The Bibliotheca prompt this time around is sprout, and the idea sprouted from my personal experiences in Chicago before and after the Great Lace. I have a little recap post for the event itself, but this post here is completely ancillary to those happenings. This is about sanctuary and how I strive to provide it. This gets really dense and grim, so please do not read if you're unprepared for serious matters.
Chicago means a lot to me. I have about a century, give or take, of family history there, starting when my great grandparents immigrated from what today is Ukraine, weaving through my dad's childhood, and continuing with my twin brother's relocation from dreary DC to vibrant Chicagoland. I love the food, the museums, the culture, the rattling of the L, the smell of stale weed smoke woven into icy Lake Michigan breezes-- if my career in DC were to implode, Chicago would be my chosen refuge.
I'm not alone in finding solace in the Windy City-- Chicagoland has long been host to ethnic enclaves of all types, well predating my Jewish Ukrainian family's arrival. Chicago has served as an asylum to many peoples before and since, and will continue to do so. But the 2020s have heightened the contradictions that draw people to Chicago.
In most Chicago neighborhoods, every reputable business has a sticker or some kind of sign barring immigration enforcement from entry. This is because of the clear, visible, deadly assaults on Americans by birth and by choice that the relevant agencies have committed. What's easier to miss, though, is the queer and trans diaspora.
Since 2024, I personally know at least half a dozen trans people who've fled their homes, their histories, and everything they knew to start a less-persecuted life in Chicago. It might be easy (for cis people) to miss the signs of persecution-- a bathroom bill in Nevada, a sports ban in Texas, driver's licenses being invalidated and seized in Kansas-- but these amount to a ban from public life. Chicago is a fun place to visit because my cool friends are there, but they all ended up there at once because they are internally displaced persons, refugees from state level violence. And alongside the political persecution, trans people are not given the benefit of the doubt for anything. We are infantilized and cast as predators at the same time.
Lolita wearers, even cis ones, should be familiar with this narrative of the childlike yet predatory weirdo-- after all, it's the same punishment for subverting norms that we experience with every unsolicited touch, every creepshot, and every strange question we get in an average day in public.
I am a moderator of my area's lolita community, and I take it almost too seriously. I definitely question the judgment of the comm for trusting me so much; after all, in the immortal words of Marx (Groucho), "I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER." I am a moderator because I act as a moderator, and I act as a moderator because I am a moderator.
This circular logic pisses me off. I always question authority, and that goes double for my own authority. Optimally, authority should come from some sort bureaucratic process involving committees, paperwork, and point-based evaluations with a public comment process. Because of my incessant questioning, I put the extra effort in whenever I can-- learning to accommodate everybody's quirks, checking in on newbies and shy comm members, and generally trying my best to be a friend (and occasional advisor) to all the amazing people who I have the privilege of knowing. I strive to be worthy of the trust I'm given.
In this political climate, with the overt targeting of disabled and neurodivergent people, racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, queer people, and trans people especially, this trust is a valuable and dangerous thing. Lolita communities serve as support networks for some of the most vulnerable people in society. Nobody attracted to alternative fashion is a true conformist-- if we wanted to fit in, we wouldn't be here!
The difficult thing, though, is that a lolita comm is not the strictly bureaucratic, democratically-governed entity it seems to be. It's literally just some people in dresses. Hopefully, they're friends, but they need to at least tolerate each other for meetups to keep going. The contradiction between comm-as-friend group and comm-as-community support organization doesn't often come up, but when it does, people get banned.
I think comm mods, if they present their organization as a community organization, should ban people for safety alone. My definition of safety includes physical safety, ability to maintain rules, information safety, and safety from discrimination. I do not think people should be excluded for being annoying, rude, or vulgar, not least because all of those have described me at one time or another. I also try to take into consideration material concerns. If you're hanging out with friends at a boba shop, then it's cool to invite who you want, but slapping the label of Area Comm onto something transforms it from a private circle into a public-ish institution. It's an anarchic legitimacy, but everything starts somewhere.
Part of my gratitude for my comm and their baffling continued respect for me comes from this nucleus of this month's theme: watching seeds sprout. I've been in this fashion for over a decade, modding for over half that, and I've had the opportunity to help people grow. So many comm members came to the fashion stuck fast in their seedcoats, fearful of the rumors they'd heard of 4chan and tiktok, prepared to be left in the cold for their social clumsiness or, all too often, their mere existence as marginalized people. To sow them into the rich ground of existing community has been a privilege.
That's not to say everyone's perfectly lovely as they mature into the fashion; everyone has some annoying phase, some wack opinions, or at least something to grow out of. Lolitas aren't perfect lovelies-- we're just some guy (gender notwithstanding). These flawed, wonderful people have blossomed into themselves as lolitas and as people because they were given the benefit of the doubt. It was up to the comm to give them that space and nourishment, but the growth still lies with them.
This past year-and-a-bit has been a never-ending stream of anxiety. I'm writing this post on my 29th birthday, with a tenuous two week ceasefire between Iran and the Israeli-American militaries just announced. I sincerely don't know if I'd have made it this far without my comm; every little connection I make in this fashion gives me hope. I regularly wonder to myself whether I will live to see 30, and if I will be remembered fondly or impassionately or not at all. I try to be positive in life to plant seeds of happiness and knowledge bearing fruit in my absence. When I am one day gone, I want to grow into a memory worth remembering, a story worth telling.
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