Despite the somewhat comic headline, we face real challenges in the LGBT / human community in the face of a Donald Trump reign. Our friends at Astrea Foundation have a few words to share. Please continue to be you, speak out, reach out and live well.
Dear Friend,
Today we are met with the incredulous truth that exactly half of the country – nearly 60 million people – have voted to secure a platform defined by white supremacy, misogyny, racism, classism, xenophobia and Islamophobia. We have just lived through a campaign that rose in direct response to the power, momentum and incredible groundswell of OUR movements––our insistence that we will not sit silently and take death after death, the criminalization of our bodies, or the dispersion of our people. Our successes are being met with vitriol fueled by fear.
Understand, we have been handed an agenda. We’ve been told who will be valued and who will be demonized and scapegoated. The power and momentum we gain by gathering, existing in public outcry, expressing ourselves intellectually, spiritually and artistically, having autonomy over our own bodies, and by choosing with whom we place our bodies––be it on the frontlines, in the bedroom, in solidarity, or in the boardroom––will be forcibly challenged and potentially criminalized.
This demonstration illuminates so many painful truths: that oppression structures this country; that misogyny is deeply held. But the backlash is also testament of our strength and to the power of our movements; that black and brown people, migrants, lesbians, queer women, trans* and gender non-conforming people, gay men, and youth have been rising up, building power and forcing major shifts in our society.
We will not sit idly by. Astraea has always been poised to challenge the white supremacy that cuts a jagged path through our democracy. In 2013, we celebrated the abolition of the Defense of Marriage Act while denouncing the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act in the same 48 hours. Two years later, we extolled the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality while having to condemn the massacre of Black people by a white supremacist in Charleston, South Carolina. Yesterday’s election is yet another reminder that we are never truly done––to prematurely declare our work “finished” is to suggest complacency with the very violence we passionately oppose.
In the coming weeks, we have an opportunity to ready ourselves to be in the best position possible before our new administration is revealed. Astraea’s philanthropic practice shifts power to change lives. If you woke up this morning and thought what now?, then join us. Do not stand alone. Lean into the Astraea community, purposefully built over generations, insisting, always, that we must stand in solidarity, in action and in purpose. Together we will continue to grow the strongest movements with the greatest reach, ensuring that those pillars of fear and imbalances of power will cease to sacrifice our people, our ideals, or our greatest hopes.
Join us. We’ll be right here where we’ve always been.
In Solidarity,
Astrea Foundation
