This is off topic, but it felt like it was worthwhile putting here, because I've come across this page so many times, and every time I reread it and get to experience it again.
I realized that JT's site was down, and went searching around, found her Twitter and Instagram, realized she had been homeless for over two years, and apparently just recently passed away. Given that she was homeless, trans, and talked pretty openly open her internal and external struggles, I have my suspicions about what happened.
I feel pretty gutted because I support a couple of people on Patreon, and if I had come across her Twitter six months ago and saw the state she was in, I would have jumped at the opportunity to became a Patron to try to help her get back on her feet.
Not much of a point here, other than to try and pay attention to people a little bit more, and help out where you can.
tararist: The most terrible thing has happened. The smartest, most special person I’ve ever met has died. She was a veritable genius. She taught at MIT, was a pioneer in augmented reality, did CGI for the Tron film, and started a huge design company which she gave to her ex-wife before coming out as trans. Soon after that we met by complete chance at Kathmandu in Berkeley where she was trying on a dress. She came out of the dressing room and shyly asked the nice guy working there if it was too short. I was talking to him too and said, “if you put your hands by your side and the hem is above your fingertips it means you’re a slut.” “I guess I should hike it up then,” she replied. I don’t remember how but just like that we became best friends. She was the most creative, brilliant, funny, fearless person I’ve ever met and her life ended tragically because of our disgusting society. Despite her ridiculous accomplishments she was unable to find a job. “They just see a man in lipstick,” she told me once. Still, she wouldn’t say her life was tragic. Even when her savings ran out and she ended up on the streets of San Francisco, she was still cheerful, sitting on the sidewalk in a yogic cross-legged position with a laptop on her lap, producing her brilliantly original ideas. In the SF shelter system she was a trans-activist who changed the rules so that TERFs weren’t allowed. She was always finding things to delight in and never lost her sense of humor. I’m a changed person because of her and will always be in awe that biology could produce such magic as was her soul. Somehow I have no photos of us together, but the first pic is her dressed as her hero Anne Frank, and in the second I’m wearing a netted top she bought me, wearing a kandi she made me (that I didn’t take off for like a year because looking at it always made me feel loved), and in the background is an origami crane she absentmindedly made years ago and that I always kept and hung because of the good vibes she effortlessly imbued into everything. I forgot to ever tell her that I kept it and hung it up. JT Nimoy, the greatest gift fate has ever given me.
