T.M. Shannon

Hi everyone,

It goes without saying it’s been turbulent couple of weeks in the world, the lot of us cursed with living in interesting times. I just never thought I’d live to see a repeat of Nazi Germany and all the worst parts of Jim Crow and McCarthyism.

Now I know what you’ll say, “You’re in Australia, this doesn’t affect you,” well, my son lives there, and I’m seriously considering emailing my ex to bring him back to Oz. But besides that, my queer brothers, sisters, and themsters are already copping it, just like in old Nazi Germany.

Sure, life goes on here, but there’s a political party already angling to bring the Fourth Reich down under, already sounding the alarm bells to white men losing their “hegemony” at the hands of DEI – in short, inability to adapt to the new economy and intransigence towards those who can.

But on the home this week, it’s been level 2 depression and addiction withdrawals, which my psych picked up as an ADHD thing, and, well, I have another diagnosis to add to the collection. It’s lifted to 4 now, still some tail end, but I’ve got a med that’s already helping out very well.

Oh, and no blog posts for a while, and I’m struggling to fit punching short stories out and worried about plagiarism and getting scraped by AI, but my AO3 invite came Thursday, and I’ll soon be posting stuff there when I take break weeks from the new project.

And speaking of projects, it’s down to saving up for an editor and cover designer, and waiting for the manuscript assessment of Three Ways, though that June/July release is looking shaky, and I’m worried about publishing in the states – I’ll let you guess at the project behind this.

So, here goes, because it’s already headed down the path of concentration camps and the selection.

Trump Card Played

Yeah, he’s back, this time with a vengeance. Amped up on Project 2025, the darling lovechild of greed and narcissism has made the first goosesteps towards Heil Hitler again, beginning with the trans bogeyperson.

Historical parallels? The first books the Nazi’s burned were about studies into sexual and gender identity, and we can’t have non-cishets existing when you need to make Master Race babies that you don’t even look like you, you brown-haired, brown-eyed psychopath.

Was it seen miles away? You bet, but swing voters and boycotters ignored the Repugnant Party rhetoric spewing out over the last 4 years alone, let alone all the rancour of before, or just decided the small subset of trans people in the US are a worthy sacrifice on the altar of F*** You.

And is it just the trans people? Nope, DEI is already executed and wielded as the updated N-bomb, the government pages are already wiped out, Elon Musk has downloaded just about everything about people and I fear is going to get to some serious garnisheeing on Social Security.

A whole lot of censorship is affecting scientific studies and grants, the LGB is severely missing the TQIA+ on travel advice, the whole 10 trans athletes under the NCAA are persona non grata, the FBI and CIA are about to be gutted to who knows who’s delight (Vlad, maybe?), the whole shebang.

It’s only been three weeks, and the swingers and conned are at last awake to Trump with some serious caveat emptor, to a lot of disdain over on Bluesky (follow me there btw, the sky is blue!) about leopard face eating, FAFO, why would you believe a proven liar and whatnot. And I’ve taken part.

But I do see a reason to start a new 12-Step group to get people off their addiction to Trump and MAGA, because the whole shebang is pure dopamine fuel, and the only way out of such traps is hitting a rock bottom and deciding to do whatever it takes or remain in the trap until death.

Maybe the left-leaning can back off a bit, allow some healing space, not go too hard. But the anger is palpable, these people were warned, these people saw 2016-2020, and 2020-2024, these people believed a documented serial liar who just spews BS 24/7 wasn’t part of Project 2025.

But here’s where it cuts home.

The Watershed Phobia

The sheer erasure of a whole tract of people – members of the community who go through greater struggles than trying to work out your sexuality – is gobsmacking, repugnant, and outright evil.

These are flesh and blood, senses and intuitions, feelings and desires, hopes and dreams people, and the first victims of this neo-fascism – because the rest of the community is also affected by gross censorship of terms in studies, grants, government websites.

It’s not just plain phobia, it’s acute, laser beams on target dehumanising and delegitimising a bogeyman, of which there are multiple to Annoying Orange – immigrants, people of colour, children of naturalised people, and I’m willing to bet he’ll go after birthright residents, my son being one of them.

