Happy Trans Day of Visibility!
This meme is inescapable on French insta so I'm posting it here for all to enjoy
The words they're afraid of.
(Read on our blog.)
The recently appointed Department of Defense head Pete Hegseth (formerly Fox News pundit, perpetually soused creepy uncle, and current group chat leaker of classified intel) banned images of the Enola Gay from the Pentagonâs website for the offense of âDEIâ language. In keeping with the far rightâs stated war on anything vaguely resembling diversity, equity and inclusion, even historical photos are up for cancellation. When a literal weapon of mass destruction is censored for being a bit fruity under the Trump administrationâs war against inconvenient truths, what exactly is left untouched?
This is clown show stuff, but the stakes are far from funny. While some might be hesitant to compare the current administration to the very worst history has to offer, we can at least all agree that they are dyed-in-the-wool grammar Nazis. Policing language has been the objective of the MAGA culture war long before Project 2025âs debutâthe wave of book bans orchestrated by astroturf movements like Moms for Liberty, and Floridaâs 2022 Donât Say Gay bill have already had a profound effect in the arena of free speech and freedom of expression (despite the far rightâs long tradition of doublespeak performative free-speech martyrdom to the contrary). Donât Say Gay ostensibly targeted K-3 education, but LGBT+ content at all levels of education (and beyond) was either quietly censored or entirely preempted in practice. The results were not just a war on so-called ideology, or words aloneâbut on reality and essential freedoms.
Now, words as innocuous and important as racism, climate change, hate speech, prejudice, mental health, and inequality are targeted as subversive. Entire concepts are being vanished from government institutions, scrubbed not only from descriptions but from metadata, search indexes, and archival frameworks.
If you donât name a thing, does it exist?
These words are as numerous as they are generic: women, race, Black, immigrants, multicultural, gender, injustice. But what is painfully unserious is also particularly dangerous in its real-world consequences. The process of controlling words is a well-worn authoritarian tendency. Fifty-two universities are now under investigation as part of the President's effort to curb âwokeâ research and thought crimes. Institutions are being coerced to comply with a nebulous set of ideological demands, or face budgetary annihilation. That means cutting funding for entire departments, slashing financial aid, defunding scientific grants, and pressuring faculty to self-censor.
The possibilities for censorship extend far and wideâinterfering, by extension, in everything from reproductive healthcare programs, to libraries and museums. The Trump administrationâs proposed budget slashing all federal funding for libraries, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will effectively gut an infrastructure that supports over 100,000 libraries and museums across the countryâcommunity centers, educational lifelines, internet access points, and archives of marginalized histories (starting with the Smithsonian Institution).
When you erase access, you erase participation. And when you erase participation, you erase people, and the means by which future generations might even learn they existed. A culture that cannot remember is a culture that cannot resist.
The erasure is, yet again, unsurprisingly targeted at minorities and LGBT+ people. The National Parks Service quietly revised the Stonewall Monumentâs website to remove references to transgender peopleâa fundamental part of the original protests. Not an oversight, not a mistake, but a deliberate excisionâone point in a wider plan of erasure depicted in stark detail in Project 2025, a blueprint to dismantle civil rights, defund LGBT+-related healthcare, and rewrite history from the ground up.
Dehumanization by deletionâwelcome to the reactionary resurgence of doubleplusungood governance. In Trumpland, words are weaponsâbut not in the way they intend. Their fear of language betrays its power; thatâs why theyâre trying so hard to police it.
Words hurt them.
Hurt them back.
- the Ellipsus Team
Hi, my name is Mosab , and Iâm from Gaza. Life here has been harder than I could ever imagine, but today Iâm sharing my story with hope in my heart, because your kindness has already given us so much strength.
This journey hasnât been easy. The war has taken 25 family members from usâ25 beautiful souls we loved deeply. Their laughter, their presence, their love⌠all of it is gone, leaving behind memories that are both precious and painful. Every day, I carry the weight of their loss, but I also carry their spirit, which gives me the strength to keep going.
Our Journey So Far When I first reached out, I couldnât have imagined weâd make it this far. Thanks to your incredible kindness, weâve reached 19,800 out of 30,000. Your support has been a light in these difficult times, and we are so deeply grateful for every single contribution.
But the road ahead is still challenging. Every day, weâre reminded of how much weâve lost and how much we still need to rebuild.
Hereâs what life in Gaza looks like for my family right now: đ Safety: The uncertainty of tomorrow weighs heavily on us. đ˘ Loss: The absence of the 25 family members weâve lost is a pain we carry every moment. đ Dreams on Hold: The future feels so far away when survival takes all our strength.
How You Can Help Us Cross the Finish Line Even the smallest act of kindness can make a difference:
$5 might not seem like much, but it could mean a meal, clean water, or a tiny bit of hope for my family.
Canât donate? Reblog this post to help us reach someone who can. Every share matters more than you know.
Why Your Support Matters Your kindness isnât just about helping us meet our goalâitâs about reminding us that weâre not alone in this fight. Itâs about hope. Itâs about survival. And itâs about giving my family a chance to rebuild our lives, even in the face of unimaginable loss.
Thank you for helping us get this far. Your generosity and compassion have already brought us closer to a better tomorrow, and for that, Iâm endlessly grateful.
With all my love and gratitude, Mosab and Family â¤ď¸
PSA from Blobby. Something we should talk about more â¤ď¸
Beat him up!
Just a psa for fic writers who use the âtrauma bondâ tag, please make sure youâre using it correctly. A trauma bond is not two people who experience similar trauma and bond over it. Itâs a carefully curated, manipulative bond between abuser and victim to keep the victim coming back because of the addictive highs and lows that come with abuse.
If you want to tag two characters bonding over shared trauma, a good substitute tag would be âbonding over shared trauma.â Trauma bonding is, by definition, an abusive relationship and may steer people who have experienced it away from your fic. Please spread the word and happy writing!