Faggot necropolitics

It's getting hard to tell whether anger or sadness is what drives me most these days. My guess is, the anger's burned out all the fuel and what's left is bitter, sad ash. I think there are a few embers left in there though. Shit metaphors aside, my fellow fags trans or not, we need to talk.

Man I sure wish I could just enjoy things

Lille freshly hosted two days of "Rencontres pédé'es". The conversations were excellent, the people lovely (and hot). We're building towards theories of faggot as a gender identity of its own, much like Wittig theorized lesbian as a gender. Lots of lovely words were said about the importance of practices and community care and togetherness as central to this particular queer identity.

Meanwhile, there were exactly two faces with masks on in the room. On day one, that was me and a fellow Mask Bloc Lille founder. On day two, that was still me and a friend who's also been fighting that fight on a slightly different stage. Meaning: apart from people who are actively doing this work, nobody else gave enough of a fuck to put a piece of meltblown on their fucking face. It's getting really old.

I'm not going to retread why you should still care. That's written better elsewhere, in more diplomatic words, with citations and pedagogy and gentle suggestions that maybe the State kind of somewhat fumbled that one a twinge. Hell, I have this mode myself when I'm face-to-face with most people, because I do in fact care more about changing minds than about being vindicated, and I know most people don't learn best from being yelled at.

What the fuck are necropolitics anyway

You'd need to ask an academic for a proper definition of necropolitics, you can go check Wikipedia for some info, but the short version is that it's a "yes and" to Foucault that theorizes the way in which power marks people for death, decides who is and isn't expendable, which lives are grievable. The concept is deeply tied to studies of colonialism (Mbembe), came up in gender studies by way of us white people treating queers of colors like garbage (Puar). This history should not be erased: the concept comes from scholars of color, notably studying Palestine, with intimate understanding of entire communities being marked for death.

Obviously, it's relevant to queers at large. You might have heard of this "AIDS" thing. I'm told it was kind of bad? You wouldn't think so, from how eager self-declared radicals are to trust the State this virus-time around.

Covid's a second serving of it all but somehow worse, community-wise. Act Up had to fight uphill back then, I know that much. But this time the consensus truly is that stuff's fine now, people aren't dying anymore (they are), long covid only happens to other people (it'll come for you too), people who still care are just paranoid weirdoes (guilty as charged on that "weirdo" part, sure).

Ableism has always been structural to many queer communities. Too broke for accessible buildings, so quick to deploy tone policing against disabled anger. Sure it's bad that you can't attend anything but can't you be NICER about it? Well, guess what, no, fuck you, you're lucky I'm not biting your head off on the spot in fact (because that requires taking off my respirator), so surely you can take a bit of heat while I sink ever-deeper into social death.

Just go complain about me to your friends at the party I can't be at. Or to your partner(s), while I'm probably going to need to extend the current dry spell to twenty goddamn years at this pace. Can you imagine that, not being able to live and love and get laid for half your life because much like you wouldn't fuck a cop or a fascist, I wouldn't want to fuck a eugenist?

You're a bloody disgrace to our history

I'm thirty-something. I did not live through the height of the AIDS crisis: I lived through school lessons about safer sex because my predecessors bled and fought and won. But you fuckos just gave up the fight right as science started converging on long covid being really, really bad.

We're having to fight Act Up on this in fact, in New York and Paris both. ACT UP. Can you imagine doing public health activism and needing to fight ACT UP OF ALL ORGANISATIONS? Yeah that one very good article that Act Up Paris published was two fags from covid spaces doing a ton of work mostly unsupported and they've since slammed the door because nothing budged. That's great, that's fine, definitely not a five alarm fire about how low we have fallen.

You'll tell me, we're so tired. Lockdown was so hard. Girls just want to have fun. Guess what, clown shoes, I would in fact like to have fun too but instead I'm here making an enemy of everyone I'd love to fuck instead, because they don't care about my health or theirs. Do you seriously, SERIOUSLY think I enjoy sitting here lecturing you instead of being able to make friends or more?

But lockdown was so hard. Guess what, clown shoes, yours truly was in Sweden during 2020. We did not lock down ever. What I had was an entire State telling me I was wrong to worry, that masks were unecessary, that keeping schools open and infecting kids was the golden path to herd immunity. In hindsight that was a blessing, because it means I can draw a straight line between your current attitude and Anders fucking Tegnell. Sweden made me a monster and thank god for that, because only monsters can survive the pseudo-benevolent kind of cruelty you barely known you're deploying.

Hate would be easier

The worst part is that I still don't hate you. I can't. There's too much love and care in me under the rage. Too much love for the ways we speak, for limp wrists and canted hips, for the delightful brand of bitchiness we so readily deploy. For how whip-smart and sharp so many of us are, for those giant hearts that nonetheless never seem to make room for me and my frankly rather basic need to *checks notes* not end up extra-disabled.

At the heart of my anguish is knowing, Cassandra-style, that I am right even though no one believes me. It will come for you. You might die. More likely, because the vaccines truly are miraculous, you'll "just" get sick. And then, one in five-to-ten of you will see your body fail in random ways. You'll learn that doctors won't help you, if you hadn't already. That's why I keep being so goddamn annoying. Because this is, in fact, avoidable, easily so, and I care about you.

I just wish you cared about me. It hurts so much more being this close to finally belonging somewhere.