When it comes to home maintenance, I know next to nothing. So, I’ve been following Mercury Stardust—AKA the trans handy ma’am—on TikTok and Instagram for a while, both to learn what I can and because she’s such a joyful person. She has a book on renter-friendly home repair coming out this month (you can preorder it here), and she’ll be going on a book tour to promote it.
Two of her many, many tour stops are in Florida: Common Ground Books in Tallahassee and Mojo Books in Tampa. Ever since the city and date announcements came out, people have been commenting on her posts, asking if she’s sure she should go there and expressing their fear for her safety. The comments are so frequent, in fact, that she made a video addressing them. In it, she says:
“I’m scared. I’m not going to lie to you, I’m scared. I would be crazy not to be scared, to be honest. But here’s the truth of it. There’s people who are trans who live in Florida right now and can’t leave—they can’t afford to leave or don’t have the means to leave. The people who are the same way in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Texas; Missouri; Georgia; Tennessee. And we’re going to all those places; we’re going to all those places because I believe that’s where I’m needed the most. The people who are the most affected by the wrongs in this world, the people who are the most downtrodden, need help, and they need, sometimes, a little bit of hope. And I think a little bit of stardust coming to town with a big laugh and a big smile, signing a whole lot of books and telling them they’re worth the time it takes to learn a new skill—hey, you know what, for that one day, they’re going to feel a little bit better. And that’s worth it for me. It’s worth it for me. It’s always been worth it for me.”
I found Mercury’s response thoughtful and warm. I wish more people acknowledged the queer and trans Floridians who still live there—their resilience, their grace, their love for one another and for their home. The political climate there is something far worse than hostile; of course, the people there deserve hope, laughter, and smiles.
Mercury’s answer was the best one she could give to the questions her fans were asking, and I’m so glad she addressed the very real concern of being a trans person traveling to—or living in—Florida.
But there’s more to the story.
Zoe and I left Florida almost exactly a year ago, and other than attending my brother’s wedding, we haven’t been back. It was the right decision for us—but it wasn’t an easy one.
I spent about five years living in Florida, spread across my childhood and my college years, while Zoe is a born-and-raised Floridian. Our experiences there aren’t limited to Disney World and beaches. I spent most of my time in cities—Orlando and Jacksonville—and Zoe lived in a rural area. Those facts are, in and of themselves, enough to complicate the narrative. There isn’t a distinct Florida, nor is there a monolithic Floridian.
I won’t lie to you: being queer in Florida could be difficult. Once, at a smoothie shop, another customer complained to his friend about our “faggy pants” (Zoe’s were jeans with embroidered flowers; mine were black-and-white checked slacks). I once got a ride from a straight girl who was titillated by driving past Pulse. When our friend group walked across campus at night, frat bros would hurl insults, slurs, and sexual harassment out their car windows. Someone once threatened to burn down our predominantly queer residence hall on Yik Yak—our administrators offered us food to make up for it. When we were leaving my brother’s wedding in the panhandle, I was harassed by an old man because I used the men’s restroom at the airport.
And, really, we thought none of that counted as difficult. Those kinds of things happened to us so frequently that it was more surprising to have a harassment-free day.
I think that there’s a hate crime scarcity mindset: this idea that if someone out there is experiencing something worse than you did, then what happened didn’t matter all that much. People varying degrees of privilege, and our intersectional identities inform our varied experiences. Sometimes, we commiserate with one another. Sometimes, we keep what happened to us secret because it wasn’t that bad. But that’s how the right wants us to think; they want us to feel like what we experience isn’t a big deal because someone else has it worse, and they want us to focus on the worst case scenarios so that we’ll grow more tolerant of all the other shades of bullshit. Or, if they can swing it, they want us to feel grateful that we aren’t dealing with something worse, and they want us to shut up so that we don’t call attention to ourselves, so that we can avoid the worst case scenarios happening to us. Let them happen to someone else, right? Fall into a cycle of complacency and apathy and looking the other way, yeah?
So, we packed up our shit and left. We moved up north, riding Amtrak all the way to state-level legal protections for queer people.
When we got here, we started running into an expectation of gratitude; after all, we escaped Florida and made it to the Yankee holy land. (No, nobody but me has ever actually called it that.) On more than one occasion, someone said to me and Zoe, “God, I wish Florida would just fall into the ocean.”
Don’t get me wrong: Zoe and I are happy to be in New York. I have easy access to GAHT and other gender-affirming care, with a doctor who respects my identity. We got married. There are legal protections in place for us when we decide to become parents. We have a lovely community of friends. Zoe gets to enjoy seasons for the first time.
