Happy birthday to me and happy Pride, but also the four-year anniversary of my coming out as trans; i.e., despite announcing my leaving the closet on August 7th, 2022, I first acknowledged being trans on June 1st: "Today I turn 36. I'm no longer cis/het, but wanted to illustrate that. This is me as I would like to be: Someone strong, beautiful, and brave. Someone unafraid of a new day and all the possibilities it brings" (source: Persephone van der Waard's "A New Me," 2022). Behold a pale cutie, and Hell followed with her!

(artist, Persephone van der Waard: left, middle inner/outer, and right)

A lot's happened since then, including my working with over a hundred other sex workers, interviewing many of them while also writing and illustrating ten books, and continuing my work by interviewing important allies like Squid Tips (further down) and befriending cool hackers who help me archive my work (re: "Reviewing and Recommending Josey Howarth," 2025). I'm still here and still will be doing work to help trans people as part of a larger shared struggle (no reductionism, tokenism or scapegoats, class-war-is-ass-war). The way out is inside, transforming capital from within. That's what Communism is; re: Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism "reviving Medusa" the baby queer to have the whore's revenge* during ludo-Gothic BDSM: making a better world from old dead parts, one for which rape† is no longer possible, cryptonymy-and-abjection (the flow of power as something to show and hide different things, worker rights vs state's rights per aesthetic and dialectic). Time is a circle, as such, and each time around the sun gives new chances to change into something better but also more wild and alien to how capital is currently. On Athena's Aegis, see the Gorgon in you: as waiting to wake up and run wild, the-world-is-a-vampire!

*Our emphasis being unpaid labor—be it care/sex work, non-human animals, and/or the environment as a whole (re: "State Vampirism," footnote 1).

†And all exploitation, which the state does by design (re: "State Vampirism").

As I write elsewhere on vampires, "Not to rank rape, but share the struggle through uneven ratios of privilege/oppression, which doing so echoes; i.e., inside a hall of mirrors, insofar as 'Everything sits within a cycle of imaginary history that plays out through an endless, genocidal mirroring that must, if it is to cease, be met with mirrors' (source: "Author's Foreword"). Whatever side of the river Styx we stand, vampires seek and violently claim revenge—meaning the avenger a classic monstrous-feminine device I embody alongside those of my friends, past and present." Same idea with anything the state pimps, per nature as monstrous-feminine expressed dualistically in any language thereof (not just vampires). It sucks and so do we, sharing the same language, bodies and spaces.

So we master, however briefly, power as something to take hold of (and it, us), mise-en-abyme (eggs-inside-eggs, from hatchling to dragon on repeat). Poop knife or pocket sand, scratch what must be scratched; expose the fascist while setting the Communist free from state tyranny (white castle or black). "You have only to lose your chains," after all (and not just paid factory workers, Engels)! Revenge (for workers) means to survive and be seen, changing the world "on the Aegis" as something to see. Ourselves, logo or otherwise. Burning Rome is a group effort, then—an orgy of violence whose paradoxical thing-of-beauty remains less a "solo" act and more a collage or assemblage passing the torch. We're stronger (and stranger) together than divided, but "couple" in different ways meeting everyone's needs across time. My birthday is yours insofar as the gift that keeps on giving is Pride year-round (or Halloween, but I digress)!

(artists, left: Cuwu and Persephone van der Waard; top-middle: Persephone van der Waard; middle-middle and bottom-middle: Persephone van der Waard and Squid Tips; right: Cuspid)

To that, I'm still here, and neither I nor my friends and the work we do are going anywhere. Instead, consider this short moment of reflection and celebration one to imitate: of being trans, fighting fascism, and working together to build community and trust in light of state crisis. Beyond us, then, you all have the power you need to change the world; i.e., among yourselves, doing so intersectionally while walking away from Omelas, mid-transformation from inside*. Trans people are people, black lives matter, sex work is work, ACAB, land back, free Palestine, and when the Man comes around, show him your Aegis! It only began with a whisper; now scream among a larger hellish chorus! Make pandemonium, stating one-and-all "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven!" Capital's already a corpse; dance among the ruins to raise consciousness, babes (and other things)! Rebellion is theatre, the kayfabe suitably onstage and off using what we got. Camp what must be camped, smack what must be smacked:

*Sex is a weapon; so is gender, whatever this person (also trans) says:

Me: "Weaponizing my identity." God forbid we weaponize parts of ourselves to challenge fascism (which Socialism does). You wanna challenge fascism, right? ...Right? / "Norman Finklestein is not a Marxist. Bad Empanada is not a Marxist. The Kavernacle is not a Marxist. None of these guys claim to be Marxist." Marxism is as much a quality or lens to analyze things. You seem hung up on whether or not these people call themselves Marxist, then gatekeeping everything. It pains me to no end.

