Help a Butch out; Get CowboyJen back on the road!

Dearest lesbians (and you ally-types too!),

A few weeks ago, my friend Jen (affectionately known as “Cowboy Jen”) had her transmission blow on her well-loved, and over-worked van. After assessing what it’d take to get the vehicle with 200,000 miles back on the road, it’s pretty clear she needs to find new wheels. It has taken me and a solid handful of her friends these past 2 weeks to convince her she ought accept a little help this time around. Like a great many of us, she simply doesn’t have extra resources or a safety net around that she can pull from.

Many of you may very well know Jen, no matter where you live. Because this is a butch who on Tiktok alone, has nearly 100,000 people finding comfort and guidance in her words and presence on the daily. The bulk of these folks are lesbians. Lesbians of all ages, because one of Jen’s biggest efforts is to connect the younger with the older, fostering priceless intergenerational connections so desperately needed. This is a butch who fields a never-ending mass of emails from young dykes seeking *help* and sometimes just seeking an ear. It is not unusual for her to be up before the sun doing farm work and to answer a text from me at midnight because a young lesbian on the other side of the world is in crisis and she’s not about to go to bed until she’s responded.

I could go on, name all the platforms she occupies, the blog advice she supplies, available when she simply can not be, but we’d be here all day.

Plus she’s not only online. Far from. The van with 200,000 miles on it? Well, not only was it her daily driver that she relied on to get to and fro work and get her family where they need to be, but it was also what she used to shuttle bus loads of women to gatherings and camp outs. Friends? Strangers? No matter. Need a ride, she’s the person you call who will get you to your community.

I think that’s really what it keeps coming back to; she connects lesbians to our community. And quite frankly, she is the woman, the lesbian, the butch so many of us wished like hell were around when we were young and scared and finding ourselves.

This is uncomfortable for Jen. Alright, that’s an understatement. She’s doesn’t have much experience on this end of the asking. But when we spoke the other day, I finally broke through enough to talk her into letting me do this. I told her that this is how community is meant to work. And dykes and lesbians have been models of interdependency forever. Whether we call it karma, things coming full circle, reciprocity, or if we’re simply honoring the work done by a midwestern butch with a serious heart of gold, we show up. Tangibly. I want to get Jen back on the road. I want her back able to provide for herself and her loved ones and to do what she does best as summer approaches and opportunities to come together present themselves. So let’s make this happen. I take back what I said at the start; she does have a safety net. It’s just not sitting in the bank is all. It’s right here with us. If you’re able, please throw a donation towards a reliable van and share widely.

Please don’t make a liar out of me.

In solidarity and community,

Koja