It’s Friday, and three nights ago I came to the sobering realization of just how racist and misogynistic my country is, when we elected a rapist insurrectionist transphobic felon as our 47th president. I haven’t cried. I haven’t had a sip to drink. I’ve gone to work. On the outside, I appear fine.
But I am not fine.
Now I’m talking with a writer friend, Melissa. We’ve met ostensibly to talk about our writing projects, but mostly to vent and lament about the election. It’s good to catch up with her, as she has a wise mind, an empathetic heart, and a fighting spirit. Melissa is an outspoken writer, and we share our mutual concerns over DT’s threats to the media specifically and our democracy in general.
That’s not all we have in common. Melissa has a trans teenage son and has written about him on Medium. It’s how we found each other.
“I’m getting ready to purge a bunch of my political stories from Medium,” she tells me. I nod. I’ve been considering the same.
“Are you planning to remove your stories from Pink Hair & Pronouns?” I ask.
We stare at each other through our screens from the opposite sides of the country. I see her uncertainty. I’m sure she sees mine as well, as we shrug at the unknowns and risks we need to assess, our eyes acknowledging with incredulity that we have to even consider these questions.
I’m the publisher of Pink Hair & Pronouns, a publication on Medium and Substack for parents and caregivers of gender nonconforming kids. My child came out as genderfluid in 2020, and has moved through multiple identities since. I founded the publication as a place to share stories, advice, and community at the intersection of parenting and gender, in large part in response to my experiences of uncertainty while parenting my own child.
As a second DT administration looms, I’m researching Project 2025, the roadmap for the next conservative president. I’m seeking answers as a writer and publisher first as I question: Will it still be safe to write about parenting trans and nonbinary kids? Should I delete my own stories and publication to protect myself and my contributors?
To say I’m concerned is an understatement.
But mostly, I’m grieving.
How is it possible we have to question our right to write in the United States of America?
I’ve never been one to get fired up over identity, perhaps ironically, given the topic of my publication.
I was born Jewish, but so what? I did nothing to deserve to be Chosen. I just happened to be born this way. I like some of the values of Judaism, and dislike others. I’ve long been agnostic and baffled by how much power people put into beliefs that seem so arbitrary. How can one be convinced one’s religion is correct, when it’s simply a matter of where one was born, and to whom? If you’d been adopted into another family with a different belief system, you’d be fervent about that one instead. Whatever that gene is that makes one devout, I lack it. I profoundly don’t get how anyone can consider it important. As a younger adult, religion enraged me. Now older and wiser, I’ve grown to respect that others share belief systems that differ from mine — so long as they do no harm and are likewise respectful of those with differing views.
Same goes with national pride. I was born in the United States as the descendant of Eastern European Jews who’d migrated through Ellis Island in the 1910s. My grandparents were born here just ahead of the Great Depression. Any relations who stayed in the old country were presumably extinguished during the Holocaust. I’m grateful to the U.S. for providing a safe haven for my family line, so I could exist. I’m thankful for the many opportunities I’ve known here, and for the educational, professional, financial, and social freedoms I’ve relished these past 54 years. I also recognize deep flaws in my country, always have. I don’t feel pride for being born here. Again, it was a matter of circumstance. Why would I feel a sense of loyalty or superiority by right of where I was born? It’s always seemed absurd. Of course there’s good and bad here in the U.S., like every other place. Blind nationalism seems misguided at best, and outright dangerous at worse.
Last Tuesday night, worse got way worse.
And I fear we’re nowhere near the worst of it.
It’s Saturday, and I’m immersed in the Declaration of Independence. This is not a sentence I ever thought I’d type, but then, these are not times I ever thought I’d be living.
I’m not a jingoistic American. But I do believe we should hold certain truths as self evident: that all men (ahem, all people) are created equal. I believe we are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I also believe implicitly in the First Amendment and the freedom of speech. Of course I do. We began as a nation on the highest of notes.
I’m revisiting these 248-year-old words as I research what it may mean to rely on First Amendment protections as I write and publish about gender identity in 2025. I don’t want to be alarmist, just cautious.
That said, based on what I’ve read so far: I’m sounding the alarms. I believe we all could be facing catastrophic consequences.
While the exact text in the First Amendment is brief (“Congress shall make no law…. abridging the freedom of speech.”), further rulings by the Supreme Court have clarified what does and doesn’t constitute free speech. From Every Congressional Research Service Report:
“The Court has decided that the First Amendment provides no protection for obscenity, child pornography, or speech that constitutes what has become widely known as ‘fighting words.’”
No arguments here. But here’s how Project 2025 has taken these words and twisted them.
From the Project 2025 truth summary:
“Outlaw pornography: TRUE
Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership calls for the criminalization of pornography production, distribution, and consumption. Pornography has no claim to First Amendment protection and its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.”
