David Forbes
Appearances
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
I'll go ahead and start. I've been a journalist for over 20 years. And for those who might be wondering, since you referred to trans femmes, I am a trans woman. I use she, they pronouns. I also like the name David. So, but... I have seen it kind of wax and wane. I've seen it go up and down.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
And to some degree, what we're facing now, it is a much worse and escalating version, but it is also some of what I've seen trans journalists face, period. I came out publicly in 2016. I started my transition in 2015. And Immediately, my freelance career basically died overnight. And it wasn't like I was writing for, you know, right wing outlets or something.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
And, you know, honestly, the fact is, and this is, I think, unusual among among trans journalism, because a lot of it admirably focuses on, you know, national and international level stuff, because what we face is so vast.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
But if it had not been for the local support, because a lot of the Blade subscribers are local, though we certainly welcome people to subscribe from wherever they are, I would be homeless. And there's a good chance I wouldn't be talking to y'all right now.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
But at the same time, in this kind of what I kind of call the quiet purge, which I think has been escalating in recent years that you talked about, about, you know, just we've got trans journalists who used to write for national magazines living out of their cars now. That is the reality we face. Yeah. Our publication's all working class trans people.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
And, you know, we've had journalists arrested twice. Yeah. Oh, my God. For doing their jobs. Two of our journalists were taken to trial in 2023 on a minor trespassing charge, which is almost unheard of in the U.S., as bad as the U.S. often is. As you mentioned also, this was like trespassing for fucking reporting on the cops doing a homeless encampment sweep.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
They don't actually take you to trial. This is one of those kind of welcome to Asheville moments, because I think people buy the marketing sometimes and think we're this super progressive city, and actually it's an incredibly repressive, like, tourism fife.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
And that's this kind of really still point, though, like the city government city council here is six Democrats and one kind of like Bernie Sanders type independent, though even more tepid. And the D.A. is a Democrat. And still, you know, they were hell bent.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
to persecute trans journalists yeah um one of our one of our journalists matilda bliss was openly mistreated and misgendered based on her gender during that so to some degree what's happening now is certainly a worsening but it is also an extension of what's been going on for a very long time so okay like it is getting worse i don't know where we're going to be in a two three even one year but also like this is not a new fight
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
The extent of it is actually telling on the local level, too.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
Here, the Blade did a number of reporting, and we also featured some really well-thought-out and pretty sharp opinion columns, which is one thing we kind of specialize in, because I think they're really good for raising issues on the local level, about how awful the Tourism Development Authority is, which is this hotelier cartel that takes every dime of all the local hotel tax, every bit of it, and then uses it to market the place to more rich people and
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
push crackdowns on pretty much everyone else so we push this it became a widespread public demand a lot of organizing happened around it and there was zip zilch zero mentioned that like spurred by investigations and editorials in the ashfield blade even one of the one of the people who wrote that editorial it was a local um resident activist who dealt with some tourism stuff
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
was literally being quoted the fact she'd written a piece for the blade and that you know was just not mentioned and actually became kind of a running kind of grim joke because we're all working class trans people and you know half of us are trans femme is just the Asheville blade does not exist and. And some of that was for liberals, but honestly, Asheville has a massive trans misogyny problem.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
We think we were the first media outlets to do like a quick guide to trans misogyny, which we did kind of like a slideshow about it in our Patreon and stuff because it was that extensive. But even the left in Asheville has some real problems with trans misogyny.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
So, and it's applied to everything, not just from trans issues, but even to bread and butter kind of local stuff, which we also do a lot of reporting on. You know, it's, we can't admit that trans leftists and anarchists are shaping the discussion in any way, shape or form.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
That's absolutely true. And I should note, the Blade's a co-op. We've been one for for half a decade now. And part of the reason for that was we'd seen how unfairly like income was treated just in the press in general. And also, I'm an anarchist. And while I love being an editor, I don't want to be a boss. I want to like work with other people. Yeah. And it's made us a lot more effective.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
