Post-Election Thoughts: Let Yourself Grieve, But Don't Lose Hope

So. The election, huh? Yeah, I’m not feeling great about it either. Anybody reading anything on a site like this is, statistically, in very real trouble under another Trump term. Especially those of us living in Ribbon’s home state of Texas, where draconian border enforcement, demonstrably deadly abortion bans, and the very real beginnings of the legal erasure of trans people are already happening, and will be emboldened and likely supported by Trump’s regime (especially if Ken Paxton, Texas’ Attorney General and currently under investigation for corruption and bribery, becomes the FEDERAL Attorney General, as he is on the short-list of possible hires for the position). 

We know how bad it got under him, and we know how bad it’s gonna get under him again. And we know what the powers behind him plan to do with his presidency; The 900-page-long cartoon villain monologue known as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. From forcing weather services to be privatized and paid for rather than free just so we’ll shut up about climate change, to banning contraceptives, to massive cuts to social spending to line the pockets of the wealthy, to a deportation scheme that will drive thousands of people to death and impoverishment for the crime of believing the Statue of Liberty, to just straight up making the president a pseudo-autocrat, this entire plan has been shouted from the rooftops since its release. Very likely you’ve already been briefed on the horrors of this plan, and so I find it futile to try and go over it in detail as we reel from the truth that its straight-up evil policies will be the guiding philosophy and checklist for this next administration. However, those of you who do need such may find this video enlightening (and infuriating, and heartbreaking, but pace yourself, ok?).

So yes. It’s going to SUCK. People are GOING to die. All of our lives, whether you voted for Harris, Trump, or sat it out because you couldn’t vote for someone you don’t entirely agree with are about to get materially worse (which by the way, if you sit out on voting, that says to the system that you’re saying you’re ok with EITHER candidate WINNING. Not that you want them both to lose. Because somebody’s gonna win, you just took your finger off the scale. Just something to think about). You, like most people who understand our situation, are likely some combination of scared, confused, angry, terrified, and despairing.

You have every right to feel these things and more. 

In truth, this last week I’ve been mourning. I’m thinking of queer children, whose lives were so viciously attacked in the legislature last year, whose lives have been politicized and turned into a 200+ billion dollar smear campaign against Democratic candidates for this election cycle, whose lives are in very real danger come next legislative session. 

Whose country, by electing Donald Trump for another term… has betrayed them. 

Suicide, depression, and mental illnesses are so pervasive among the queer community as to be an internal joke. The same is true of queer children, especially trans children. These kids are being told by the incoming government that they’re worthless, disgusting monsters that don’t deserve to exist, that they’re silly and confused for believing for even a second that they might be accepted for who they are and know themselves to be. 

A lot of these kids didn’t last the week. A lot more won’t last past January. And that fact… it’s the first thing I thought of when I heard the news. And if I don’t let myself grieve now it’ll just hit me harder later. I cannot tell you that we’ll all make it through this. Because we won’t. We are going to lose people, and it’s going to hurt so much knowing that these people could’ve, might’ve, been saved if we had just done something a little different.

But I need YOU to understand this. You, the person reading, who might be thinking all of this and feeling like there’s no way out but the nuclear option. I need you to read the rest of this. Read it over and over again until it sticks in your brain and you feel it in the core of your being:

YOU HAVE TO STICK AROUND. DO NOT LEAVE US. PLEASE. 

You have no idea how loved, valued, and important you are to so many people. If you leave because of this, there’s no way to come back. And your people need you HERE, caring for your friends and family, fighting in whatever way you can, resting when you need, and simply existing alongside the rest of humanity. 

They need you. We need you. They love you. We love you. 

This despair and hopelessness is what these assholes and fascists WANT. They WANT us dead and gone where we can’t fight them, where we can’t show the world how we’re just people with our own lives and cultures and needs. Where we’re silent and they don’t have to change. Where the world just stays as it is, never getting better. In order to keep those WEIRDOS from winning, we CANNOT let them take us away from our communities. 

And things CAN get better. Hell, many states just elected several trans people to their state legislatures, and Sarah McBride of Delaware is now the first trans person in HISTORY to be elected to Congress. Several states, even as they elected Trump, overturned abortion bans, and even Missouri just raised the minimum wage and enforced sick leave. 

The road ahead is long, painful, and arduous. We will not all make it through. 

But we CAN, MUST, stay here and work for a better future. Because it IS possible. It’s just gonna be harder than we thought. 

And if nothing else, those last of you who are determined to leave, I understand. But consider one last thing:

You have to live long enough to piss on Donald J. Trump’s grave.