I, like so many others, believed we would wake up on Wednesday morning and turn the page to a brighter future.
Instead, we found ourselves navigating a familiar space filled with grief, sadness, and rage. The first morning I found myself blasting “Fight the Power” and bracing myself for the reality that the next four years will be difficult and dangerous for so many, in particular for the clients that we serve, LGBTQ+ youth, immigrants, and survivors.
The second day, I found myself exhausted by the idea that despite having spent years pushing against anti-trans legislation, homophobia, and discrimination, now we are expected, like Sisyphus, to keep pushing an even bigger boulder up what feels like an insurmountable mountain.
We know that the damage of another Trump presidency, coupled with the already staggering number of anti-trans laws proliferating across the country, will create especially acute risks for queer and trans youth and young adults. His vow to pass a federal ban on gender-affirming care for minors, dismantle civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ youth, and threaten or penalize doctors that treat young trans patients may all be in our future. To say nothing about his sweeping plans for immigration that will leave many young people in peril.
In the past months, LGBTQ+ youth increasingly reported feeling fear, anxiety, and confusion as the election rhetoric reverberated across social media. Moreover, time and again we are reminded that LGBTQ+ youth who experience homelessness are two to four times more likely to report feelings of depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal ideation, or attempts to die by suicide. It will come as no surprise when, in the aftermath of the election, we see a significant spike in young people reporting mental health issues in the coming months and years, with countless numbers of them lacking the resources of means to seek support or treatment.
“Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight.”
I know that once the anger subsides, and the tears dry, we, like so many allies will arm ourselves for the fight ahead. We no longer have the luxury of ignorance or idleness. We can no longer refuse to fight, but instead must use those weapons we have: knowledge, determination, and resources. We will look at that mountain, and do all we can to shift our perspective, and see that it is not in fact Mt. Everest, but instead, a molehill made up of mounds of dirt, dirt put there by those who seek to keep us down by perpetuating fear. We can continue to conquer, and organize and march, build collective action, engage in litigation and policy directives, and create an arsenal of immense power.
“From the heart, it’s a start, a work of art, to revolutionize, make a change”
Our most powerful weapon is knowing that we can, and will, continue to engage in acts that meaningfully help individuals even when systems seem broken. Individuals like Alexandra, a young transgender woman who fled El Salvador because her she faced unimaginable peril, and found herself living on the streets of New York City. With our help, she was able to seek asylum, and obtain a work authorization that allows her to work lawfully in the US. For Alexandra, these are life-saving measures. Or Adam, a young transgender man that came to us because his food stamps had been erroneously cut off, leaving him few options to support himself. Had we not stepped in, he would have had difficulty obtaining food sufficient to survive on.
Alexandra and Adam are just two of the many young people that we help. But even though their victories may seem small in the course of things, they are powerful grains of hope to help us ride the current wave of despair. Some of the other victories I cling to include measures to protect abortion access in Arizona, Colorado, New York, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada; the fact that Sarah McBride will be the first transgender person to serve in Congress; the election of Julie Johnson, the first openly LGBTQ person elected to Congress from Texas; that LGBTQ+ members of color were elected to state senates and legislatures in deeply red states of Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky; and, here in NYC, the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment, both enshrining abortion access in the state constitution, and expanding anti-discrimination protections throughout the state.
I don’t know what tomorrow will hold, or whether my feelings will morph back to despair as I, like so many others, count down the clock to Jan. 20. But I know that I will hold tight to those in this community, to keep fighting the power, in whatever form that takes.
“What we need is awareness, we can’t get careless…let’s get down to business.”
Amy Leipziger is the director of the New York City-based Free to Be Youth project, one of the only direct legal service providers in the nation dedicated to at-risk, street-involved, and homeless LGBTQ+ youth.
