“What exactly are you afraid of?”
That my LGBTQ friends and family will have their newly won rights slapped out of their hands by folks who don’t think they should have been handed them in the first place.
That my LGBTQ friends and family – especially the young ones – who HAD hope, will lose it, and their lives along with it.
That the KKK, who once subsisted underground but who now proudly celebrates their winning candidate, is emboldened and emblazoned.
That my transgender friends will continue to be openly attacked, intimidated, and discriminated against by folks who now believe they have both a biblical and a governmental mandate to do so.
That people of color, every shade other than white, have just been delivered the message that racist foot-soldiers have been spitting in brown faces for ages – “Your lives don’t matter.”
That families with undocumented immigrants are about to be torn asunder.
That my Muslim friends will continue to be seen and treated as enemy #1.
That victims of sexual abuse, like me, will have to look at him and be triggered daily for the next 4 years, degraded and discounted by the president-elect with his pussy-grabbing excused to “just words” and his power used to silence the abused in his wake.
That women will be criminalized and punished for making heretofore legal health-care decisions regarding their own bodies.
That we women who bashed our skulls against that glass ceiling, hoping to finally, FINALLY break through, now have to watch dazedly as some of our fellow men not just celebrate that denial, but happily replace it again with something maddeningly pristine and successfully shatterproof.
I hear the crying all around me. Little girls. Little boys. Transgender. Grown women. Grown men. Muslims. People of color. All with fears absolutely rooted in past and present realities. So pardon me if I don’t join you in celebrating our democracy or singing a round of Kumbaya right now.
I’m weeping with those who weep.
Photo Credit: Axel Naud — Don’t cry my love
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Brilliant, heartbreaking, infuriating – all at once. I am one of trump’s Transsexual targets. I’m afraid to walk across my apartment complex to collect my mail. I subsist – and I use the word ‘subsist’ with deliberation – on $25,000 per year between military retirement, a pittance of military disability, and Social Security. I get excellent medical treatment at a local VA hospital. Those services all stand to be removed from me because I’m Trans. No military retirement, no VA treatment, no military disability and no Social Security. I’m too old to find a job, and too beat up to work much, anyway, so what is the solution? The only thing I can think of is suicide. What infuriates me most about that idea is that trump and especially pence, will be pleased to see another ‘pervert’ and, as Hitler called those non-Jews he wanted to murder, a ‘useless eater”. In one fell swoop, I have gone from retired veteran to a burden on society and should probably just kill myself to save trump’s 4th Reich the cost of a bullet.
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Stefani, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say other than you matter. Don’t let these ignorant bigots win. Please keep fighting. I have a trans daughter, so I understand a tiny bit, though not completely. I wish I could hug you and erase all those ugly lies. <3
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Oh my goodness, Stefani. (((((big hugs)))))) I know the fears are big and not unreasonable. But please don’t give up hope. You are a miracle of God’s own workmanship — uniquely special in every way. No one else here is you, Stefani. No one else here has lived your life, seen all you’ve seen. No one else can offer the perspective and encouragement you can. You are so brave and strong to have come this far, surviving so much, subsisting even on so little. Please know that there are still people out here willing to fight for you to keep your benefits, your rights, your protections. They will be a check and a balance to whatever the new administration may try to bring in the next few years. Trump won the electoral vote, not the popular vote. More folks stand with you now than ever before. I think some of the hate is growing louder because it’s losing it’s effectiveness. They think they’re winning, but they’re not. Love wins. And you are loved. Stay. Stay and play. We will win together.
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Stefani, I hope and want you to know there are people out there that care… You are valuable to our community society and the world. I too am a mother of two Trans daughters. I don’t walk in those shoes but I walk proudly with you. Hugs.