I just discovered that there was a person who was afab and ended up joining the russian army by the name of Alexander Durov in 1806.
Born a woman, Nadezhda Durova (birth name) ran away from home and joined a light cavallery regiment dressed as a man.
After his identity was uncovered, the russian tsar summoned him to the palace at St. Petersburg, where he impressed the tsar so much that he awarded Durov the Cross of St. George and promoted him to lieutenant in a hussar unit.
He always referred to himself as a man and was upset when people called him a woman.
He signed letters with his male last name.
He expressed feelings of disgust towards his sex and how that worried him a lot.
He never married willingly and adopted many dogs and cats.
He only danced with women when attending a ball.
He asked to be buried under his male name Alexander Andreevich Alexandrov but the church did not agree to that.
I never saw him in “historical transmasculine people” compilations and only discovered his story coincidentally.
Unfortunately, historians still adress him with female pronouns, although he did not want that.
Let’s remember him together. We won’t allow him to be forgotten.
I’ll probably add onto this post later or make a better one but you can read a lot on this wikipedia article:
god the poor man. being more or less “out” to many people during his lifetime got him misgendered almost constantly, he made his feelings on the matter clear…and scholars still won’t stop doing it
Aleksandrov was irate, writing to Pushkin “the name which you called me [his deadname], dear sir Aleksandr Sergeevich, in the preface haunts me! Is there no remedy for my grief? You called me by that name that makes me shudder, and soon 20,000 people will read it and call me by it too!”
pronouns and name expressed in life are the person’s correct pronouns and name! respect them!
If you’re in Maine or Philly or wherever the fuck Vance claimed DHS is going next, I BEG you to look at the rapid response and mutual aid networks and how they’ve been built in Portland, Chicago, and the Twin Cities, and start building your own version NOW.
Download signal if you haven’t already. Pick a resistance pseudonym. Make a proton email that has no indicators to your real name. Start buying and printing whistles and whistle zines.
Organize your school patrols and foot patrols NOW. Talk to your community and your mercados and your Hmong and Somali grocery stores, ask them what support they need. Get “ICE are not welcome here” signage for businesses and homes. Familiarize yourself with the difference between an administrative warrant and a judicial warrant.
Learn how to take down a SALUTE report. PRACTICE salute reports. Learn, memorize, and embody radio etiquette for rapid response work.
Pick your lane: rapid response or mutual aid– you can’t do both, because rapid response often puts you in direct contact with ICE. They’ve been taking down plate numbers and leading responders back to their own homes here in the Twin Cities.
Remember that being under siege is a marathon, not a race. Try to remember that while your neighbors are being kidnapped in their underwear, from their own homes.
Meet your neighbors. Attend your city council meetings and demand separation ordinances NOW. Tell your congress people and representatives not to give ICE more money.
Prepare yourself to see high school children being stopped and harassed. 5 year olds being used as bait for their mothers. Old men being dragged out of their houses in underwear and Crocs simply because all of them are not white.
Be flexible, be ready to pivot on a dime as situations change. Be ready to be paranoid. Be ready to be distrusting of every Texas, New York, California, or Illinois license plate. Be ready to be suspicious of EVERY out of state license plate. Dark sedans and SUVs with extremely illegally tinted windows. Unreadable or missing plates.
No one will save you, save us, or save our neighbors but ourselves. No one is coming to help or protect us but us.
Hey, Angeleno here to add: look for or start mutual aid groups that buy out your vendors, jardineros, tradespeople, helping support the most vulnerable members of your community from making the choice to stay home and safe or provide for family. We’re still doing this here and it helps.
“ICE NOT WELCOME” signs are great for solidarity and breaking morale, but please make and help pass out signs stating a home or business is private property. Make sure your business has an area explicitly for employees only. What we’ve seen in the last week makes all this seem like sticking a post-it on a viper and none of us know where we’re headed now, but it’s easy to do and could make a difference. It’s made a difference here.
