https://joadt.substack.com/p/the-paperwork-will-kill-you
"Marianne kept a small stack of old intake forms in the bottom drawer of her
desk. The top page still listed three pronouns. The bottom had a question about
tribal affiliation, with a checkbox that read: "Does the survivor want a tribal
liaison present?" It was all outdated now. She couldn't use them. But she
hadn't thrown them away.
This is how bureaucracy works: not with grand announcements, but with small
deletions. A pronoun field disappears. A checkbox vanishes. Language is
stripped away word by word until what remains is barely recognizable as human.
The forms told a story, if you knew how to read them. Marianne had learned to
read them like weather reports, like an omen. She understood that power reveals
itself not in what it adds, but in what it takes away.
By March, the new forms were on their fourth revision in six months. The latest
version had no pronouns at all. The gender field now read: "Biological Sex
(F/M)." In the bottom right corner, a new DHS directive required that they
"note immigration status where known." In parentheses, someone in Helena had
added: (Do not ask if uncertain) a sentence that said nothing, meant
everything.
The forms came from Washington by way of Helena, and they always arrived late.
They came in bulk print jobs, on government stock that smelled like printer ink
and dust. The women who filled them out were often too tired to notice the
changes. But Marianne noticed. She read them like tea leaves, like entrails.
Each revision was a small apocalypse, a world ending in bureaucratic silence.
She didn't blame the younger staff when they didn't understand. They hadn't
been here when VAWA was strong, when the Department of Justice had tribal
liaisons who picked up the phone. When funding was automatic and renewal was
assumed. Before the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization stalled in
Congress, first in 2018, then again in 2020, each time cut down by Republican
amendments that stripped tribal and LGBTQ+ protections.
They didn't know that in 2016, she could call an advocate at DOJ and get a
translator on the phone in under an hour. That the Crow shelter near Pryor used
to have its own grant line. That back then, nobody asked for a birth
certificate. Nobody needed to prove their gender. Nobody needed to prove their
right to exist."
Voa Janet Logan.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
