How To Hope: Existentialism 101 — "existence precedes essence"

U.S. Centers for Disease Control & numerous other federal agencies are scrubbing web sites of information, policies — even acronyms — about people who are queer or transgender. The unsignified remain.

17 sounds (4 stanzas) by Jonatha Chance: “The pharaoh Tausret: / a woman I never knew / remembered — still // Nothing disappears / (said the elder to the fox) / without a trace — thrills // Alan Turing wrote / why people like violence: / it feels good — until // the fun turns hollow / satisfaction well-denied / — by the thing they kill” | Copyright © 2025 CC-BY-NC-ND (4.0 International)

Background:

• February 7, 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2025/sample-government-webpages-trump-doesnt-want-you-see/

• February 3, 2025. Democracy Now! reports “8,000+ Pages from Gov’t Websites Taken Offline, Including Crucial Info for Trans and Queer People” — the LGBTQ(I+) acronym was also changed to only LGB.

• 2013. I published a book review for the journal World History Connected titled “Tausret: Forgotten Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt”.

Image conjured by Christine Newton Bush with DALL-E 3 using Copilot. | Copyright © 2025 CC-BY-NC-ND (4.0 International)