We’ll get through this. We’ve been through worse.
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These have been common refrains in the queer community since the November 2024 election. They are something of a balm for the fears we are experiencing under the current administration. With every hateful lie, anti-LGBTQ+ policy, or attack on human and civil rights, our community finds strength in knowing we have been through terrible times before. And every time, courageous people stepped up to create a better world.
Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings, and others fought against the Lavender Scare, a purge of queer government employees. Marsha P. Johnson was one of many who refused to back down in the face of police harassment at the Stonewall Inn.
In 1973, thanks in part to testimony by Dr. John Fryer, a gay psychiatrist, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Harvey Milk inspired millions to come out and break down harmful, untrue stereotypes of our community. ACT UP, founded by Larry Kramer and other activists, responded boldly to government apathy and antipathy toward the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Evan Wolfson, Edie Windsor, more than thirty plaintiffs in Obergefell v. Hodges, and many others demanded affirmation of our right to marry the person we love.
Related: Reflecting on 10 years of marriage equality: Frankie Frankeny on the stories behind the movement
Related: The Advocate's John Casey reflects on a decade of marriage equality in new book
These are just a few examples of the queer community’s committed response to our long history with indifference, hate, and oppression in our nation.
Things feel different these days with the administration’s embrace and endorsement of fascism and Christian nationalism, implementation of Project 2025 strategies, and blatant assault on democracy. And the truth is, things are different than they were in the past. When activists fought for the queer community in years past, existing rights were not at risk. Our community had nothing to lose. We could only gain rights that society and laws had long denied us.
In 2025, we stand to lose the rights we have achieved. Things feel worse because they are worse:
- Trans rights? Bans on lifesaving gender-affirming care, military service, playing sports with friends, bathroom use, updates to government IDs, and other harmful policies make life impossible for the trans community.
- Our right to exist? Laws and policies have made it illegal or unacceptable to say “gay” or “trans” in our schools, fund suicide prevention programs for queer kids, acknowledge the existence of queer people, share our stories in libraries, be honored as veterans, and more.
- Marriage equality? State legislatures, faith organizations, Supreme Court justices, and others are doing everything in their power to overturn Obergefell and deny us the right to marry the person we love in the place we call home—a right we have enjoyed for only ten years.
With their Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court rescinded a right that people relied on for 49 years. By turning their back on the bedrock principle of stare decisis, or precedent, this Court proved that they cannot be trusted. Did the justices in the majority lie during their confirmation hearings when they affirmed that they considered Roe settled law? What other conclusion can we draw from their actions?
When the highest court in the land takes away one right, all other rights are at risk. We are fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.
In addition to losing rights that we gained in the recent past, we are losing dignity and acceptance in our society. Instead of moving forward toward a more perfect union, our nation is reversing course and embracing the hate and ignorance of the past.
Our nation has long failed to live up to its promises of equality, equal justice under law, and the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Immigrants to the New World murdered Indigenous peoples, stole their lands, and used enslaved people to build our nation. Although the Civil War ended 160 years ago, people of color still experience subtle, blatant, and systemic racism.
Voting and civil rights are continuously under attack in our nation’s courtrooms and halls of power. The Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in 1923 and reintroduced in 1973, has never been ratified and made law. Legislation and court rulings have curtailed or banned reproductive rights.
Throughout history, those in power have targeted, demeaned, and demonized Indigenous people, women, people of color, the queer community, immigrants, the disabled, non-Christians, and anyone else the majority considers an outsider. Those efforts continue today, led by those who put power, ego, and money above their duty to the public, their oath to the Constitution, and their obligation to treat others as human beings.
Every marginalized community is part of our LGBTQIA+ family, and the queer community must take that to heart. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, biphobia, anti-immigrant bias, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and more. We must rid our community of these cancers. When we discriminate against others, we succeed only in helping those in power who consider our entire community outsiders, unworthy, less than human.
It is wrong to hate others who differ, to ignore or discount the discrimination other members of the queer community experience. The queer community has long fought to be seen, to be valued, to exist on equal footing with others, so why would we ever deny those same things to another person?
Far too many people in our nation willingly, loudly, and proudly engage in hate toward others. Although history repeatedly shows where hatred leads, willful ignorance and a refusal to think critically or independently doom humanity to repeat this shameful past.
In 2025, MAGA extremists have chosen vindictiveness as their playbook, as the only strategy worth pursuing. This minority, aggrieved for no just reason, has perverted their faith, our legislative bodies, and our courtrooms in service to their sense of superiority, to their need to subjugate others, to their thirst for riches above all else.
They have no empathy for other human beings.
Yes, the queer community has been through this before. But in 2025, we are losing, and will continue to lose, the rights we fought hard to achieve. Unless we see every marginalized community as part of our family, and until we embrace our full community, we succeed only in aiding those who work to erase all LGBTQIA+ people from society.
Our community stands to lose the rights achieved by people whose names we know and countless people whose names we will never know. They risked everything to boldly proclaim that we exist, that we deserve the same rights, protections, and dignity other people in our nation enjoy.
What does it say about members of our community who, instead of demanding equality and equity for everyone, stay silent because they do not see others as equals, they feel safe where they live, or their privilege affords them some measure of security?
What does it say about a society that is willing to sacrifice someone, or an entire community, because they happen to be different?
We must be better than that. We owe it to those who came before us, and those who will come after us.
Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit Advocate.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.
