#particularly one about this issue that just made my blood boil. like um you dont live here and your first instinct is to joke about it?

[degenderates]

i’ll tell you one thing i’ve realized during this anti-queer panic and legislation in the US which is that i am so fucking tired of non-americans/USAians (mainly europeans, but also white or white-passing folks who move to europe), telling us to “just leave the country” like it’s that easy or that simple. i’m done with it! maybe it was funny at first (it wasn’t), but the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people--especially queer people--in this country don’t have the means to just move or even travel beyond the borders. expenses of moving to a new country aside, the US is fucking huge and being bordered by mostly water, you can’t just ta-da! take a $30 train into another country. plenty of people never even have left their state! so seeing as this legislation is affecting people on a state-by-state basis (because the US is basically fifty different small governments that can’t make up their mind about anything between each other), people will be forced to live by the rules where they live. there’s no packing up from tennessee and just waltzing on over to california or michigan. the states where this queerphobic legislation and violence is affecting people the most are the states where poor people live and can’t just leave. not to mention you’d be leaving behind a cultural part of yourself, especially when it comes to race & ethnicity in different parts of the country.

but, you ask, if you do have the means to leave, and put aside worries of cultural ties, why don’t you? i can’t speak for every american when i say this, but i love my country. i hate its violent history and its narrow politics, but that’s not what i speak of. i love this land, i love the people who live here. with all its flaws, the US is a beautiful place and most of my loved ones live here. hypothetically speaking, i wouldn’t just immigrate back to korea or italy and leave my family and friends behind. i wouldn’t abandon the queer people who couldn’t leave just to save myself. is that what you europeans think people should do? well ha ha very funny, but when i pledged allegiance to the american flag as a kid it wasn’t because i believed in everything it stood for, but everything i wanted it to stand for. and i will fight for that. if a trans genocide happens upon us, i will be here for that. we will all be here for that.