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    Hi and hello.

    Here’s the tl;dr: Our Instagram and Twitter accounts will be deleted within the next few days. We do not do business with fascists and oligarchs. We never will. Details for how to stay up to date with our dealings will be shared before we go dark. One of the ways to keep up with us is this website. I’ll make this look nicer and add actual useful features to it before our tour with Bear vs Shark (I do make websites for a living, after all). You can skip to the last line now if you’d like.

    Allow me to set the scene. I’m typing this from a hotel room in Florida of all fucking places. It’s dark and dreary and wet and miserable outside. There’s a hanging, pervasive feeling of unreality. Beach sounds seep through the cracked balcony door – gently sloshing waves and seagull songs. Yet the sun has seemingly ceased to exist. Palm trees sway in blustery 50 degree weather. I trudge through near-deserted hallways, masking my way through an annual work retreat. It’s downright Lynchian.

    We’re set to play a show outside of the US this year. It hasn’t been announced. I’m not sure we can announce it now. My passport renewal is likely going to be denied. With the stroke of a pen, I’m no longer allowed to update my gender marker. It’s unclear whether my 4 year old legal name change will be recognized. From what I gather my passport is going to be held until it can be processed under the new (cruel) federal guidelines. I think I’m trapped in a country that’s actively seeking to destroy me. I’d suggest that you expel the phrases “well they can’t actually do that” or “ things couldn’t ever get THAT bad” from your brains. That’s what I thought. I feel foolish and naive, and I’m never going to forgive myself for waiting to renew until I had a reason to.

    Another stroke of a pen called for human beings to be rounded up like animals and deported. Someone you know may disappear with no explanation or trace. Why? Instead of looking inward to fix our problems, we lash out at those we perceive as different. They’ll be pulled out of schools and places of worship and tossed into trucks, never to be seen again. I studied history in college, but you don’t need a degree to know this – the holocaust began as a “legal” deportation of “undesirables”. This has happened before, and it sure hits different when you’re an undesirable yourself.

    There were more cruel strokes of a pen, but the last two paragraphs describe the ones that hurt my heart the most. The feeling literally emanates from my heart. It’s a warm, buzzing feeling. Not a comfortable warm. It’s how you feel when your hotel room is 5 degrees too warm and you can’t control the thermostat. The buzzing is a dreaded phonecall that I’m desperately trying to ignore vibrating in my pocket, over and over and over.

    I’ve seen people dismiss these executive actions as bluster. Performative actions to appease voters. I desperately want to believe that, but my gut tells me otherwise. I’ve already been directly affected by one of them, and I’m dreading returning to a Philadelphia being scoured by ICE agents tomorrow. I genuinely hope that in a few months I look back at this post and think “hmm, that was a bit of an overreaction.” I’ll take that slight embarrassment over not clearly stating our collective stance when it mattered the most. Some will say we’re “virtue signaling” or that this is purely performative. You know what? Yes, it’s important to know that the people/artists/etc… you support stand for what’s right! Even washed emo bands with one record who can be described as a “cult favorite” at best.

    I came out as trans in 2019, and it happened in stages. Out to my friends in August. At work in October. To y’all on November 15th (I genuinely did not have to look that date up. That’s how important that was), a couple months before a truly wonderful tour in Japan. I used to cry myself to sleep thinking there was no way I could ever ever EVER come out and transition. It was too late! I was too old! People would cut me out of their lives! Despite how truly horrifying it is to be trans right now, I have a life I never could have had if I hadn’t done the hardest and scariest thing I’ve ever had to do.

    At some point I stopped talking about being trans. Maybe I got complacent. I also thought people just didn’t want to hear about it. Who wants my unsolicited thoughts about gender identity? With hindsight I can see that I was still scared to share myself completely. I was scared to get that one shitty, negative comment among the dozens of positive ones. If I can find one silver lining in this living fucking nightmare, it’s that I’m not scared anymore. What’s the worst that could happen? A neo-nazi calls me a tranny? Or says some dumb shit like “you’ll never be a real woman”? You can no longer hurt me. We are fucking invincible.

    I came out as trans to save my life, and it worked. To all my trans siblings: I love you. I will die fighting for you and myself if I have to.

    Tell your friends you love them. Cling to them for comfort and safety. Protect the ones that need protection at all costs. Fuck off all fascists. Fix your hearts or die.