome to the world, my loves. Thank you for joining us.
I am sitting in my backyard with my husband and a fat joint, and maybe it's the weed but... I'm feeling more hopeful than I have in a hot minute.
The world has always been cruel. But I am seeing so many people understanding what it means to CHOOSE kindness for the first time.
Keep educating.
I have only been at this work for about 5 years. But even in this relatively short time I have learned so much.
What they say is true - humans who move as a herd are evil, thoughtless, cruel.
Humans who think for themselves, together, are brilliant, compassionate, thoughtful.
Fascism is, fundamentally, a fight against the darker sides of human nature, writ large by our complex societal structure, economic system, and technology.
We must choose to be kinder. More honest. Vulnerable.
We must recognize and value strength in love and care rather than bullying.
The truth is that, every person, every moment, every touch, matters.
So we are all out here, in an infinitely complex system, victims and riders and drivers of the butterfly effect, mostly trying our best.
We must teach each other. We must teach love, not tolerance.
Since November 5th, I have been struggling, so much, honestly. Both physically through life circumstances (I cut off my parents, I fled from Missouri to California, and I was forced into horrific psychiatric medication withdrawal, all in quick succession) and mentally/emotionally.
(I am safe dw)
I have dedicated my life to warn people this was coming. I have lost... a lot for my activism. At one year out, at age 24, I threw my entire life into grassroots transgender policy organizing. (I’m a cofounder/codirector of transformationsproject.org)
I started writing long before then, speculative fiction and poetry and essays and journalism and philosophy and media reviews and opinion pieces. I had 35k followers on twitter. I won awards. I did interviews. I bled words and I cut them out.
I rose to a national stage in 2022 and 2023 for my work.
My work is scattered far and wide across the internet (I’m the only person on earth with the last name Petrovnia, so... google me I guess). From Al Jazeera to I Can Haz Cheezeburger (yes I am serious), I am everywhere.
To be this public, as a radical trans person, is dangerous.
I’ve been doxxed by organized crime. I’ve been stalked at my day job. I’ve been threatened, insulted, and bullied countless times.
But I did it anyway. Because I saw this coming. I begged to be wrong. I reexamined the evidence I saw so many times, hoping against hope I was truly being "paranoid".
But I wasn’t wrong. And since November 5th, I have been trying against everything to find a way to forgive everyone who ignored my warnings.
I gave everything for you. And you wouldn’t listen. And now we’re here. And now you are asking me to teach you what I’ve been saying for years.
I am young.
There are many in this work who have been doing this for decades upon decades. They are survivors. They are loved. They maintain entire communities.
They are broken.
No one should have to carry a community on their back. Believe me, I tried and I broke down. For a bit.
But I saw this coming, still.
I stepped back for a bit. To rest. To heal the broken parts of me. And I launched back in (in the midst of being temporarily housed in a cross country move) in January, feeling like I had no choice.
But my friends, I have been so angry.
Anger is a weapon, absolutely. But also a fire.
Anger demands to be fed. And anger from grief, as this was, will never be sated.
I gave everything to warn people. And now we are here. And people are looking to me, because I am one of the few even a bit prepared.
I never asked for this. I will always choose it, to be clear. But I didn’t ask.
In another life, I’m a paleontologist, or a botanist, or a teacher, or a farmer, or a local journalist, or a bartender, or a million other possibilites.
But here, in this life, I am the only one who can help. So I say yes. I always will.
Not the only one. A one.
In a world so enormous and so full of cruelty, how can you choose not to get started somewhere? I only control myself. So I will give what I have. That’s the choice. It’s an impossible choice. We must make it. Again, and again, and again. As many times as asked.
A 17 year old trans kid recently said to me, "It's not fair. Everybody else just gets to be a person."
Maybe one day I'll stop dreaming it.
I definitely can't save everyone from what is to come. But I can save someone. Even in a small way.
That's the assignment. We save each other until we can't.
No one gets out of here alive. We all die, in the end. When they say the choice is to live on your knees or die on your feet, they mean it. I’ve resolved myself to make the hard and kind and dangerous and impossible and necessary choice, every time. Until whatever comes after, at least.
I am telling you all of this to say that today I understood something, in that way where a broken part inside you clicks into place, and the ache suddenly stops. The absence is jarring, at first. I learned, or I remembered, today, that I am not a singularity. I am a community member.
