Oh, the places you'll go (not so invisible)

I'm skipping Pride in Minneapolis this year (2026). At first, I was not sure why, then I realized I don't really feel connected to my community. I'm not sure if it is because a couple of my friends have moved over the past couple of years, or because I have made what efforts I can to connect with my community and feel like they have not made the same. It's not like I feel like they owe me, though I have supported the local artists and contributed to mutual aids and given away free art and was used as a political tool as one of the main impetuses for the ban on conversion therapy and the passing of the trans refuge bill. It's also not just the queer community in which I have been a co-conspirator either.

Yet oftentimes I feel like they treat me like I do not exist, or worse, like they hate me.

Similar to my feelings about how Minnesota has treated me as a transexual, I will not be in the US to celebrate the 250th Anniversary. These declarations were made for the freedom, justice, and equality of all, and our country has failed to live up to that promise. We are meant to be able to pursue liberty and happiness.

I have often wondered what liberty and happiness means for everyone, and one of the things that the UN has settled on as a right for humankind is the freedom of movement unrestrained. This right is something that has been horrifically stripped away from my trans siblings these past couple of years in the United States.

I do not understand why my community in Minnesota does not treat me like an equal, yet I know what is happening in our country is beyond a reasonable doubt without defense.

I hope as I travel to find fellowship with fellow artists and nature enthusiasts.