The world is fucked.
You probably know this already, but I'd like to give some examples:
LambdaConf is a conference on functional programming, which this year was to be held late May 2016. The conference had recently announced their list of speakers, one of which was avowed slavery advocate Curtis Yarvin. Included with this announcement was a lengthy article rationalizing their decision to include an outspoke leader of the neoreactionary Dark Enlightenment movement. Thoughtful, wonderful humans who opposed the idea of giving a slavery advocate a platform resigned from participation in disgust, additionally publishing a declaration signed by each.
The neoreactionaries are replying to this with the same kind of acceptance and inclusion they purport to demand of others. Which is to say death threats, active harassment, and contacting employers to pressure them into being fired due to their intolerance.
The West Oakland neighborhood in Oakland is mostly single family homes. This is A city of 400,000 people. The station is surrounded by rich access to transit to the rest of Alameda County including the BART station itself which accesses the multitude of jobs available elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. Earlier this year was the third--and final--community meeting where BART announced its idea of working with a developer and architect to build some tall, dense residential buildings.
Each of the community meetings had a Q&A session that was consumed by arguments about the building's size being too tall, the rendering being too ugly, threats of CEQA lawsuits, and even a claim that this transit station in the middle of a dense bikable and walkable neighborhood needed more parking for the people who live two blocks away.
BART is now establishing a community advisory group that will meet monthly for at least a year to discuss these problems. Anyone who had hoped to continue live in the neighborhood before six years of rent increases will have long been pushed out elsewhere.
North Carolina recently passed SB 2. The relevant text:
Accommodations Permitted. – Nothing in this section shall prohibit public agencies from providing accommodations such as single occupancy bathroom or changing facilities or controlled use of faculty facilities upon a request due to special circumstances, but in no event shall that accommodation result in the public agency allowing a student to use a multiple occupancy bathroom or changing facility designed under subsection (b) of this section for a sex other than the person's biological sex.
To summarize, if your biological sex (genitals, commonly) does not match the gender of the bathroom you're using, a crime has been committed. The rationale behind this is to keep pedophile men out of the women's restrooms because the only reason someone cursed with a penis would be in there would be to molest and rape.
There have been more instances of politicians molesting young boys in all of 2015 than instances of transgender women sexually assaulting other women in the bathroom. Which is to say that any number is bigger than zero.
This is why I fight. This is why I wake up in the morning at 6am and have coffee by 6:30. This is why I've got so many damn rules: to keep me on track and to not lose sight of the problems.
I'm fucking tired of everything being broken so I get up and fight for what I think is right. I refuse to sit with my head down and ignore the people around me that I care about be eaten alive by the system. I will find the levers of the system, pull them, and turn it to everyone's advantage.
This is my manifesto.
No bystanders here.