But why would we want Florida to get wiped off the map?
The issue isn’t just that hearing that stokes our climate anxiety—though it does that, too. Florida is our home. We have family there, and friends—chosen family. We had to uproot our lives to move here, and part of us will forever long for Florida soil. Zoe and I often discuss whether we’ll ever be able to go back, even just to visit, let alone to live. When we have those conversations, our guilt and grief for leaving is near-impossible to contain; Zoe cries, and my entire body tenses up (since starting T, it takes a lot to make me cry).
Writing off an entire state as unsalvageable, as worthy of sinking—even a state governed by a fascist—is falling into the Republican trap and looking the other way. It’s something you can only say if you’ve never lived there.
Because living there is more than just hate speech and bias incidents. For every person who misgendered us, we had friends who affirmed our identities. We were harassed by frat bros, sure, but we also danced at drag shows. Yes, we cried, but more often, we laughed. Florida is the first place where I found comfort and joy in my queerness. Florida is where I met so many of my favorite people. Florida is where I fell in love. Florida is my home.
Living in New York, Zoe and I have still faced discrimination and harassment. People still stare at us when we hold hands in public. Conservatives still complain about LGBTQ+ merchandise in Target. When I interviewed for a job at the university where Zoe works, I was told that they couldn’t guarantee that people there would use my name and pronouns—the literal bare minimum a person has to do to be decent. Zoe helped organize and lead protests at their school when alt-right speakers visited. The clerk who gave us our marriage license tried as hard as she could to misgender Zoe and force us into more “traditional” naming structures. Sometimes, the shit we deal with here feels worse because assholes are sneakier about it, careful to do everything they can to fuck with us without meeting the threshold of legal discrimination. At least in Florida, we sometimes say, you can tell who the bigots are just by looking.
Maybe love is harder to see in Florida, and hate is harder to see in New York. But in both places—in all places—love and hate coexist.
I can’t make anyone care about Florida the way Zoe and I do. I can’t even necessarily make them understand it. But so often when people talk about the differences between the North and the South, they forget that bad shit happens everywhere. No place is free from ignorance, hate, prejudice, discrimination, violence. Even if it looks different, even if it’s harder to see, it’s still there. But if bad shit happens everywhere, so does good shit. Not every queer person who lives in Florida right now is there because they can’t afford to leave. So many of them are there because it’s their home, because they love it. There is so much queer resilience—and, more than that, joy—to be found there.
After I’ve spent five years here, maybe New York will have become my second home. Who knows? But it’ll never replace the love I have for Florida. And, to quote Mercury Stardust, “It’s worth it to me. It’s always been worth it for me.”
Kentucky kudzu. If you didn’t catch yesterday’s special edition of my newsletter, you can find it here:
It’s a discussion of SB 150, Kentucky’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors.
Extra, extra! Speaking of special edition—I realized that not every current event I want to discuss fits neatly into one or two paragraphs of Ephemera. So, when I find myself having a lot to say about something that doesn’t quite fit with the personal essay format of my standard newsletter but feels important enough to discuss, I’ll send out a special edition. You can expect to see one about the Emmy’s sometime soon.
Pretty in P!nk. I am tired of the P!nk slander!!! Since P!nk is touring right now (with Brandi Carlile as a special guest, just saying), I’m seeing an uptick in TikToks and Instagram posts making fun of her acrobatic antics. Knock it off! Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have fabulous, exciting sets—why can’t P!nk? If you don’t like high-flying flips at a tour literally called Summer Carnival… Just. Don’t. Go. What, women can’t have hobbies?
I mean, just look at her biceps. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, right?
In an interview, she said, “I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast before I was a singer. And once you get to fly, why would you not?” I completely agree. The haters are just jealous.
Did anyone else see the N*w Y*rk T*mes story about the sixty-seven-year-old Canadian men who were switched at birth? If so, please let me know so we can discuss.
Still thinking about Hanako, the koi fish who allegedly lived from 1751 to 1977. Rationally, I call bullshit. Emotionally, I love and support her wholeheartedly.
I’m looking forward to Conan Gray releasing his new single, “Winner.” Zoe and I passionately believe that Conan should have all the success that Harry Styles has (and more). Don’t worry, I’ll save you all from having to read my extensive rant about it. Just trust me—I’m right.
One of our dearest friends gave Zoe a birdfeeder and a guide to the bird species of New York for their birthday, and we immediately became amateur birdwatchers. We found a journal to use for our “field notes,” which Zoe lovingly decorated (see below). We have already spotted black-capped chickadees and an excessive number of house finches. Clearly, we’re on our way to birding brilliance.
