<
https://newrepublic.com/article/203699/trans-leave-united-states-portugal>
"As the plane prepared to depart from Newark International Airport, JD Goulet
felt like “the earth was going to collapse beneath us before we got in the
air.” Seated beside them was their wife, their son, and their son’s boyfriend,
all three of whom are trans. The family was bound for Portugal, with no plans
to return. Goulet, who is nonbinary, and their wife were both “covered in rings
and necklaces and stuff shoved in our pockets,” Goulet said: “a bunch of
hand-me-down stuff from her mom and my dad’s mom” to take to their new life.
Everything else the family still owned was crammed into 13 suitcases. It was
springtime in 2023. When the plane’s wheels lifted off the ground, Goulet
exhaled, only then realizing that they had been holding their breath for a long
time.
When the couple made the decision to leave the United States, they left behind
their still-new home in Savannah, Georgia. Living in this “blue spot in a red
state,” they told me, after living “in the red area of a blue state,” in
eastern Washington, “gave me some of the awareness that nowhere is safe.”
Goulet had been a board member of the region’s Planned Parenthood affiliate,
joining not long after a health center in Pullman, Washington, was firebombed.
In 2018, Goulet and their 15-year-old son had the unsettling experience of
attending a March for Our Lives event while far-right group Patriot Prayer
tried to hold a rally in the same location. Goulet ran for the Washington state
legislature as a Democrat in 2016, 2018, and 2020, and ended up at the same
tables as far-right state Representative Matt Shea, who at the time was
planning a Christian nationalist homeland, following a “biblical” civil war. “I
was raised in an evangelical church and went to evangelical private schools,”
Goulet said. “I’m not a stranger to what they want and what they are willing to
do.”
As time went on and the far right gained traction, the family discussed vague
plans to leave the United States. Finally, on the night when a man broke into
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and violently assaulted her husband, they
knew it was time."
Via
Garbage Day: Your kids are watching nazislop on TikTok
https://www.garbageday.email/p/your-kids-are-watching-nazislop-on-tiktok
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
