As a Queer Person, I’m Doing THIS in the Aftermath of the U.S. Election

A Prism & Pen writers prompt

It’s the day before U.S. election day 2024, and I’m scared as hell.

If Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans win this nailbiter to take the presidency and/or majorities in Congress, life is set to become (even more) cruel and difficult for many LGBTQ Americans, especially in light of Trump’s recent promise to elevate White, Evangelical Protestant Christian preachers to positions of the highest power and influence in the land.

I see some reasons to be optimistic about tomorrow — that is to say optimistic that Trump will lose, as Prism & Pen writer Fay Wylde predicts.

I desire that outcome fervently, but I won’t become giddy with unqualified delight if Kamala Harris wins.

Many of her values feel incompatible with my own — not because I’m queer, but because fighting for queer rights fundamentally transformed me in my youth — into a leftist whose strongest moral principles center around fighting for the marginalized and dehumanized. I’m talking about people of color, migrants and refugees, displaced people, the unhoused, and the victims of Israel’s Gaza genocide. I’m talking about everyday working people who possess little to no actual political power in our late-stage capitalist…