“In their deaths, they’re just taking matters into their own hands and applying their own rules,” she said. “And a lot of times that has to do with having a firm idea of who you are and what it is that you want — and knowing how to get it in a society that doesn’t necessarily have the options for you that you deserve.”
Even from a distance, you can’t miss the massive man in the crosshairs of a gun that’s been painted onto the side of her shaved head, an arresting image even if you don’t immediately catch the reference.
“It wasn’t until a public library opened in the town over from mine in eighth grade that I was able to start navigating big questions around how my identity and beliefs might differ from others,” said local resident Becca Lachman. “There are items in our libraries I don’t agree with either or want my child to read or view, but I welcome those conversations with her when she does, and I can’t imagine parenting without access to all that a public library offers.”
As mentioned by Pitcavage, this isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon; some of the most well-known neo-Nazis of the old guard have been caught with CSAM or with underage women including James Mason and National Vanguard founder Kevin Alfred Strom. Strom, an influential neo-Nazi for years, was found with child pornography in 2007, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 23 months in prison.
In 1898, folklorist Richard Blakeborough described the emotional resonance of this moment: “It is looked upon as a kindly action, when standing by the corpse of some dear one, if the visitor gently touch the same. In some undefined way, this solemn contact of the living with the dead, makes known to the sorrowing ones that nothing but sympathy is felt.”
"But Renton is neither a prodigal nor a daughter. He’d like you to know he’s never going home to Tania because that home was hell — the type of hell he’s horrified that Republican legislators are trying to recreate for every trans kid in America."
