It can’t happen here…

I didn’t start my transition until late in life. I was 65 in January of 2015

Barack Obama was president and I watched as he worked diligently on behalf of everyone including people near and dear to my heart, the LGBTQIA+ community.

I have struggled with living in the wrong body since age 4. Some of you may be shaking your heads and asking how I could possibly know I was the wrong gender at that age? How could I possibly know something like that as a 4 year old child? I felt it then just as I feel it now. That my mind and body were always at war with each other. That nothing felt right, fit right, was right. I found an amazing therapist and she helped me see that I wasn’t screwed up, fucked up or broken. So I began my journey.

There seemed to be such an atmosphere of hope during the Obama years, so much optimism about where we were going as a nation. That all changed in 2016 when the orange man was elected.

Which brings me to the title of this blog. In 1935, an author by the name of Sinclair Lewis wrote a book called “It Can’t Happen here”. One might ask, why is the very old book relevant now? He wrote it during Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in the late 1930s. His book, however, told the story of man rising to power in America using the same techniques as Hitler. It’s amazing the parallels that can be seen with Hitler’s rise to power and what is going on in America today. With Hitler, he gave the German people someone to hate, someone to blame all their troubles on, the Jews, the Homosexuals, the Muslims, the Negroes, the Gypsies or anyone who didn’t meet the pure race criteria for Hitler’s plan to make the German people “The Master Race”. He made the German people believe that those people were less than desirable, that they were inferior to the German people, that they didn’t deserve a place at the table that was going to be Germany in the Third Reich. He suppressed and obliterated the Free Press and all Journalism that didn’t tow the Third Reich Line. The Gestapo had free rein to detain, punish, imprison or kill anyone who wasn’t a card carrying member of the National Socialist German Workers party. I’m not sure if Hitler sold Bibles, golden high tops or trading cards. For anyone interested, you can find Sinclair Lewis’ book online at most retailers.

More that half of America watched as he lied about the 2020 election, created insurrection in the Capitol, was tried and found guilty of fraud and deception and most of all rape. And in 2024, they have put him in charge again. Are these people all stupid? No…it’s much easier to live your life if someone else tells what you need to do. Tells you that he can fix anything. Tells that you that your neighbor isn’t as good as you are because you’re white. Tells you hey I’m white, you’re white, I got your back. What about the other half of us who didn’t vote for him? A large part of America decided that they didn’t like either candidate and they chose to stay home on election day. Shame on you all. That’s how Hitler rose to power again in Germany and the orange man is using the Third Reich cookbook to do the same thing here in YOUR backyard.

My goal is to try to tell anyone who chooses to read this what it is like for a 75 year old trans woman living in a very red state and what my fears are for the next four years. I plan to finish my backstory as well. Even if it is from a ghetto in Warsaw.