Looking Forward

These past few months, for the first time in five years, I have been applying to colleges. In some ways it seems like I've picked the worst possible time to go back to school. Generative AI has been sweeping workplaces and schools for the past few years, and I keep hearing horror stories from my professor friends about the state of higher education. My favorite professors from my first go at college have all retired or been laid off because of the hyper-conservative business man hired as president of the university. The country as a whole is also being run by a hyper-conservative business man who has laid off all the best federal employees. Colleges in my city and state have rolled back their DEI programs, and changes to federal financial aid are cutting funding to programs where student's don't earn enough money after graduation-primarily arts and humanities programs. Every week I hear about a new bill being introduced in my state government or the federal government designed to strip away more rights and liberties from transgender people and other minorities. I most likely won't be allowed to compete in sports as I return to college, and I'm choosing to live off-campus not because of money but because I don't want to have to find out what dorm I would be assigned to, or what my prospective roommate's opinions about trans people might be. By the time I graduate, it's possible that I won't be able to get HRT prescriptions or gender affirming surgeries without crossing state or national boundaries.

But even in the face of everything that's happening in my city, my state, my country, and the world, I'm still making the decision to go back to school. I loved college, and I didn't drop out in 2022 because I was bored, or because I was unsure about my major or struggling in my classes. I dropped out because I ran out of money, and I ran out of money because I decided to believe my father when he told me he'd cut me off if I came out. In the three years since I moved to Columbus after dropping out, it has always been my goal to go back to school. I've saved up some money, I've built a social network, a work history, and a credit score. I've progressed in my transition - I've been on testosterone for about two years now and I've changed my legal name and updated almost all my documents. I am eager to go back to school. And I'm hopeful. For all the terrible things that are happening, there are people resisting, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in big ways. We won't be unscathed when we come out the other side of this, but I'm choosing to believe that we will come out the other side.

Thank you all for your support in the four years I've been running this website, and I hope you'll stick around to see what I do next. In the meantime, call your senators, join a rapid response group, maybe make a casserole for your neighbors, and keep fighting.