The Gathering: December 30, 2025

And, as always, send us your stories and wisdom.

Editor's note: As we stand at the threshold between years, remember that rest isn't weakness—it's the mycelial work happening beneath the surface, preparing for what wants to grow through us next.

The stench of incompetence has a particular quality this morning—acrid, familiar, with notes of authoritarian panic. Trumpty MouthAnus is currently orchestrating what historians will likely call "the fastest diplomatic clusterfuck in modern American history," simultaneously threatening Venezuela with military action while fumbling Minnesota policy like a drunk handling nitroglycerin. The air in State Department offices reportedly smells of sweat and desperation, the kind that seeps through expensive suits and stains silk ties.

This matters because real fucking people—immigrants, LGBTQIA+ Venezuelans fleeing persecution, Indigenous communities caught in manufactured border crises—are the ones who pay in blood and trauma when bloated fascists play geopolitical chess with human lives. Donaldo Shitsburger's particular brand of diplomatic arson targets the most vulnerable first, always. Trans Venezuelan asylum seekers don't have time for this motherfucker's political theater; they're navigating survival in real-time while he tweets threats between golf holes.

Activists and organizers are already mobilizing—immigrant rights coalitions flooding hotlines with support resources, queer Venezuelan networks creating underground pathways to safety, Indigenous border communities establishing mutual aid networks that existed long before this shitstain stumbled into power. Direct action groups are documenting human rights violations in real-time, building evidence for the inevitable legal battles. You can support the National Immigration Law Center, donate to LGBTQ+ asylum organizations, or join local rapid response networks preparing for ICE raids.

Historically, American diplomatic failures leave generational scars—from Iran-Contra to Iraq, the pattern is carved deep. This latest fuckery follows decades of interventionist bullshit dressed up as "freedom," and it's happening at a moment when climate migration is about to reshape every border on earth. The Donald of Dumpster doesn't give a shit about any of this—he's playing to a base that confuses cruelty with strength while the planet literally burns. See comprehensive timeline of Trump administration foreign policy disasters.

The earth smells different when trust dies—like rain on concrete, that particular petrichor of broken promises mixing with exhaust fumes. New research reveals that poorly designed climate policies are actively eroding public faith in environmental action, creating a feedback loop where the very tools meant to save us breed cynicism that chokes future progress. You can taste the irony in your mouth, metallic and bitter.

The science is fucking devastating: when governments implement performative green policies that burden working people while letting corporations skate, they're not just failing—they're poisoning the well for genuine climate action. Hard numbers show public support for environmental regulations dropping 23% in regions where badly designed carbon taxes hit low-income communities hardest. Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies rake in record profits while cosplaying as climate heroes with greenwashing campaigns that cost more than their actual sustainability investments.

Climate justice organizers are adapting, pivoting toward community-led solutions that don't require trusting institutions that have proven themselves utterly full of shit. Indigenous land defenders continue protecting forests and water sources through direct action. Youth climate strikers are building mutual aid networks that provide material support while organizing for systemic change. Grassroots renewable energy cooperatives are proving that community-owned solutions work when top-down policy fails. You can join local climate justice groups, support Indigenous-led conservation efforts, or help build community solar projects.

This isn't new—environmental policy has been captured by corporate interests since the first Earth Day became a marketing opportunity. What's different now is the stakes: we're past the point where incremental bullshit will save us, and every failed policy becomes ammunition for climate deniers who've been waiting for exactly this kind of ammunition. The window for action is closing like a fist, and performative politics is wasting time we literally don't fucking have. Learn about the hidden mechanisms of climate policy failure.

There's a particular weight to ancestral memory returning—like finding your grandmother's hands in your own, or recognizing a prayer in a language you never spoke aloud. Gender-variant people across cultures are excavating and reclaiming rich historical lineages that colonial violence tried to bury, reconnecting with traditions that understood gender's beautiful complexity millennia before "non-binary" became a hashtag. The texture of this reclamation work feels like fabric being rewoven, threads thought lost now visible again.

