November 6 could be forever known as National Betrayal Day as various groups realized that critical parts of their coalitions voted for Trump. Women across social media posted memes reading: “I knew a lot of men hated women, but I didn’t realize how many women hated women.” Black women, who for the first time in history believed they had forged common cause with white women, realized that was an illusion as the majority of white women voted for the adjudicated rapist, despite close to 60% telling pollsters they were supporting Harris.
If the past decade saw familial bonds fray at the seams over political divides, yesterday saw millions of scissors furiously cutting. Thanksgiving tables have had strained conversations for some time. Now, they’ll have empty chairs.
The feelings of betrayal run very deep in the LGBTQ community, whose rights risk being completely erased. Trump’s Supreme Court has already telegraphed the desire to overturn marriage rights. Justice Clarence Thomas even argued that Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 decision that established the right to same-sex intimacy, should be reversed.
LGBTQ people are sharing advice as they prepare for the loss of rights
Yesterday the community scrambled for information on how to protect their families, from establishing power of attorney to ensuring both parents’ names are on adoption paperwork. Passport dates were checked. Senior members of the community, who remember police raids and being locked out of dying partners’ hospital rooms, suddenly found a demand for their advice and their stories of survival.
Yesterday was a Coming Out Day of sorts for newly emboldened Gay Republicans, to the shock and disgust of the larger community. Exit polls indicate 12% of the LGBTQ voters cast their ballots for Trump, and “Quisling”— a word synonymous with traitor—is the label being ascribed to them, harkening back to Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling. Largely white, male, and financially comfortable, these “normal gays,” to borrow from J.D. Vance, feel fully-integrated into larger society, and believe the Right’s focus will be limited to the Transgender Community. The sense of indifference and invincibility was met with overwhelming pushback over social media. Why would these men believe that a court willing to strip rights away from women wouldn’t dare overturn marriage equality or re-criminalize same-sex relations?
Obviously, should the worst happen, gay Trump voters also stand to lose everything. As it stands today, they’ve already lost their community.
