POst-election resources
a non-comprehensive list on some places that will need our attention going forward
There was a moment last month when a teen of mine did something that made me panic, and my first thought (I shit you not) was oh God, what are we going to tell Dad???
Which, I have to tell you, I am married to Dad.
And that triggered the second thought, which was oh God, I’m Mom.
The unreality of that moment, I cannot even describe to you. Somehow at thirty-seven, I am not just a cutesy adult or a bonus adult in a room...I am now Mom.
I’ve felt this way this week, as we’ve grappled with the results of the election, and watching my younger friends, the ones who were too young in 2016 to remember, try to make sense of this thing which should be nonsensical (but unfortunately, for reasons of white supremacy and sexism, isn’t nonsensical at all). And I remember the feeling in 2016 that no one was coming to save us, no adults were going to tuck us in and tell us everything would be okay. We were on our own.
It was one of the bleakest things I've ever felt. And this time, almost certainly, things will be worse.
There's a Catholic prayer I love, the Salve Regina, and there’s this piece in it:
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
to thee do we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.
I feel more than ever that I'm a banished child of Eve. I mourn and weep in this vale which seems to go on forever.
But oh god, I’m Mom now. I know how to walk through this vale; I know when to stop for water and when to bring a staff that will bear my weight when I’m tired, and I know where the flowers will bloom when the weather is mild.
When it comes to cognitive and sociological theories of religion and practice, I know basically nothing. But what I have learned is this weird thing about the sacred-seeking brain: belief or emotion or story doesn’t always come before behavior...even though the opposite would make the most sense. People behave according to what they believe, right? What they feel?
But, sometimes, strangely, behavior comes first. And then it creates belief. It creates hope or belonging. It creates identity.
Sometimes we do so that we are.
Sometimes we act so that we can feel.
It’s okay if you’re not able to muster the hope that some people might be exhorting you to feel right now. It’s okay if nihilism has decided to do a director’s commentary on everything you’re reading, thinking, or feeling. It’s okay if you feel like your anger is hot and dense enough to fuse carbon and sulfur.
It’s okay to feel numb, apathetic, betrayed, melancholy, heartbroken, so utterly cynical that your thoughts taste bitter even to yourself.
Of course it is. The fact that we all have different reactions is proof of our strength, which is comprised of plurality, of variety, of a medley of experiences and viewpoints and considerations that are all necessary so that the most possible people can be safeguarded, celebrated, and granted agency.
Because we will show up to act anyway. We will do even if we don’t feel it yet. We will do it as we support our Black and trans friends who have been fighting and fighting and fighting so they can have some rest this time around. We will donate or volunteer or leverage our own little patch of life to help those who need it. We will walk through the vale together, hand in hand, making sure that our neighbor isn’t cold or hungry or lonely, and we will keep walking even if we don’t know how we feel or what we believe or who we want to be yet. That will come in its own time.
And one day we will look up and realize that we are hopeful, that we do know the way forward. That even the smallest sliver of safety or help we’d been able to offer a neighbor mattered, and that our neighbors mattered, and that so did we.
We will, again, feel like the people we are, and we will remember that dignity is worth mourning and walking for, that justice and safety are worth weeping and walking for, and that while emotions and narratives wax and shift, it is our actions that remain.
We are as we do, not how we feel. And we will do together.
And what will we do? There is much to be done, but here are a few places we can start:
➡️ There will almost certainly be worsening humanitarian conditions in Palestine and Lebanon and a continuation of war crimes and genocide. Middle East Children's Alliance, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and Doctors Without Borders are all organizations that are doing their best on the ground to get food and care to those who desperately need it. Trump has also promised violence to pro-Palestinian protestors, particularly on college campuses; learn about your rights while protesting here.
➡️ During Trump’s first term, the Muslim ban and the “good people on both sides” paradigm enabled a tide of Islamophobic and antisemitic violence, and we’ll need to interrupt it wherever we can.
Here are resources from CAIR about countering and reporting Islamophobia.
Here is T’ruah’s (The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights) primer on antisemitism and what look for.
It'll also be useful for us to have a working knowledge of images and symbols associated with white supremacy and the alt-right memeosphere, which (barely) launders bigotry for its audiences. GRAHE has an exceptionally thorough database here.
➡️ Our trans and nonbinary friends will be vulnerable to the rollbacks of federal protections, non-medically informed state laws, and the ongoing trans moral panic pervading our media ecosystem.
Support trans folks directly with mutual aid! Via places like The Okra Project, TransfigurePrintCo, and others here.
Check out ways to get involved with the Human Rights Campaign and The Trevor Project (which is currently overwhelmed with need).
The courts will be a significant battleground for trans rights, and Lamba Legal has pledged to take up the fight.
And finally, resources on trans rights from PFLAG.
