How to even find the words today. I cried myself to sleep and I woke up weeping. Now I have run out of tears and moved past the denial. This isn’t a nightmare I am going to wake up from. This is a real life dystopia created by white supremacy, misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia. I fear for my own safety but even in doing so I know that being white and living in Seattle protects me from the worst of it. It is queer and trans people of color, Latino immigrants, and people surviving only because of our social safety nets who will bear the brunt of the pain as everything we have worked for is unraveled over the next 4 years.

I have struggled to find hope and the energy I need to keep fighting. But then I came across a friend’s post that is helping me get through the day.

Harry Potter is reminding me of what it means to fight against power, even when evil rises. So I’m going to keep using that metaphor and work to build a real-life #DumbledoresArmy to fight against #PresidentVoldemort. Will you join me?

If you need to go “underground” for protection and hide parts of who you are in certain situations, then do what you need to do to be safe. If you can stay inside the Death Eater controlled Hogwarts and Ministry of Magic and fight from inside, then please do so for the rest of us. But whatever happens, don’t give up hope. Don’t stop fighting. And don’t stop being your most authentic self.

Stand up for trans rights, for reproductive choice, for immigrant welfare, for healthcare access, for the lives of those who are being hunted by the police, and all the other vital human rights that our new government will attempt to destroy. Don’t let your voices be drowned out by hate. And remember that your working class white neighbors aren’t the real enemy. Show them love and build relationships (as far as you can safely do). It is only by knowing people who are different from them that they can change.