Edit: You only seem to say, "This isn't Marxism"; i.e., an idealized form that you want to put on a shelf and play keep-away regarding. It gives off strong Contrapoints energy, honestly. Nominal Socialism, at best, and very gaslight-y without being able to engage me with. My fellow trans person, maybe put down the cudgel and try and have a conversation with me in good faith. Or is that too much to ask?

Clear-Result-3412: It really took you a whole day just to think of this? / You aren't fighting facism [sic] by talking to me. You aren't fighting fascism by going on rants about streamers. Fascism is not afraid of your trans-ness. It's not a weapon [emphasis, me]. / The guys you're complaining about don't use Marxism to analyze things. They don't claim to. You can't gatekeep something people don't even want in on. / I'm not keeping anything at bay. I'm pointing out the simple fact of the situation that you are not complaining about Marxists when you complain about these particular internet personalities. What the heck does Contrapoints have to do with any of this? I have made plenty of good faith arguments. You just refuse to engage them.

Me: Sorry, I do have a life outside Reddit; e.g., I just moved and was unpacking things. / Case in point, I have an entire book series about fighting fascism with Marxist theory (synthesized with sex work, gay shit and BDSM, ludology, etc). / Also, it was my birthday and I was recognizing that; i.e., surviving four years and looking back on the work that my friends and I have done synthesizing praxis. / I'm sure you'll say none of that is Marxist, too. Also, "Fascism is not afraid of your trans-ness. It's not a weapon"? I beg to disagree. In fact, this is the most untrue thing you've said, and I'm going to ignore you now—to enjoy my birthday and continue fighting the good fight.

Take care, do better. (source, Reddit: r/Socialism_101)

Segregation is no defense, comrade. Don't hide entirely and submit; hide and reveal behind buffers that show the truth of things to our would-be colonizers (re: "Introducing Revolutionary Cryptonymy" and "Transgressive Nudism," 2024 and 2025; see: "Interview with the Vampire," footnote 10). Show them the error of their ways, and tokens the folly of submission, tone-policing and self-subjugation. Weaponize! Become the porcupine, the poison butterfly, the Gorgon! They will call us a threat/armed (abject), so we may as be in control of whatever they try and monopolize. Reverse abjection to anisotropically reclaim our stolen power within capital/state predation. The oldest profession, the oldest struggle but also the oldest power to be had and the one the state cannot live without (and which they police sex through force according to all the usual tools; re: "The State: Its Key Tools," 2024).

(artist: Roxie Rusalka)

Or as I write elsewhere ("Interview with the Vampire," footnote 10):

So while the decimator has become the decimated, at home and aboard, the whore's revenge unfolds alongside all scapegoats (and sacrificial lambs): coming back to eat the sacrificer, vampire-style (xenomorph or otherwise). Not so silent anymore, eh? "Did He who made the Lamb make thee?" Hear (or see) us roar! Or as Creed wrote, once-upon-a-time:

When Perseus slew the Medusa he did not – as commonly thought – put an end to her reign or destroy her terrifying powers. Afterwards, Athena embossed her [mirror] shield with the Medusa's head. The writhing snakes, with their fanged gaping mouths, and the Medusa's own enormous teeth and lolling tongue were on full view [the OG "ahegao"]. Athena's aim was simply to strike terror into the hearts of men as well as reminding them of their symbolic debt to the imaginary castrating mother. And no doubt she knew what she was doing. After all, Athena was the great Mother-Goddess of the ancient world and according to ancient legend – the daughter of Metis, the goddess of wisdom, also known as the Medusa (source: Barbara Creed's The Monstrous-Feminine, 1993).

So, too, we whores become the Gorgon upon ourselves (re: "It Began with a Whisper"). Now scream, doing so like your lives depend on it (they do)! Mock and defy whatever you must to survive by reviving and preserving the fearsome past:

(artist: Caravaggio)

The state fucks and sucks workers into an early grave to destroy the planet; fuck and suck back to reclaim such things, the ensuing paradox of exposure (and its weapons-and-armor public nudism code and container for rebellion—modern-day Amazons and Gorgons, commenting on our alien-fetish status mid-cryptonymy!