We, all of us on this wretched earth, are interdependent. I remembered today that we are fighting to live, not living to fight. That matters. That’s the whole point. We are dreaming realities we will never see. We are cherishing our breath in our chest. We are telling each other we love each other.
We are all stories we tell each other. We are all trapped in our insulated parallels of consciousness, trying desperately to glimpse each other. There’s an electricity, when you see someone through their walls.
If I am doomed to be a Skinner’s mouse for human connection, I choose it.
I suppose I am trying to say that these touches are the stuff of living. I am trying to say we are not ourselves as separations or a list, but ourselves as organisms, sharing germs and ideas and touches and blows and more fluids than we care to admit and connection and love.
I am trying to say that to be angry at those who did not listen to me in 2022 became so suddenly absurd to me, when I saw myself through the eyes of those who tried to warn me in 2018. I saw so clearly that we are all links in an endless matrix, passing on the message that we must choose each other.
I am trying to say I forgive you. I think. There's ego and rage at the fringes of my mind. I'm sure there will be more tomorrow. But for now, I see you. I understand you. And I love you.
I am trying to say I understand today that the revolution will be joyful or there will be no revolution.
The revolution will be joyful because otherwise there will be no revolution at all. If we forget that we live off of the very thing we are fighting for - love, or by another name, community, or by another name, connection, or by another name, being seen - we all will starve. We will eat each other.
To cannibalize our own marks us becoming them, I think. I’m very out of my depth here, I know. So are you. So are, I think, all those who change the world.
Because all of us do. We are all just here, on this burning rock, doing what we can to be loved and to love those close to us. Mostly.
I know this is so long. There are so many words. There are as many ways to communicate this message as there have been thoughts. As there are stars. As there are ripples in spacetime.
We must choose each other - we are all connected - there is no way out but together.
None of this means don't hold people accountable for harm. None of this means allow yourself to be harmed.
This means, when you See someone, don't let them go without good reason. This means, be willing to be Seen. Be authentic, honest, vulnerable, loving, and as patient as you can manage.
All of our lives depend on us remembering this. We, as individuals, are nothing. We, as communities, are remaking the world.
LeGuin reminds us that there are no human forces that cannot be remade by human hands.
Many hands make light work.
Make your art. Feel your pain, out loud. Love yourself as you love others, and others as you love yourself. Be authentic, especially when it hurts. Hold yourself and others accountable. Grow, always. Curiosity, connection seeking, is your greatest virtue.
To do liberation work is to water a garden you will never live to see fruit. It is to water that garden without knowing what fruit it will bear. It is to carry water in your cupped hands every single day to that garden, knowing it is not enough. But it is more than without you. Together, we carry.
To do liberation work is to accept the work of generations, of working on the greatest project of humanity - ourselves.
To do liberation work is to love others so much, you learn how to love yourself. Believe me, it hurts. But it is what saves me, over and over and over again.
We are all here, on this earth. We are all just stories we tell each other, occupying bodies for a time. Able to touch, ever so briefly. Why waste a moment?
Or, as Vonnegut said: "There’s only one rule that I know of, babies-’God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’”
Or, as Mary Oliver put it, "I know, you never intended to be in this world. / But you're in it all the same. / So why not get started immediately. / I mean, belonging to it."
We are all messengers. We are all trying to be Seen. Look out. There is no way to be Seen without Seeing another.
For those new to the horrible reality of the material, I welcome you. I forgive you. I love you, for all your rights and your wrongs. I am so glad you’re here. I’m going to link below a few resources that may be helpful to start your journey.
Firstly, here is my best organizing advice!
https://medium.com/@alexanderpetrovnia/the-facade-of-democracy-is-over-what-now-4783546cec0b
An introduction to narrative politics, rhetorical warfare (politics) and why it absolutely impacts your life. Aka how to begin reading the seedy underbelly of the world in human interactions and narratives around you. Written by an autist with a special interest in these things.
For queer people and those wanting to be allies (this should cover everybody), here’s an introduction to queer history and gender roles over the last 100 ish years.
https://aninjusticemag.com/the-story-of-pink-31919ba57b61
For queer people and those wanting to be allies (this should cover everybody), here’s the real story of the Stonewall Riots, how they set the stage for today, and how radical queer rebellion has given us every advantage we have today in this US — and are losing quickly.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/marsha-p-johnson-and-the-failures-of-queer-respectability-13f791becf90
