Good Riddance to 2025

A closeup of a thin twig, covered with a dusting of snow, with dead, drooping leaves hanging off of it. All in all, a good visual representation of how I feel at the end of 2025.

Not gonna lie, I don't really want to look back at the shithole year we're about to leave behind. Even as I type this, the year continues to be shitty, with two GOP congressional representatives putting forth bills likely to be voted on before Christmas that target transgender youth healthcare nationwide.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is no less cartoonishly evil just because she's decided to nope out of Congress after the current term, is behind a bill that would ban all gender-affirming care for minors and make it a felony to provide that care. Meanwhile, Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw is putting forward a bill that would bar Medicaid from funding gender-affirming care for minors.

How lovely to realize that, in the days just before the biggest commercial and Christian holiday of the year, Christian fascists are mounting a full frontal assault on the tiny minority community to which I belong at the federal level. And that's just the insult icing on the injury cake that has been 2025, perhaps the most 2020 year since, well, 2020.

A black IKEA bookshelf on which three of the four shelves are more filled with stacks of toilet paper rolls than they are with books.
But hey, at least we've got the TP covered. Kids born around or after 2020 will never understand what a stash of this nature was worth at the height of the pandemic, but it would have been worth at least one, probably even two gallons of hand sanitizer. Which, um, was also worth a lot.

It is deeply demoralizing, feeling both targeted and essentially powerless. Because I moved from Portland, Oregon just across the Columbia River into Southwest Washington to save money, my own congressional representative, while officially a "Democrat," may well vote for one or both of the anti-trans bills the house will consider in the waning days of this year. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez acts with absolute contempt for the actual constituency that elected her and fixates on the weirdest niche issues while she ignores the constitutional crisis the country is in.

It also grating to remember that I spent much of the Biden years predicting a federal assault on the rights of marginalized people like we're seeing now. I founded this newsletter in August 2023 to explore the issue of American moral panic and scapegoating in relation to my own personal experience, study, and reflections. I've also discussed how hardcore right-wing states like Florida and Texas functioned (and continue to function) as laboratories for fascist policy that would inform the national Republican approach the next time the GOP took control of the federal government. And here we are.

Much of the time, I feel like I can't influence anything anywhere... I know that's not entirely true. Winning the Freedom From Religion Foundation's 2025 Freethought Heroine award was a highlight of my year, and it was lovely connecting with actual human beings at the convention in October. The whole thing also reminded me that my writings do reach people and sometimes have an impact, even though I often feel like a Cassandra shouting into the void. I now have my FFRF award plaque mounted above my desk, and I look up at it when I'm tempted to fall into total despair.

Since October, I've had a rougher time again, and that's likely because of the relative social isolation I experience most of the time as an introvert who works from home. I need to do something about that in 2026, find some way to get regularly involved in local communal activities.

As the year winds down, I do find I'm able to get some rest, and hopefully that will help me have a clear head going in to 2026. But I also need hope, and that's a little harder to come by. Harder, but not impossible. Despite Republican gerrymandering, the results of special elections in 2025 give me hope for the 2026 midterms. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that my home state of Indiana rejected a gerrymander against Donald Trump's explicit wishes, a possible indication that Republican state politicians in at least some red states are beginning to feel pressure from below regarding Republican overreach...

So with that, I'll sign off for the year. I'll be spending the holidays with my little found family here in the PNW, and will hopefully find enough rest and love and hope to enter 2026 with the motivation to work hard and do the things I know I need to do to improve my life, despite the Republican politics of hatred against trans people. (I will say, spending time in South Carolina at the FFRF convention reminded me that on the ground, in basic day-to-day interactions, things are mostly pretty normal in spite of it all.)

While this will be my last post of the year, I'll check in for comments, so feel free to let me know what's giving you hope this holiday season, or how you're coping, or what you're struggling with. I know this can be a lonely and painful period for many, and I have some awkward feelings about my own relatives and some strained relationships... I hate the estrangement shaming our legacy media love to push on us this time of year. So be real, be safe, and take care of yourself this holiday season.

In January, I'll get The Bugbear Dispatch back on track with every other post being paywalled, every other post free. Merry Whatevermas!

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