Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

It feels like a good time to share this (unfortunately, because of an annoying thing that happened but I've been meaning to mention this anyway): Kirby Conrod (who I've already talked about how much I like ) on linguistic care work.

I can never hear enough about the overlap between disability liberation and trans liberation

Care work is a concept from disability justice and liberation movements; there is a large and interesting overlap between disabled people and trans people. It’s almost like constant societal abuse and gaslighting hurts bodyminds long-term or something, isn’t that weird? But even otherwise-nondisabled trans people have to move through the world like disabled people in certain ways. Our commonalities: we have to go to the doctor a lot; doctors tend to disbelieve our reports of our experiences and bodies; we often have to beg insurance companies to cover stuff that allows us to live our lives; our bodies are frequently paraded in normie spaces as dangerous, illogical, bad. Sometimes it is hard to move our bodies through normie spaces. These similarities are not accidental: white supremacy and structural ableism and transphobia and heteropatriarchy are all systems of power that share weapons, and whose underlying logic is sustained through the regulation of what kinds of bodies are permitted to exist, and how. Care work is one of the many tools that can be used to defend against those weapons: it is one part of a community’s refusal to be obliterated...

So what is linguistic care work? It is, essentially, the same goal and underlying mechanism: members of a community taking care of each other by way of knowing each others’ needs, limits, and desires, and using that information to create joyful ways of relating to each other. Here, I’ll give some numbered examples, because numbered examples can be a love language among some linguists, and I want you to feel included.

They offer some examples, and then say

None of this is predicated on “trying not to misgender someone” or even “trying not to mess up pronouns accidentally and get yelled at.” Linguistic care work, like any care work truly based in principles of a loving community, cannot run on shame-based fuel. Avoiding shame and harm are only the barest, most basic bar to clear—they do not constitute showing affection. Failing to abuse someone isn’t the same as loving them.

And it's nice to be reminded that the opposite of misgendering isn't "avoiding shame and harm," there is sometimes actually the possibility of more, of affection.