TFW your tech work needs a trigger warning

It happens sometimes. I do web work and other kinds of tech support for community organizations, some of whom I work with outside of paid work. Working at this intersection of technology, my activism and my communities means I get shaken up at unexpected times.

Today I was working on a plan for a new website for the Audre Lorde Project, an organization I've worked with both professionally and politically for more than a decade now. I was checking out their site analytics to get a sense of what their site traffic might indicate about who's coming to the site, and for what.

I pulled up a report of their site traffic over the past year and saw two huge spikes. I started looking into the first one.

Dream, 8/11/15

Originally posted on Facebook.

While lying in bed preparing to get up and face the day, I remembered a dream I had last night and felt compelled not only to write it down but to share it with my friends. (I'm sharing with my Facebook Friends but thinking of the friends in my dream, my friends and comrades in Oakland.)

On the passing of Maya Angelou

As I took my usual morning scroll through my Facebook feed, I saw one, then two, then more and more quotations from Maya Angelou. After the third I realized this was no fluke and most likely meant one of two things: today is her birthday and she's getting way more wonderful tributes than I've seen for her in the past; or today Maya Angelou died. I think I knew it was the latter but held out hope until I saw the first post confirming that she has died. Rest in power, Dr. Angelou.

Thoughts on transmisogyny

What do you mean trans women are women? (Meme from Radicallyqueer.wordpress.com)
Meme courtesy of Radically Queer

Transmisogyny--transphobia directed specifically and often exclusively at trans women--has felt continually rampant in many of my communities for an entire decade now.

I frequently witness transphobia against trans women expressed by people who do not similarly target trans men, thus rendering this particular expression of transphobia sexist in a somewhat traditional sense.

Anaheim youth speak out

It's heartbreaking and awful that these kids had to experience and witness police brutality in Anaheim. But it's also amazing to hear this group of young Latin@s of many genders speak about their experience. They were scared by what happened to them -- the girl in the preview frame was hit in the leg by a rubber bullet -- but they're not scared to speak up, to come up with their own opinions about the situation, and to demand justice. It might sound corny or trite but youth like these give me hope for our future.

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