trans

It's Probably Weird That I Feel Nothing, Right?

On what non-leftists need to understand about violence.

Past therapists of mine have taught me how to distinguish between my thoughts and my feelings. I used to be a lot less emotionally developed than I am now (I blame the patriarchy!), so when they asked me the infamous “how does that make you feel”, I used to respond by sharing my thoughts rather than my emotions. “I think this thing happened because…” or “these are the possible things that would have happened if I had taken this course of action” or “this person probably acted this way because of these reasons” are very different answers than “I felt frustrated/betrayed/loss/dysphoria in that moment.”

I lay out this distinction to provide context to the statement that when I first heard that Charlie Kirk got shot, I didn’t really feel much of anything. I had a lot of thoughts—wow, that’s terrible; I wonder how it happened; he was such a cruel person; I wonder if this happening at a university will have implications for my job; I better stay extra safe today since this will definitely be used to justify further violence against trans people (not that they really needed a justification)—but not many feelings to be found.

(To be extremely clear: I think it was bad that Charlie Kirk got murdered and all political violence like this should be condemned. Not just because of the inevitably ramping up of violence toward minorities that is already taking place, but because murder is wrong, plain and simple. Regular readers will understand my anti-accelerationist tendencies, but I just wanted to state that outright so there’s no room for interpretation. And yes, while I struggle to find empathy for a man who provided this world no empathy to speak of, obviously I feel empathy for Kirk’s family members and friends, as they don’t deserve to suffer.)

I’d like to interrogate my own initial non-reaction to this shooting. It would have been entirely valid for me to have felt, for example, fear about how anti-trans violence would increase in the coming days. Unfortunately, as someone who’s been paying close attention to the ongoing genocide against trans people for years, I’ve already been feeling that fear for quite a long time. In just the past month alone, Republicans have attempted to ban “positive depictions” of trans people, stated their intent to ban trans people from owning guns, taken away $81 in federal sex ed funding, and successfully banned millions trans people from accessing life-saving health care and public bathrooms, all while Democrats court an openly anti-trans governor as their next potential presidential candidate.

And that’s just the stuff that makes headlines. I hear about dolls committing suicide and self-harm daily. There are hundreds of trans people getting murdered whose stories never make the news (at least 177 this year so far). To borrow a phrase from a Black community, my prevailing thought when I heard about Kirk’s murder and how conservatives were already spinning this as being trans people’s fault was simply “it’s Wednesday”.

…So, I know what this looks like. When left-leaning folks talk about anti-trans violence or the ongoing genocide in Gaza in the context of Charlie Kirk’s murder, it’s easy to view it as political posturing or whataboutism, a hand-waving away of a clearly violent and unacceptable murder. That’s definitely what The Right wants you to see it as, and perhaps that’s what some people are doing. However, the vast majority of the time, what we’re trying to get at is something deeper: we have all been desensitized to violence to a very uncomfortable degree.

I certainly don’t think Charlie Kirk’s murder was “good”. I don’t think anybody should be murdered for their beliefs or actions, no matter how dangerous, full stop. In a my ideal, abolitionist world, anybody who spent their life lying about minorities and stoking their own political violence would take part in some form of restorative labor (or in extreme cases would be exiled from society). If retributive justice is more your thing, perhaps they could receive some sort of trial, Nuremberg-style, where they atone for their crimes in a legitimate court setting and receive a proportionate (but not cruel or unusual) punishment. Vigilantism is not justice, no matter how “justified” it may feel.

Not that Kirk was actually murdered by a left-wing person seeking retribution for his right-wing beliefs, as many mainstream news outlets falsely claimed; indeed, the shooter is a far-right cis white man who appears to be a Groyper, put simply a member of a 4chan group who thought Charlie Kirk was too far to the left. (Check out these fact-checking reports for an explanation of the strange bullet casing messages, and note that these Groyper claims are not confirmed. Much like Trump’s attempted shooter from last year, this guy was likely too stewed in niche meme cultures to have coherent politics.)

That said, it’s difficult for us on the left to care for the death of this one man because we’ve been steeped in death for, at minimum, the past two years. For many of us, our lives have been defined by political violence. I’m sure I don’t need to go into (just off the top of my head) the Gaza, police violence, preventable COVID deaths, ICE, school shootings, MMIW, and entire American healthcare system of it all. As I write this, at least six HBCUs are on lockdown out of fear of violence from right-wingers.

This is the America that conservatives like Charlie Kirk made. We sit in the reality of these things every single waking moment of our lives. It’s traumatizing, cortisol-spiking, nervous system-activating, and having an effect on all socially-conscious people on a cellular level.

Do we want to live this way? Absolutely not. Is it a toxic element of leftist culture that we feel a responsibility to feel this way as a sort of penance for the privileged western lives we lead? Yes, in fact there’s a case to be made that this is a consequence of unchecked white supremacy or weird Christian self-flagellation ideology. But if we’re supposed to “meet people where they’re at” in terms of their political persuasions towards far-right talking points, it’s only fair that you understand where we are coming from.

Next time you hear someone defending a violent person in the name of civility, I urge you to call it out, ideally with some nuance. And crucially, next time you hear someone saying that “leftists are just triggered by everything”, I want you to remember the literal, medical definition of “triggered”: a symptom of PTSD, chronic anxiety, or other persistent health issue that causes a strong negative reaction.

I’m a more emotionally mature person these days, but times like these can get me to fall back into old patterns; putting up walls, retreating from friends, or just shutting down emotionally. Fortunately, I’ve recently found an all-transfemme support group local to me that meets biweekly in-person. Something about seeing trans women my age struggle alongside each other motivates me to keep going. In particular, there are some in the group who are just starting their transition right now of all times. Charlie Kirk once described trans people as “a throbbing middle finger to God”; I couldn’t think of a better (or more badass) description myself if I tried. Trans people, in the face of everything that tells them not to, choose their own destiny, they choose life over being eaten away at. If the far-right has a death drive, motivating its base with narratives of death and invasion and corruption, perhaps we can enchant people with an alternative.

Currently Reading

PragerU is now feeding children ahistorical AI slop in schools. What a great timeline!
Speaking of AI, companies are now realizing that getting AI to do their coding for them is a bad idea, as they hire humans just to correct the mistakes that vibe coders make. Also, this week that it was reported that AI adoption at large companies has dipped for the first time. Bring on the AI winter!!

Watch History

An essay I wish I had written first: a Debordian analysis of modern femininity in the age of AI models.
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Bops, Vibes, & Jams

The new King Princess project Girl Violence is out and I’m enjoying it so far! Fav tracks: “Cry Cry Cry” & “RIP KP”.
Every semester, I ask my students to tell me what they’ve been listening lately so I can make a class playlist that I play at the start of every class. They’ve already put me onto some great tracks, including “homesick” by wave to earth, “The Largest” by BigXthaPlug, and “Hot Blooded” by New Constellations.

And now, your weekly Koko.