➡️ We know, because we've been explicitly told, that there will be state violence done to immigrants, and a systematic destruction of avenues of knowledge and support for immigrants. As well as promises for mass deportation, there is also talk of rolling back pathways for asylum seekers, denaturalization, and detention camps.
Check out the National Immigrant Justice Center’s Ways to Help.
Check out RAICES, their ways to get involved and how to give.
Check out the International Rescue Committee and see if there are ways you can help refugees locally.
Speaking of locally, there are many nonprofit organizations, religious and secular, working for refugee resettlement, who are always looking for donations of money, clothes, diapers, medical supplies, and time.
➡️ Since 2022, we've seen a groundswell of voter support for reproductive rights. Unfortunately, a Trump second term has to the power to swiftly erode those gains, if not through the Republican-held Senate or a case hoisted up to the 6 - 3 Supreme Court, then through utilizing FDA policies or zombie laws like the Comstock Act to restrict access to medication abortion.
Project 2025 "proposes replacing the HHS Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force with a “pro-life task force” to make sure the agency pushes an anti-abortion agenda, and proposes overhauling the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment and appointing a new “Senior Coordinator of the Office of Women, Children, and Families” to run the division, who would be “unapologetically pro-life.” (source here).
So we are potentially looking at anti-choice policy decisions beyond what Project 2025 is explicitly spelling out.
In the coming days, I'd think about:
Switching from a digital period tracker to a paper one
Stocking up on Plan B (a shelf life of 3 - 4 years)
Researching which states have a bounty system, where a private citizen can sue anyone whom they think has assisted someone in getting an abortion. If you or your loved ones live in a state like this, it might be worth thinking of emergency travel/assistance plans in advance, so that you can limit written communication about them if the need arises.
Making sure you have a list of advocacy centers and their contact info saved somewhere offline. Some places to start might be Sister Song, In Our Own Voice, the Center for Reproductive Rights, The National Women's Law Center, and The National Network of Abortion Funds, which indexes over 100 different abortion aid funds (some of which might be local to you, if you want to get involved beyond a monetary donation, with time, shelter, or transportation.)
➡️ Think local. Pay attention to school board meetings, library board meetings, and public forums. We cannot allow a vocal minority to push their agendas through, and the safety of our trans and immigrant friends often comes down to a district- or city-level policy.
As a parent of teens, I’m also very concerned about banning books. You can find resources for defending public eduction and access to queer and BIPOC lit here.
On this note, We Need Diverse Books is a powerhouse is connecting classrooms and schools with inclusive stories. Donating, volunteering, or connecting an educator with WNDB resources is a formidable way to counter the book banning forces.
➡️ Don't panic. But I think it's a good time to make sure that you are up to date on/have a paper copy of:
Your state ID or driver's license
Your passport (and the passports of any dependents)
Your social security card
Birth documents, marriage certificates, immigration paperwork
Any necessary prescriptions
Finding prescription mutual aid networks, especially for things like insulin
Having your name on a lease agreement or deed if you share a domicile with a romantic partner (same with a car's title)
Advanced directives about hospital visitations, end of life decisions, power of attorney (especially for married queer couples)
For women business owners who are married, a business configuration that can withstand a contentious divorce, or can survive a no-fault divorce rollback
It's a worse case scenario, truly, truly, I don't ever want it to come to this, but have a plan for if your access to money is restricted, either by a partner or by the state, and there is no state recourse
➡️ And finally, this is for all of us in romance. Here is a primer on Project 2025, the authoritarian handbook for centralizing executive power, "cleansing" the civil service, and forcing a white Christian nationalist worldview re: abortion, equality, LGBTQ rights, and marriage onto the country. It is a deeply sociopathic plan, and we'll all need to become familiar with it if we want to have a democracy or a planet to pass on to our children.
More specifically, Project 2025 is looking to ban p-rnography (and additionally to classify all LGBTQ content as p-rnography), and I think there is a reasonable case to make that romance novels could fall under the p-rn umbrella once attention is paid to us. The Comstock Act is still on the books, as it were, and we are only a court case or two away from a judicial reinterpretation bringing back the law's prohibition against obscene content as it was understood in the 1870s (and to get specific, the prohibition of obscene content obtained via the mail or computer).
My instinct is that this will happen by degrees, with the most vulnerable books (LGBTQ or BIPOC stories) being targeted first. The initial venues will probably be public libraries (Idaho has already floated a test balloon here), but then I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same in bookstores—that is, laws being proposed to restrict the sale of the newly labeled "adult content" in public spaces.
So.
We show up to the library board meetings. We engage with our local politics so we know when some bullshit law pops up at the state level.
We purchase and platform BIPOC and LGBTQ books to signal our support for those stories and those authors.
We read and we speak and we walk in the vale of tears, but we do it together, with a bag full of books slung over our shoulder, with the knowledge that stories and romance and happily ever afters can change the world, if we protect them. Just like we'll protect each other.
One step through the vale at a time.
xoxo,
sierra
Edited to add: