When Survival Is Activism
After a year of nonstop activism, I am exhausted, overwhelmed, and raw. Every morning I wake to a world where the risks to my safety have increased, and every evening I return from work carrying the same heavy questions: will I be safe tomorrow? will my access to care be taken away? will speaking up cost me everything? When cisgender white people tell me “we’re all in the same boat,” that phrase lands like a lie; it erases the real differences in danger and consequence. The removal of gender‑affirming care and the push toward forced detransition are not pretend policy debates for me they are a life‑or‑death threat, a reality that could make incarceration or criminalization fatal for a trans person denied essential care.
I never chose to be on the front lines; I was pushed there because if I stop, few others will step forward. I work eight to ten hours a day, attend school full time, and still organize protests, rallies, and mutual‑aid efforts. The people who do show up are often those already at risk: LGBTQ people, BIPOC people, immigrants, and disabled people. Large organizations with resources too often center themselves instead of amplifying grassroots work, and mutual‑aid groups are underfunded and overwhelmed by the surge in need. That gap leaves me trying to hold community, logistics, outreach, and fundraising while also keeping a job and a course load. The math of survival and resistance is a daily calculation: I check my bank account before deciding whether to run another ad or resources for a protest, and every dollar feels like a choice between keeping someone fed and keeping a demonstration on the road.
The emotional landscape I carry feels heavy and complicated. Fear is constant not the theoretical kind but a steady, stomach‑tightening dread that laws will strip away care, separate families, or make survival impossible. Exhaustion lives in my bones from juggling paid labor, education, and organizing; from answering messages at midnight and waking to new threats. Betrayal stings when “allies” prioritize comfort over solidarity, when tone policing replaces listening, and when my Jewish identity or BIPOC experience is dismissed. Grief returns in quiet moments: intrusive memories of lives lost in El Paso and Pueblo that surface on long drives home, voices that will not be silenced. Anger simmers at institutions that hoard resources and at nonprofits that center branding over people. Loneliness is the quiet companion of leadership when support is promised but not delivered.
There are concrete scenes that make the stakes impossible to ignore. I break down in my car on the drive home because there is nowhere safe to unload the fear and grief I carry. At work I watch African coworkers split into different cars to avoid patterns that might attract ICE; they tell me they don’t go out because they are afraid. A forklift driver disappears after a no‑call, no‑show and hasn’t been seen in weeks; the silence is a reminder of how fragile safety can be. In Leftist chatrooms I have been told my concerns are “overreactions,” or ignored because of my Jewish identity the very erasure that led me to build Nefesh. These are not isolated anecdotes to dramatize; they are the daily reality that shapes every decision I make and every risk I take.
Privilege creates a buffer that lets some activists debate strategy from a place of comfort. For me, strategy and survival are the same thing. The more intersections I occupy Trans, BIPOC, Jewish, working class, student, the less likely some people are to see me as fully human. When large organizations center their own brand or comfort, grassroots organizers and mutual‑aid groups are left to pick up the pieces. That dynamic concentrates risk on those least able to absorb it and silences the people most affected. Empathy fails not because people are incapable of feeling, but because systems and habits make it easier to look away than to act.
What I need from people who hear this is simple in principle and urgent in practice: listen without policing, redistribute risk, fund grassroots and mutual aid, amplify rather than overshadow, and hold institutions accountable. Listening without policing means letting my story stand without correcting my tone or demanding I make my pain more palatable. Redistributing risk means using privilege to take on visible tasks that reduce exposure for frontline organizers. Funding mutual aid and grassroots groups keeps vans on the road, ads running, and people fed. Amplifying means sharing events, spotlighting trans and BIPOC leaders, and pushing institutions to center frontline voices. Holding organizations accountable means asking why nonprofits aren’t partnering with frontline groups and demanding transparency about whose safety they prioritize.
Boundaries and sustainability are not optional luxuries; they are survival strategies. I am not a martyr; I am a person trying to survive while fighting for others. Continuing like this without support is unsustainable. I need allies who can take on visible labor, who can use their social capital to shield organizers, who can fund and staff mutual aid so the burden is not always on the most vulnerable. I need space to grieve, to rest, and to process trauma without being told I’m “too emotional” or “too dramatic.” Respecting those boundaries is necessary for long‑term resistance and for the health of our movements.
This is not only my story. It is a map of what happens when systems fail the people who are most vulnerable. When you ignore the pleas of those at the intersections, you allow a culture that normalizes erasure, punishment, and death to grow. Empathy is the first step; accountability and action are the next. If this moves you, consider one concrete action you can take this month to reduce risk for frontline organizers in your community.
