Electoral Politics Will Never Save Us

But that doesn't mean they won't try to crush us

Election night 2016: I drank myself into oblivion. I was a closeted trans-woman, an alcoholic, an empty shell of myself. I remember almost nothing from that evening. We were at a friend’s house, surrounded by people I consider family, and by 9 pm we’d drank through the bottle of whiskey and moved onto tequila. The ride home was quiet and awkward in the back of the Lyft. Our driver, silent while my wife and I sobbed about what this meant for our futures.

I didn't want Hillary Clinton to win, but I knew we were standing at the edge of a portal and after we walked through, we’d never be able to return. I was scared of what was to come. In the days that followed, I made a lot of promises to myself: get stronger for the revolution, be in community, be in the streets, retire from polite society (even more so than I already had), and for a reason completely baffling to me at the time, I decided to grow out my hair. It’s something I see now as the start of a journey to discover/become myself. I protested. I did my pushups. I connected with my community, and all the while, my hair grew long, touching my ears, then my shoulders, my neck.

I quit drinking in October 2017. In October 2018, I came out to my wife. I started HRT under the previous Tr*mp administration, and I will continue it through his next one. I did not drink yesterday (though the desire was strong—it felt like a snake circling its prey inside my belly, a big begging for alcohol and oblivion). If I can get sober and grow my hair long and start a transition and find more love and more friends and more family and share food and fight in the streets for justice and freedom the first time, I can’t even imagine what is possible this time around.

All that to say, that while I know this time is different from his first win (Was that the last election of my lifetime?), many of us survived four years of his racist, misogynist, transphobic, fascist policies. Like last time (and under the current administration) not all of us will survive this time around. The genocide will be ramped up in Gaza (more than it already is, if that’s possible). They want to deport millions of immigrants (more than the current administration). We will lose rights and access to healthcare and some of us may face prison, but many of us will survive. I keep thinking about this quote from Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions:

The strong women told the faggots that there are two important things to remember about the coming revolutions. The first is that we will get our asses kicked. The second is that we will win.

The faggots knew the first. Faggot ass-kicking is a time-honored sport of the men. But the faggots did not know about the second. They had never thought about winning before. They did not even know what winning meant. So they asked the strong women, and the strong women said winning was like surviving, only better. As the strong women explained winning, the faggots were surprised and then excited. The faggots knew about surviving for they always had and this was going to be just plain better. That made the ass kicking different. Getting your ass kicked and then winning elevated the entire enterprise of making revolution.

We will get our asses kicked, but we will win. Take care of each other. Love yourself. It’s a day of grieving, but tomorrow, I will wake up, make my bed, and keep fighting.