The details matter here: we're talking about Two-Spirit traditions across hundreds of Indigenous nations, hijra communities in South Asia with documented histories spanning 4,000 years, muxe people in Zapotec culture, fa'afafine in Samoa, kathoey in Thailand, and dozens more cultural frameworks that recognized and celebrated gender diversity before European colonizers showed up with their rigid binary horseshit. These weren't marginal identities—they were spiritual leaders, healers, artists, and respected community members. The stakes are existential: when trans and non-binary people today reclaim these lineages, they're not inventing identity from scratch—they're coming home to ways of being that colonialism tried to genocide out of existence.

"Seeing myself in ancient artwork, in creation stories, in ceremonial roles—it's like remembering how to breathe after holding your breath for generations," says one Two-Spirit organizer rebuilding traditional knowledge systems. Activists are creating digital archives, translating historical texts, training new generations in cultural practices that nearly died. Museums are being forced to reckon with how they've presented gender-variant histories—or more often, deliberately erased them. Educational programs are teaching queer youth that their existence isn't a modern invention but a return to human diversity's full spectrum.

Colonial Christianity's violent enforcement of the gender binary is well-documented—missionaries and conquistadors systematically destroyed gender-variant people and the cultures that honored them, from the Americas to Africa to Asia. That violence continued through medical pathologization, legal persecution, and cultural erasure that persists today. But knowledge is resilient, and communities are proving that what seemed lost was often just hidden, waiting. This moment of reclamation comes as trans rights face renewed assault, making cultural grounding more than academic—it's armor, it's medicine, it's proof that gender diversity is as old as humanity itself. Learn about the deep cultural lineages of gender variance.

The longest night smells like pine resin and beeswax, woodsmoke curling into crystalline air so cold it burns your throat clean. Over 2.5 billion people worldwide will mark the winter solstice this season, honoring the moment when darkness reaches its peak before the slow return of light—not as enemy but as necessary rest, as womb, as the rich soil where transformation happens. See more fast facts about global solstice traditions.

The tradition's roots go deep—humans have been marking this moment for at least 5,000 years, from Newgrange in Ireland where Neolithic people engineered light to penetrate inner chambers only on the solstice morning, to Inti Raymi celebrations in the Andes, to Yalda Night in Persian tradition where families gather for pomegranates and poetry through the longest darkness. What makes this year special is the collective need: after endless crisis, the solstice offers permission to stop producing, stop performing, stop pretending we're not fucking exhausted. The weight of candlelight in cupped palms, the temperature of bodies gathered close against winter cold, the particular amber glow that makes familiar faces look briefly timeless.

Variations span every geography and culture—from Swedish St. Lucia processions with crowns of candles and saffron buns, to Dongzhi Festival where Chinese families make tangyuan (sweet rice balls) together, to contemporary pagan ceremonies reconstructing pre-Christian European traditions, to Jewish families lighting Hanukkah candles in windows as defiant brightness against historical darkness. Celebrations vary widely, too, with Japanese soaking in yuzu baths for purification and Romans feasting at Saturnalia with role reversals and gift-giving that echoed through centuries into modern Christmas.

Explore our favorite resources on solstice practices and rituals here.

Pink News | Multiple Authors. The cognitive dissonance smells like burning rubber—Greene calling for transparency about Epstein's client list while studiously ignoring that Donny Caligulump appears in those documents more than once, his name redacted in some versions but visible in others like a shitstain that won't wash out no matter how much bleach you pour. (Read)

Pink News | Multiple Authors. You can taste the petty fascism—Musk's platform officially supporting a woman being investigated for photographing people in trans bathrooms, harassment dressed up as "journalism," the texture of transphobia getting corporate backing while Musk plays free speech warrior with all the authenticity of spray-on tan. (Read)

"We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." — Charles Bukowski

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