Around this time in 2008, I was preparing to move to Washington to cover America’s first-ever black president. Still awash in the glow of watching the soon to be First Family take the stage in front of an exuberant crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park, I had begun receiving regular pool reports about the adoring crowds greeting the President-elect’s motorcade wherever it went. People lined streets, waved, took pictures, and wondered at all that we had achieved as a country, not to mention what was yet to be.
My, how times have changed. Hundreds of thousands of people are now taking to the streets in solidarity, outraged that a man who ran the most overtly hateful campaign in modern memory has been elected our leader. “NOT MY PRESIDENT” is the refrain reverberating from the progressive coasts all the way to America’s heartland in places like Denver, Minneapolis, Louisville, and even my hometown, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Meanwhile Donald Trump’s hometown, New York, convulsed with rage 100,000 strong and counting.
Queer Americans have much to celebrate as President Obama’s chapter comes to a close, but that all seems lost right now as we mourn inevitable backlash to progress that has beset us in no uncertain terms. It all seems so impossible after teetering on the verge of striking yet another blow for progress this election. Perhaps the notion that a major step forward for gender equality could immediately follow on the heels of one for racial equality was always a pipe dream. Still, I don’t regret dreaming it for a second. Improbable dreams are the forebears of change, the visions that shape our future. But it’s disappointment that brings the path to reaching them into relief.
Indeed, nothing was probable about the dream of marriage equality. But just after a string of nearly a dozen antigay constitutional amendments swept the country in 2004, the work ahead came into focus for a generation of women and men who had dreamed that improbable dream.
Now many of us fear that could be taken away. To be sure, I am concerned about the many harms Trump can inflict on LGBTQ Americans. But in my heart of hearts, I believe marriage equality is here to stay. And while I have no crystal ball to foretell the future, I will say this: No president, however ignorant or boorish or vengeful, can erase the cultural progress we have achieved by making ourselves seen and known to the world.
In fact, in some ways now, we are a minority that sits in a privileged position. Certainly, not all communities or areas of the country have embraced us in equal measure, nor is our work anywhere close to done. Many of our brothers and sisters who live in the South and parts of the Midwest still yearn to be themselves without fearing for their safety. Many still struggle for the basic dignity of having a roof over their heads, work that brings meaning to their lives, and in some cases, a robust community that comforts them in times of need.
But even within that reality, no one can deny that the needle of cultural acceptance has moved in our direction in ways unimaginable just eight years ago. For it was on the very same night that Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 that the progressive stronghold of California voted to strip same-sex couples of their marital rights.
One improbable dream flourished that evening while another suffered a crushing blow. And it was out of that disappointment that citizens around the globe took to the streets in all 50 states, eight countries, and more than 300 cities to register their anguish and rage. Indeed, that setback sparked a historic period of progress for LGBTQ freedom and equality.
Setbacks are an inevitable part of the never-ending continuum of change. Change never reaches a comfortable place of rest. And it is our job now to carry forward the torch of change—to keep burning for the improbable dream that will one day be ours on the path to the next great improbable dream.
As LGBTQ Americans, we are called now to do more than just bear witness to the injustices that are surely headed toward us and our allies across different communities. We must stand in our truth and be loud. For those of us who feel safe doing so, it is incumbent upon us to raise holy hell about every right stripped away by Donald Trump, every indignity his administration levies upon us.
We are a small but unique minority that reaches into every race, region, ethnicity, religion, and even political ideology in this country. Our cultural and political progress came largely through the process of speaking our truths in the places where we live, work, and play. And now that our stories have found a place in the conscience of America, we must use that space to expose Trump for the hateful leader he is already proving to be.
It may not feel like it at the moment, but I am here to tell you that people care about you, and that it won’t be okay for many Americans to sit by and watch Trump turn back the clock on the advances we have fought so hard to achieve. While the outcome of this election was primarily fueled by the whipsaw forces of racism and sexism, we must remember that even if Hillary Clinton didn’t win the electoral college, she did win the popular vote, by a lot—likely more than Al Gore in 2000 or even Richard Nixon in 1968, or John F. Kennedy in 1960. Additionally, Democrats didn’t turn out to vote in the numbers they did in 2008 and 2012. That wasn’t a function of animus as much as it was a lack of engagement.
Unfortunately, elections have consequences. This one in particular will have a profoundly negative impact on the entire progressive community, especially transgender individuals and people of color. But now we must work to re-engage the hearts we won across the country in the fight to elevate a leader who unites, rather than divides us in 2020—100 years after women first won the right to vote in America. I haven’t given up hope that it could be a historic election.
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Kerry Eleveld is the author of “Don’t Tell Me To Wait: How the fight for gay rights changed America and transformed Obama’s presidency.”