It's a scary time to be a trans person in the US right now. The latest and not-greatest thing is the so-called Big Beautiful Bill which scraped through the House by one vote. Among (many) other things, it would remove insurance coverage for transgender healthcare from Medicaid for all ages.
It would also remove millions of people's access to Medicaid health insurance entirely.
https://www.vox.com/health/414045/big-beautiful-bill-congress-trump-medicaid-cuts
This is very scary. But I have a few pieces of good news.
First, cis people and rich people don't like this bill either. Even Elon and Republicans are expressing some concerns.
https://open.substack.com/pub/levremembers/p/trumps-inner-circle-collapsing-elon
This means that we have a sliver of hope that it won't pass the Senate and won't become law. I've called my Senators and made my opinion clear: will you?
Second, this bill doesn't ban healthcare providers from prescribing gender-affirming care. It just stops Medicaid from paying for that care. And, that is very bad, don't get me wrong, but it could mean that hormones or surgery billed under diagnostic codes that are not gender dysphoria could still be prescribed and covered. (Possibly, I mean, I'm not a lawyer.)
Also, trans people have been DIY’ing their access to hormones without insurance coverage for a long time. I'm not saying it's easy, just possible.
Sebastian Barr has a great essay on how to survive these attacks on trans healthcare:
https://open.substack.com/pub/sebastianmbarr/p/i-believe-you-can-survive-the-most
I think we need to express a full range of emotions to survive and thrive despite these and other legal challenges.
It can be healthy to be angry, or joyful with a friend, or withdrawn, or sad, or motivated, or happy. These (and more) are all okay.
I encourage you to try to let go of any guilt or shame surrounding how you feel in such stressful times. There's a ton of people out there (trust me, they've talked to me) who say I have too much anger, or too much sadness, or too much joy, too much…feeling.
Well I, for one, am not a robot. AI has not taken over my feelings. I'm not going to subject you right now to the first draft of this post where I list all the things I'm angry about.
Instead I want to talk about an underappreciated emotion: awe. I believe we need awe to live our best lives despite stressful circumstances.
I get my awe mostly from being in nature. Wow, look at that bird or that canyon or those stars!
I was amazed to see several endangered California condors in Pinnacles National Park recently. I found it awe-inspiring to witness these giant birds soaring overhead. The towering rocks and views to the horizon were incredible as well:
https://open.substack.com/pub/reykatz/p/still-here-california-condors
I think for us to live together and support each other in community we need to be amazed and awestruck together sometimes. Maybe your awe comes from art or athletics or friends or God.
What have you found awe-some or fantastic? Feel free to share in the comments.
Take care,
Rey
