My first instinct since hearing Trump won is to run and hide and jump right back into the closet. For right now, at least, I am not going to do that. I spent so many miserable decades trying to deny who I was that I cannot, simply cannot, go back to that. I will write and put myself out front for as long as I legally allowed to do so.
In the meantime, I am finding some Community and Community in this:
With the results of the election finalized, we at The Advocate are just as devastated as you.
While we cannot say we are shocked, to know that our nation will once again be at the mercy of Donald Trump is deeply troubling — even more troubling is the fact that this is what our neighbors and fellow citizens have chosen. There are countless disastrous policies threatening our LGBTQ+ community and the very concept of journalism itself, and this administration has the means to pass them that it didn’t eight years ago.
But we at The Advocate are not going anywhere.
We have brought you queer journalism since 1967. Our publication, and our community, have weathered darkness not unlike what we are facing now, and while not all of us survived, the rest of us have lived on and persisted for them. This will not change.
We, the editors and writers of The Advocate, promise you, our audience — whether you are a fan, casual reader, or hater — that we will continue to hold the line on the positions we know to be the truth. We will continue to defend transgender people and their rights to health care, sports participation, and beyond. We will not hedge our criticism of the Trump Administration (and there will be much) to win favor or avoid potential consequences. We will not shift right for the sake of appearing impartial at the expense of evidence.
And we will not stop telling stories of queer inspiration and resilience.
We cannot tell you what the future holds. But we will be here to cover it.
Community is now more important than ever. What we felt this week was not just fear, but a strong sense of hope — hope for a better future and the drive to make it happen. We encourage you not just to keep reading, but to keep writing your own stories. Join us in holding the line and fighting for this future. Rest assured, it will come.
Until then, we endure.
Forever in solidarity,
The Advocate
Another article on their website says this and also comforts me as much as I can be comforted right now:
We are not a cult. We are a loving, nurturing community that rightly takes pride in our history of continually overcoming severe obstacles to survive and thrive. We’ve gained so much. Achieved so much. Celebrated so much; yet, we still have so much work to do.
After what happened last night, I dare say that we might have to start all over again. We are not safe. We will have a president, a Congress, a House speaker who are vehemently opposed to us. And a Supreme Court that is gunning for us. We are less than them. We are evil to them. We are bound for hell to them. We are garbage to them.
Gay men are f**s, lesbians are confused, bi people don’t exist, trans people are freaks, and nonbinary people are ridiculous jokes. These slurs were heard at Trump rallies, on the campaign trail, in GOP ads and social media posts, and face-to-face. We heard multiple stories about door-to-door canvassers being confronted and attacked with angry words that oozed abhorrence.
The torrent of hate towards queers provides a permission structure, that allowed my friend to spew venom, and now has been extended to over 70 million people. Don’t think for a minute that these people will suddenly be nice and accepting. Kindness and openness did not win last night. If Americans were disgusted with that language, and the way queer people were being referred to, they would have responded accordingly.
That is why, today, the only thing I can think about is how much we have to band together — once again — and perhaps like we have never before. We are about to come under attack in ways we cannot even fathom. Suddenly, we look at our lives, our marriages, our children, our jobs, and our very beings, and see the precipice of hate and exclusion.
But we will not, and we cannot, accept any infringement of our rights.
With so much success over the years in getting to where we are today, we always saw the rainbow of a Pride flag in the distance, at the end of the road. Now an ominous, opaque cloud blocks our vision. Suddenly, we find ourselves blinded to our future.
Last night was an aberration. A bad dream. A torrid dream. This morning, we woke up with sweat, chills, anxiety, and our hearts beating furiously, pounding against my rib cage, looking for a way out of this hellscape.
At some point, I suppose I’ll dissect what went wrong last night. Now, I eat a poisoned crow that makes me violently nauseous. I cannot figure out a way forward, because going forward at this point seems like an implausible task. The pain is too great to even conceive and consider that the bright sun, shining down on me now, will one day warm me again.
But for now, the only, fleeting, static, fluttering hope I do have is that I belong to the most resilient community in the world, filled with love, compassion, acceptance, and inclusion. We are not garbage, despite the toxicity and bane that is going to engulf us in the years to come. We are heroes. We always have been. And we’ve always come out on top. We will get through this.
Right now, that provides a tiny bit of solace.
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