I’m a suicide prevention advocate who specializes in LGBTQ+ data, and I have been an activist in North Dakota since the early 2010s. I’m starting a Substack because I’ve found that people are desperate for a grounded and compassionate voice that can clearly and articulately explain the issues we see in North Dakota.
And while I do opine frequently on Facebook, that isn’t exactly accessible or reliable for folks to stay informed.
As I thought about what I might title such an endeavor, only one thing really made sense: “A Swing of the Hammer with Faye Seidler.” Well, it was that, or something like Goblin Noises, because I tend to like having a sense of humor about things and would rather the quality of my words continue to be what inspires confidence rather than my prestige.
But I went with the former because, across the last couple of years, I’ve been using the metaphor that you must fall in love with the swing of the hammer, not the fall of the wall. This is a centering philosophy to remain hopeful and resilient when the work we engage in is generational or feels impossible.
And I find that today so many people feel hopeless and disconnected. We look around at a world that has never felt more divided. We look at an economy that is collapsing and a system that doesn’t seem to fundamentally care about people as we continue to cut more essential services or make getting them harder.
And when people try to fight for change, it feels so daunting and impossible. What happens is folks throw everything they can at the wall in front of them, and what ends up breaking is them, not the wall. When we attack the inequities of the world with everything we have, we damage ourselves in the process, in the recoil, and often we give up or walk away or burn out.
When we fall in love with the swing, it does a lot of very important things for our work.
We take measured swings, so we can keep doing it for as long as we’re alive. Which will always matter significantly more than someone swinging their hardest for a few months.
We make noise in the effort that can draw other people to the cause and not just one’s particular cause, but to show that anyone cares gives people the permission structure to care for the world themselves and hammer away at their own walls.
We understand the value of every little action we take, because every blow of the hammer is as valuable as the one that takes down the wall in the end.
When our walls fall down, but we love swinging the hammer, then we move to the next one, so our work naturally becomes intersectional and community oriented. As we solve smaller problems, more people become available to help tear down the big ones.
When we can align our actions as valuable and take measured swings to walls between us and the future we want, it’s often only a matter of time to get there. This doesn’t guarantee any success at any cause, but when we put in time and effort, we get somewhere. And through that effort we learn new things, we create new possibilities, and we invite a future that can be better than today.
This is the underlying philosophy behind my Substack and general activism.
What to Expect Going Forward
On August 1st, I published a piece on Facebook titled Detroit Lakes and the Damage Done. This was a long, journalistic account of the horrors that many LGBTQ+ youth have had to face in our school system. It was written because their school board had banned the Pride flag.
This piece drew in tens of thousands of people to be aware of the situation, educated folks on the impacts and legacy of these policies and directions, and put significant pressure on the school board to retract a clearly harmful policy.
This was a swing of the hammer. I intend to share that piece here, with updates on where the story has gone. Ways one can get involved and support the local community or investigate of queer youth are safe in their own school districts.
Yesterday, I wrote about the Swan Song of Senator Kathy Hogan. A longtime lawmaker in North Dakota, who led with compassion and dignity for those who often fall through the cracks. This is a model I would like lawmakers to follow, and paying respect to those who do that job well and encouraging it in others is a swing of the hammer.
I also intend to write informative pieces on the ways some systems are failing, which are not immediately obvious to folks. I will write on a concept called Community Extraction that focuses on how organizations can sometimes exist to only exploit community rather than serve them.
I am not an expert on every topic. But I am very well informed on current events, extremely experienced in multiple fields, and connected to experts on pretty much everything. And my hope is to bring all of that together to create a meaningful engagement of activism.
Where I differ from almost every other person or institute is that my goal is not to make my cause more effective. It is not to make my organization more effective. It is not to solicit funding or grants. I have one singular goal. I want the people reading this to be empowered to be the change they want.
The walls I want to tear down will never be budged by all the work I could ever do across my entire life. But if I can teach people how to love the swing of the hammer. I think that, one day, even after I’m gone—that might make the future I want. So, I am selfishly empowering people to make the change they want in the world, out of the belief it might one day help me. Feels like a win-win and that’s what this Substack hopes to achieve.
I Also Do Another Things
Public Speaker on Hope, Resiliency, or Activism, or Queer Experience
Professional Trainer on LGBTQ+ Topics in Healthcare and Suicide Prevention
While Substack focuses on stories around North Dakota Community Change, you can support my work and learn about all of my activism on my Patreon as well.