Now, this claim is false, historically. Child pornography isn’t protected under the First Amendment. I see no mention that pornography isn’t. But it appears things are about to change — both the lack of First Amendment protections, and redefining what pornography is.
Here’s the language from the full Project 2025 manifesto (emphasis mine):
“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection.…
Pornography should be outlawed.
The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.
Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.
And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”
I’m no legal expert. But here’s what I read loud and clear from Project 2025:
Content about “transgender ideology” will be considered pornographic.
Pornography will be punished by imprisonment.
Companies that share “pornographic” content will be shut down.
This is harrowing—for me, for all writers, for Medium and Substack as companies, and for the future of our democracy.
It’s Sunday, and I’ve spent the past 24 hours wrestling with what all this means for the future of Pink Hair & Pronouns.
Strangely, my musings bring me back to Judaism. I may not hold my religion as a source of pride. But I am proud that through my Hebrew school education, I was raised to recognize and respond to fascism. I was indoctrinated with Holocaust films my entire childhood. I know what fascist regimes and group-think can do. My personal family tree had its limbs hacked due to persecution by a fascist leader and the complacency — and I’d imagine, the support of many— of the people of Germany.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out,” indeed.
In America in 2025, it appears that first they’re coming for the immigrants and transgender people.
I may be areligious, but I recognize religion exists to provide us with a moral compass. I’d like to think my own has developed just fine without a formal religious ideology, but also, I can’t deny the strong foundations I received in my given — if not Chosen — Jewish faith.
I also recognize I’m in a position of relative privilege. Yes, I’m a woman, and our rights are about to get clobbered as well. But I’m also white, cishet, and have some stability in my life. Even with parenting a gender nonconforming child, I have it easier than most in this political climate. My child never required or requested medical intervention. Her gender journey over the past three+ years has landed her back to a feminine presentation and identity. She came out. She explored. And effectively, she went back in. A government mandated restriction on gender-affirming care won’t impact her personally, and for this, I’m grateful.
That said, my child gained so much from her gender journey. Her exploration was an integral part of her adolescence, and has resulted in a teenager who leads with empathy, fairness, and confidence, one of the best outcomes I could’ve hoped for as a parent. My belief is that normalizing gender exploration as a part of adolescence will not only enable trans and nonbinary kids to live authentic lives, but it will also break down outdated gender norms that no longer serve us as a culture.
Well, that was my belief. It now appears a majority of my fellow Americans prefers a reinforcement of these outdated norms — or at least, cares about them less than it does saving five cents on a gallon of gasoline. I can’t fathom it.
But what to do about it? In the end, it comes down to my values, my faith. No matter who “they’re” coming for, I recognize that in the end, they’re coming for me. For all of us.
So I’ve reached a decision, or rather, several of them.
I will not take down my stories about parenting my genderfluid child.
I will not take down Pink Hair & Pronouns.
I will continue to write and publish on Pink Hair & Pronouns. Now more than ever, we need a place to share stories, advice, and community.
If writing about parenting our trans and nonbinary kids makes me “the enemy from within,” a part of the “radical left” that Trump has vowed to target and use the military to go after, then so be it. I guess I’m the enemy from within.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m terrified of what lies ahead of us as a country. I think continuing to write and publish may be dangerous. But you know what’s even more dangerous? Deleting our stories, and living in fear.
That’s how fascism flourishes, by cowering in a corner. I can’t — or rather, I won’t — do that. Not now, at least.
As author Timothy Snyder writes in his book On Tyranny:
“Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”
He continues with:
“Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen.”
I could hide. I’m a middle-aged white cis woman with a small following. No one pays much attention to me. The easier path would be to delete what I’ve written and just fade into the background. But no.
I will not obey in advance.
I will not let my emotions dissipate on this screen.
I will speak out.
Unlike most trans people, I have the option to fade. They need allies like us. Our kids need protection from us. So I will stay here, and will not give away my power freely.
Medium has long stood for LGBTQ+ rights. Medium’s steadfast trust and safety guidelines are one of the reasons why I publish Pink Hair & Pronouns here. I’ve been proud to write on a platform that offers such strong protections for marginalized groups.
I only hope they can stand up to DT and Project 2025.
For as long as they do, I will be right here.
I hope you’ll join me.
Greetings!
I’m Dana DuBois, a GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest with a whole lot of little words to share. I’m a founder and editor of three publications: Pink Hair & Pronouns, Three Imaginary Girls, and genXy. I write across a variety of topics but parenting, music and culture, relationships, and feminism are my favorites. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.
If this story resonated with you, why not buy me a coffee?
(Make mine an iced oat milk decaf mocha, please and thank you.)
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