We can't move it to _PyRuntimeState because the symbol is exposed in the stable ABI. We'll have to sort that out before a per-interpreter GIL, but it shouldn't be too hard.
https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/81057
##################################
## global non-objects to fix in core code
-##-----------------------
-## state
-
-Objects/object.c - _Py_RefTotal -
+# <none>
##################################
Modules/syslogmodule.c - S_ident_o -
Modules/syslogmodule.c - S_log_open -
+##-----------------------
+## kept for stable ABI compatibility
+
+# XXX should be per-interpreter, without impacting stable ABI extensions
+Objects/object.c - _Py_RefTotal -
+
##-----------------------
## one-off temporary state