Facing fear and isolation in today’s political climate
I have an incredibly vivid memory of crying in my room the night that Donald Trump was elected as president last year. As someone who had recently accepted their queer identity and begun to accept their gender identity, seeing the voting map slowly turn more and more red was so incredibly disheartening and gut-wrenching. Going to sleep with a text from my best friend reading “goodnight hopefully I can marry my wife when I wake up,” and waking up to news headlines after news headlines about the newly elected U.S. president is a feeling of fear and isolation I’ll never forget, and one that I hadn’t felt so strongly again until recently.
The Supreme Court recently considered taking a case that could overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that guaranteed marriage rights for same-sex couples nationwide and was passed only 10 years ago. As someone born a woman, and someone who identifies as queer and nonbinary, I have seen the slow turnover of my own rights through my teenage years, and it scares me to my core.
As someone living in the 21st century, it seems so absurd to think that I am still fearing for and fighting for my rights the way my great-grandparents had to. But here I am, standing at protests while reading news articles and Twitter posts about my gender identity being classified as a domestic terrorist group by the creators of Project 2025, while watching the slow drainage of rights as someone born a queer person assigned female at birth. Watching all of this happen in front of me has been one of the most isolating experiences I have ever gone through.
Living in a world where people openly protest against and fight for the removal of your rights forces you to constantly fear the people around you. I should be able to go on a date with my girlfriend and not be coughed at and stared at when I hold her hand. I should be able to go to a pride event holding a lesbian flag without worrying about facing verbal and physical violence for doing so. I should be able to say that I am gay or nonbinary to doctors or teachers without being scared of facing strong discrimination because of it. But these are all things that I have experienced. However, I know that these are minor examples of discrimination in comparison to the experiences of other queer and trans people around me.
Ironically, I heavily considered deleting this entire column, scared of certain people discovering that I am queer or nonbinary. But this led me to realize that’s exactly why it is so important to openly talk about being queer. Constantly fearing judgment, harassment and discrimination based on your sexuality or gender is not something a teenager should ever have to face, especially not alone. But this constant fear is instilled into people living under a government with leaders who openly express their prejudiced and outright violent views towards the existence of queer people. Queer and trans people have always and will always exist, but isolation does not have to.