I would say we wouldn't exist if we hadn't become a co-op. But also when we do hit a difficult financial spot, we operate in a shoestring budget, especially post to lean, as sadly, a lot of folks have been driven out of Asheville by the refusal of various governments to do anything about rental aid by the resumption of like very quick resumption of evictions and a lot of other horrible stuff.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
Like it's a struggle. We all are working class folks. We all work other jobs and face trans discrimination, trans mythology and transphobia. So it's it's difficult. And even with being a co-op, we do the best we can. And we do, unlike other places, pay freelancers fair rates. But sometimes it's legitimately difficult to divide up our tiny budget.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
And at some points we say, hey, look, we can't cover this right now or we have to say, OK, in some cases I've done it before. Certainly I'm covering this, but I am going to literally have to split up payment for it over multiple months because we just don't have the money in there. But I feel it does need it does need to get out there. Yeah.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
And even if those decisions are made more fairly, it is still a real problem that we are dividing up a fairly small pool of resources. We do a lot with that, but it is a real limitation.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
From our co-op, thank you for repeatedly mentioning that aspect. I think also this class dynamic does shape the type of trans coverage you see, too, quite a bit. We did some reporting one time on the city of Asheville spending over a million dollars to the Salvation Army. which is basically a queer and transphobic cult.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
But that piece was reported very differently from if it had been reported by, say, a trans journalist who'd been very well off their entire lives, you know, because a lot of us people in our co-op have either been close to or been homeless before. And so we were able to bring in the experience of knowing that if you are a trans homeless person, the Salvation Army isn't letting you in.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
Or is one of the worst possible shelters you can end up in? And that piece was written and read very differently because we were drawing from that on the ground experience.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
The last year, the Asheville Blade marked our 10th anniversary. So I think I think that is worth mentioning, too. Like, I think sometimes things and they truly are precarious. They truly are difficult. In some ways, they're only getting more precarious and more difficult. But at the same time, despite our journalists being arrested, despite being kind of like
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
targeted and ignored by a lot of liberals and even some leftists in town we're still here we're still doing journalism we just put out a really powerful investigation about you know more yet more malfeasance in the police department so so yet like it can be done it's not impossible and as tight as things are there is also a lot of resilience and we do get a lot of very genuine support i do think that's worth emphasizing too so like there is strength and there is some hope here
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
I would, yeah, I'd add to that. But another thing is, look, you should support transgender animals because trans people deserve to, you know, to be supported and to be able to make a living. Also, frankly, we're really good at this, like, generally as a whole. Like, we have a lot more perspective, I think, on how this hellscape social structure actually does and doesn't work.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
And a lot more determination to actually tell the truth in general. And so, you know, dollars to the Asheville Blade, for example, or to Mira or to Maticast, like, they go to journalism. Yeah, yeah. You know, they're not going to like some Baroque hierarchy of, you know, of gentry administrators or something or CEOs like it goes to journalism.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
It goes to actual interesting reporting and views and things that need to be said. So if people are even just looking if some journalism is something they care about or think needs to be stronger, this is the way to do it.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
People can find our co-op's work at ashfullblade.com. And there's a giant link to our Patreon there. For $15 a month, you can get a lovely Gentry Tears mug, which we're particularly proud of.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
uh thank you for the endorsement and at the end of each article we have addition to our patreon a link if folks just want to send us some one-time support we'll certainly put that to use as well and if they uh would like to see some of my personal writings about trans survival as well as some anarchist looks at various periods of history patreon.com slash david forbes if if that is if that is more than a cup of tea it's a
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 181
No, and that's a good reminder. There is another way with journalism. You know, Ida Wells was able to detail the extent and horror of American segregation and lynching and also called for people to shoot the Klan. This is the modern idea that you have to be detached and inevitably attached from pretty gentry perspective. You know, there's a world elsewhere. There's other ways to do things.