How to Keep Up With Everything Going On…
2025 has been wild, so far. For those of us who are progressive-minded and empathetic, this has been one of the most difficult periods of any of our lives. I’ve been running my private law practice (which is in a growth phase), Identity Affirmation Workshop (my name/gender change nonprofit with 94 current clients), and helping grow Trans-Continental Freedom (my new nonprofit that helps trans people relocate out of unsafe areas), in addition to tending my husband, Pumpkin, my friends, and everyone else in my life. On top of all of that, I’m keeping up with the ever-changing news and events in Washington and around the world. I’ve been asked several times how I’m doing all this. Here’s how.
There is, by design, too much information flying around right now. It is how the “president” is keeping control of the narrative; he’s making so many changes that no one can keep up. Your strategy, therefore, needs to change. Don’t even try to keep up with everything. It’s impossible, and you’ll spend all your time scrolling through information that you probably can’t use and that will just make you panic. Pick the topics that are most important to you and focus on those.
A really important thing right now is to curate your news sources, too. Stop reading and listening to CNN, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, ABC/NBC/CBS – really anything owned by major conglomerates. They are all biased, nearly all the time. Foreign media sources are not impacted by American political upheaval, so they are excellent sources right now. I regularly read: the BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, and the Guardian. For American media, I trust outlets with excellent editorial standards, minimal reporting and political bias, and transparent policies, such as PBS, the Associated Press, NPR, Vox, Slate, and Politico. You can read whatever you want, but make sure you know who’s funding the reporting and what their standards are, and that those factors support your views.
Another very important factor is to get off of social media. Social media lends itself to prurience even in the best of times, but right now? Right now, social media is entirely valueless. It has been taken over by AI bots and scammers. It is definitely not suitable for finding news at all right now, even from your actual, real friends. People’s media literacy is at an all-time low. The same thing goes to most podcasts, most bloggers, all YouTube stars and even celebrities. Turn it off. Focus on what is real and what is true.
Me? I’m focusing primarily on trans rights issues, which is the most directly relevant to my work. Erin Reed’s Erin in the Morning newsletter is extremely valuable for anyone interested in trans rights. Even in that space alone, there is more information flying around than any one person can keep up with. In this space, and many others, I’m ignoring “Executive Orders” and “lawsuits being filed” and “press conferences.” This is all just noise. Instead, focus on verified (or verifiable) stories of consequences from what’s going on in Washington. The “president” is trying to overwhelm the public with decrees from on high, but the vast majority of those decrees are never going to make it out of the courts. The promises to ignore court orders are subject to the myriad penalties the courts can apply. The media is eating it all up and regurgitating it. IGNORE IT. It’s not worth your time.
Stay strong, friends. Keep showing up, and show them we mean business.