On The Election
I was up until almost four last night with terror. I stopped watching the polls at two-thirty, and I have yet to make myself watch our “illustrious president-elect’s” acceptance speech. I feel as if I’ve been diagnosed with something terminal–my heart is pounding and my head is spinning and my hands are shaking so hard I’m having trouble writing.
Let me tell you some things that you may not be aware of.
I am a person who gets into shouting matches when I see hijabi girls mocked or shouted at in the street.
I am a person who believes that Black Lives Matter.
I am a person who once shut down an entire classroom to fight with someone grandstanding about how “homosexuals are going to hell,” and I am a person who almost cried when the one trans kid in my school came up afterward and hugged me and said that no one had ever protected him before.
I am a person who was raised Jewish and aches for the anti-Semitism I see on the street and directed toward my friends.
I am a person with no ties to most of my family’s history except that we were Romani and we fled to this country under a false name for the capital crime of striking a soldier.
I am a person who has survived six sexual assaults and remembers every single day that the statistics for being raped go up after each assault.
I am a woman who, until this morning, was reasonably confident that–while it might be hard and people might try to stop me–I would be able to get a safe, legal abortion if I ever needed it, I am a woman who believed that no one would use my gender as a reason to stop me from having a voice.
I am fucking QUEER. I cried when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, I kiss girls and boys and everything in between because people are beautiful and I don’t see why I shouldn’t revel in that, and until this morning I believed that I could marry anyone I wanted.
Let me be perfectly clear. If you voted third party because “your conscience demanded it” and you “just couldn’t vote for Hillary,” you have condemned us to this. Your devotion to your ideals is laudable. Your complete disregard for the actual lives that will be lost is not. You bear responsibility. Congratulations on voting your conscience. I’m sure it’s a great comfort to you this morning.
If you voted to “Make America Great Again,” you have voted for a racist, misogynist, xenophobic monster. You have told everyone who ticks even one of these boxes that you do not care about them, that their safety, their well-being, their inalienable right to Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness, does not matter to you. You have told the world what America is really made of, what our ideals really are. I am appalled that I share a country with you. You have gone down in history for this. Imagine what future generations will say about you.
TL;DR: I’m here, I’m queer, and I genuinely do not think I’ve ever been so angry and terrified in my life. If you voted for Donald Trump, I cordially invite you to unfollow me immediately and never speak to me again.
After all. I’m a dyke bitch who supports people of color and immigrants and believes that locker room talk is a real threat. If you voted for Donald Trump, you probably don’t want to talk to me either.
On the other hand, if you’re like me, do not go fucking gentle. Stand up and fight for those who cannot fight for themselves, defend your right to be a human being. I have your back.
