What follows is me speaking for myself, and myself only. I think several of the other organisers are in a similar place, but I can only speak for myself.

I’m not happy, and I’m not healthy at the moment.

I feel like I’ve been operating an average 6/10 burnout for the last ten years. For the past two years, it feels like it’s been getting progressively worse.

In 2019, I was dealing with my dream job fell apart when $company decided to fire five of my coworkers for organising. At the same time, I had to put my cat to sleep when we discovered she had tuberculosis.

In 2020 we entered a global pandemic, and was made redundant from my next job.

In 2023 my Mum died.

The effect it’s had on me and my family has been devastating.

In the year that we put on @frontendnorth (2025), I was organising a conference, at the same time I was dealing with upheaval and precariousness at work, and then we had the For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers judgment in the Supreme Court.

Put simply, most trans people have been living with the uncertainty of whether they’ll be protected from discrimination at work and when using goods and services for the past year.

I feel like I’ve been at a constant 7/10 burnout, or worse, since January 2025.

The solution for burnout is to stop it at its source.

I’m not organising a conference anymore, but because the situation with the Supreme Court judgment has not been resolved, and the employment landscape remains as bad as it is, I’m not going to be much better for a little while.

So, my contribution to the #TDOV is a small reminder that trans people contribute to all sorts of things that make this world a better place, and many of them are just barely keeping things together.

Things will get better one day, I just don’t know when.