“I don’t think I’ll ever forget the feeling after election day walking about Meijer’s running the statistics. 50% of this store chose cheaper groceries over my community’s right to exist. 50% of this store would rather save an unborn baby than ensure a black toddler having access to medical care. 50% of this store chose fear and hate and simple non-answers over telling the world we wouldn’t stand for this shit anymore.”

“I wouldn't be judgmental of a trans person who was scared to go to the bathroom in a red county or something like that, but I would encourage people to continue being your true self. Like fuck these people, seriously. Just keep using the right bathroom, keep using the right pronouns, don't go running and hide because there's some bigots out in the world that need to be squashed. We need to show them that we're here to stay and that their opinion doesn't matter.”

“Previously I was under the impression that with MSU mostly being young people, most people would be in the same boat as me. It’s not like, "You versus me," or, "Blue versus red," Democrats versus Republicans things, but I can't ignore that this large amount of people are voting away my rights as a woman, my friends' rights as actual international students who might not be able to stay in the country. I can't ignore that your choices are gonna affect my life. “

“As LGBTQ people, we are more likely to face environmental injustice than like our cishet counterparts. My queerness pushes me to fight for environmental issues because none of us are free 'til all of us are free. If I'm fighting for my queerness, I'm fighting for environmental issues especially if I take the time to listen Black queer or indigenous queer people and all these different people who have faced the realities of environmental injustice. The more that I take the time to learn from them, the more that I'm able to want to fight.”

“I wish people understood that we're all human. We are no less just because of a piece of paper. Our communities work just as hard if not harder to make a living and keep this country and literally hold this country from falling apart. They built this country for all our communities and if you focus on the state of Michigan, we are a refugee state. “

A Poem by Djinn Thompson

“When sorrow weighs heavy upon our shoulders, may we let our siblings bear the load.
When fear grips our hearts, may the courage of our kin drive it out.
When we stumble upon the path, let us reach for their hands to lift us, steady and true.
For though the blood in our veins may be different, the fire in our souls is the same.”

A Poem by Djinn Thompson

“Odin One-Eye,
You who drank from the well of suffering
To see the truths no man could endure—
Do you see us now,
Bent not in shame, but in mourning?”

By Kara Warren

“I never really thought about the practicality of it, but there are moments that hit me where everything's falling apart and I have to do the dishes.This time is interesting because it gives me insight into these things throughout the past. People still had to go to work and clean the house. The Nazis are bombing, but we gotta do the dishes. It's insane. My husband might lose his gender-affirming care, but I still gotta do laundry.”

By Sarah L.

“Society refuses to acknowledge the importance a disabled mother has in their children's lives and the contributions they make on an hour-to-hour, day-to-day basis. Society can't even comprehend that true motherhood exists beyond gender, that maternal love is, in fact, genderless. “

By Larissa Stenzel-Loucks

“One thing that has changed mentally for me has been reconciling, knowing that a lot of my patients have voted for Trump and what he stands for and what his current party stands for, and yet still loving them and caring for them just as much as I do for any of my other patients.”

By Djinn Thompson

“There is no Welbutrin to fix being persecuted by the government. There's no amount of EMDR that is going to fix you if you're in an El Salvadoran concentration camp. It's like the normal ways that you provide therapy, don't really apply right now because it's active trauma. It's not trying to heal from past wounds, it's the wounds occurring now.”

By Maha O.

“At some point, the LGBTQ community needs to take into consideration the need for inclusivity in activism. You cannot pick and choose who is worthy of advocating for because the moment you do that, you are deciding who is human.”

By Betsy Sneller

“Disability and queerness have never been the problem, it’s that we didn't make an accessible world. I don't know what I actually believe about the afterlife. When people ask me about it the only thing that I know for sure is that we have the ability to create heaven here, so like let's try to do it.”

By Nykky Coxon

“My queerness has helped answer many of the burning questions I've had! Like why would god have a gender? If god had a gender, then god came from reproducing parents, and therefore isn't what we were told at all. “

By Jackie Riley

“To me, the most important instruction as a Christian is to love other people. Doesn't matter if they're queer or not queer. It doesn't matter if someone has the same beliefs that I have. I think I'm still called to respect them.”