Yeah, I’ve messaged my ex about having her green card on her, trusting her watching things like a hawk, and like I said above I’m holding off asking he to get him out for some semblance from safety – but who knows what the world is going to become when a nuclear superpower goes bat-S.H.I.T. crazy.

And make no mistake, it is phobia. It is white cishet people cracking down on anything non white cishet, mobilised by their innate fear of competing with a level playing field when they’ve enjoyed privilege up until now.

But unlike natural selection, they haven’t sought a new food source, either too lazy or too used to superiority to care about doing something positive and life-changing.

Do I digress? Yeah, I do, but this is how pissed off I am on the other side of the Pacific Ocean and the equator.

Why can’t we just love our neighbours as we love ourselves, seeing the likeness and image of God in everyone, and show the utmost kindness to that likeness and image?

Why can’t we have peace?

Why have we got to go after the different, like they’re the greatest threat to humanity, rather than Agent Orange with an apocalypse button in his desk and travelling briefcase?

I bloody well weep for what is happening to Trans people in the States, I fear it happening here. Besides the erasure, the bathroom bans that will lead to assaults, murders, the care bans that will lead to mental crises and suicides, an “up yours” rhetoric that’s seen support lines go into meltdown.

And this is all in three weeks.

Yeah, we’d always be in a world where phobia existed, but this is a dinosaur-killing asteroid of phobia. And as disheartening that is, I can only imagine a fraction of the feeling on the ground.

And I am so, so, so sorry all I can do about it is post this blog and post/reply on Bluesky.

The Few Green Shoots

But it isn’t without shreds of hope, no matter the gates of hell telling us to abandon it.

While a few hospitals have obeyed in advance and cut trans care for under 19’s (and they’re being protested already), plenty of others and their states have affirmed care in the face of avaricious and maniacal tyranny.

The relocation of trans prisoners into birth-gendered prisons has been put on hold for now. Suits are being filed against other Executive Orders affecting trans people, and it was Transgender Day of Visibility yesterday.

Schools have sworn to defy the anti-trans BS being shoved down their throats (as the right are prone to say about us existing and having media presence is us shoving it down their throat).

These are small starts, though I’m wondering why this is just it – which could be me solely on Bluesky and not delving into media reporting, though I follow a couple of independent journalists and have read a couple of things.

In all honesty, it’s time I delve into more of that, rather than just doomscolling (which isn’t good for the depression or the addiction). But these rays of sunlight piercing the ugly black clouds are exactly what Andy Dufresne sensed in The Shawshank Redemption.

And if you know that’s a retelling of Dante’s Inferno, you know the way out is going down the devil’s poop chute into the cleansing rain of purgatory.

Somewhere is a way out of this mess, or else it’s all over, ta-ta US hegemony, congrats patriots, you blew yourselves into a North Korean hole – and the tariffs didn’t work, the markets crashed, and Mexico and Canada promised what they were already doing, playing the ego to win.

Maybe we should all have another watch of Shawshank, to show us what we’re fighting for and against. Maybe its time for the targets to exercise their 2^nd Amendment rights. I don’t know the real answer.

Just I hope it happens before gas chambers, medical and psychological experimentation to “change” people, working the queer people to death, segregating everybody with coloured symbols, because I’m not sure the entire world has the capability of taking this Axis of Evil.

Sure, I see bleakness and a Holocaust up ahead. The second season of Nazism is unfolding just like the first. And I fear it will come for me here in Oz, with an upcoming bisexual romance awaiting its time with the editor, or else in the future.

But, and I say this unequivocally, this is all the petulant wah wah of fragile cishet, false prophet-following Caucasians who, while they focus on a tranche of toxic masculinity and the fight club mentality, wouldn’t survive in the cave days.

And as someone who believes in evolution and the divine, guys and gals, find yourself a new food source and re-read the Gospels.

Yeah, I’m angry, upset, dismayed, and disgusted that people could make target of those who aren’t them and do everything to wipe them out over and over again.

I just hope people can make this right, because it’s going so, so wrong all over again, just for some to feel “safe” when they were the ones doing the attacking all along.

Take care, call support lines, build and build your networks, stay safe, and do whatever you have to do to survive and thrive, and I’m sorry I can’t take it all away.

Yours,
T. M.