Friend -

We came out of closets where we hid our love.

They came out of closets where they hid their hate. On hangers: hoods, patiently staring out at them, hooked through an eyehole, draped over their cross dresses. Next to their if god wanted us to cover our faces, we would have been born with masks t-shirts. Paraphernalia of the weak-minded. Hypocrisy heirlooms.

Statistically, there are more of them than of me and mine  — the Legibitiqua Army. Unlike our extremist oppressors, we don't recruit. So, I guess it makes sense that their hate roars like a storm while we remain the ebb and flow, cleaning the detritus of their fury from our beautiful shores every time they stoke their trademarked, shit-covered hatery. Currently called MAGA née GOP, but historically known by many names, the Know-Nothing Party, the KKK, the Militia Movement, the Tea Party; all, always about the annihilation of other humans. And, whatever else you call a group of white Americans who show up to harass children entering segregated spaces, menace immigrants fleeing unimaginable horrors, revel in lynchings of Black Americans, bully and intimidate the queer community, and lean straight into the worser demons of their nature because a Black man became POTUS. Look at the insanity now, as a Black woman is on the precipice of doing the same. Please brown baby Jesus, help get this right. Yeah?

Every time they drag out their illogical hate-speak from their shallow kristian kupboards, we, the sane, who refuse to gulp hate like DFT, rise up. We grab our PPE, our patriarchy protective equipment, our toxic-masculinity masks, and our white supremacy hazmat gear, and begin cleaning away their debris. I've been around long enough to know that we will outlast them. But that doesn't mean they won't leave behind a debilitating, embarrassing, and harmful skid mark that will be impossible to scrub away. It will be there in the annals of time, no matter how often we try to wipe it clean.

MAGA uses the same tactics every other extremist group ever has. They scapegoat, they fear-monger, they demonize. They make others (read: not white, not binary-locked) threats to society by spreading lies, and they do not care about the real harm that they inflict. All that matters to them is power and anyone who tithes. This demagoguery is the antithesis of rationality, and it is the central strategy to every fascist, nationalistic, and authoritarian movement ever. It is always harmful. There has never been one good thing to come out of these movements. Not. One. Good. Thing. Prove me wrong. Your answer can't be that we learned from them. Obviously, we haven't.

And because some humans refuse to learn from history, life for the queer community and other scapegoated groups feels like an endurance contest. Some of you may remember the "keep your hands on the car" competitions at malls in the late 1900s, where participants would compete to keep their hands on a brand-new car for as long as they could. The last person st(handing) would win the car, after days of relentless, exhausting … waiting. Most people lost because of something small, an involuntary reflex. They'd inadvertently wipe away sweat or scratch their nose. It's what happens when you're tired  — your focus wanes. Patience is one thing, but when people are waiting for you to make a small mistake, it's only a matter of time until you will.

Where did this idea come from, that if you want a nice thing, and you don't fit the profile, or you can't or won't fake your way into seeming like the profile, you have to endure something to gain it. For the sake of this argument let's call it Cartholicism. To be part of the chosen, first you must suffer. Please, ride shotgun with me through this analogy. In 1985 a car cost around 35% of your yearly earnings. Today, that dream costs nearly 65%, per the U.S. Department of Labor. The cost of freedom has skyrocketed, but our ability to grasp it has withered. The endurance game has more players than ever. Winning a car would no longer mean driving off into the sunset; it would likely barely dent the economic anxieties of the winner, leaving them like a modern-day Evel Knievel, staring at a canyon too wide to cross. The game, the distraction is the point. Mind the gap now means the canyon between the billionaires and the rest of us, which grows wider every day. It is increasingly insurmountable. One by one, our hands are slipping off the car.

That's the point, though, isn't it? We're expected to endure more just to survive. The same endurance game plays out in every facet of our lives. If you've been paying attention, you know that access is hard to gain when you don't fit the right profile. It's not just about identity or visibility - it's economics. Just like Black and Brown families have been systematically denied car (& housing) loans or forced into worse terms than their white neighbors with similar or lower incomes, queer people face similar financial barriers. Studies from CLEAR show that LGBTQIA couples are 73% more likely to be denied loans than their heterosexual counterparts, even with the same financial profile. It doesn't take a genius to know that this sort of systemic bias still exists, nor does it take one to deny it.

Folx, the American Dream has always been built on access  —  those who hold the power decide who is deserving of a loan, a car, a home, the chance to pass wealth on to their family. Historically, those gatekeepers have been white, straight men. So when you're queer or Black or Brown, you're just playing the car contest. You're fighting against a system designed to wear you down, waiting for you to make a mistake so they can say, See? You don't belong.

It's not so different from what we see today with MAGA extremists. Currently, they are spending their energy spewing lies about the queer community and immigrants, hoping to distract people from the fact that they aren't improving anyone's lives. They're not interested in lifting citizens up or creating a better world; they're only focused on amassing their power. The contest is rigged, and their false promises are designed to keep people focused on meaningless distractions because they have no real solutions. In this metaphor, my hand would still be the last one on the car  — not because I've been fooled by the prize, but because I know I can outlast their attempts to distract and divide us. And I'll drive away with a bumper sticker that reads, Lord, PROTECT ME FROM YOUR FOLLOWERS.

Think about the skill scapegoated communities have had to develop over decades of enduring hateful rhetoric from MAGA and other religious extremists who fight to maintain control over access to freedom. During the Obama years, it felt like, for the first time, we scapegoated could take our hands off the car without being penalized. We got to let go. After decades of constantly being on guard - keeping an eye out for every micro-aggression, every side-eye from a stranger, and every piece of legislation designed to deny us our humanity  —  there was a collective exhale. It wasn't that the work was done or the fight was over, but the threat had receded, even if just a little. We didn't have to keep our hands on the car, tired and at risk of losing focus, just to be afforded the right to have a car. It seemed like maybe we could just get the car without having to suffer. But of course, we know the Blacklash that followed, the racist response to those very same years. We had hoped for a better nation because, for one brief shining moment, many of us naively believed a country built on racism and misogyny would somehow stop being racist and misogynistic.

For a moment, the queer community was allowed to live without the constant fear of being targeted. Civil unions, marriage equality  —  these weren't just legal milestones; they were symbols of relief, the brief reward for keeping our hands on the car for so long. But for many of us, it was clear that these victories weren't the end. We were told that we had arrived, but only some of us — the queers who looked all-American could have access. The right kind of queer got to win, while others were still left relying on spotty public transportation. The victories we won during the early 2000s were important but they were limited. We made progress, but often in ways that excluded the most marginalized in our community. Those who were the most palatable were given the most access. A handful of chosen queers were given the right to be respected, but only if they fit a specific mold: white, middle-class, well-behaved. They had to look like the oppressors to be considered for acceptance. As Joy Oladokun sings: "If you're going to poison the apple, why plant the tree?" Why fight for inclusion if it's only going to reproduce the same systems of oppression we were struggling against in the first place? This selective recognition left many queer folx stuck playing the endurance game, hands still gripping the car, unsure if they'd ever get into the driver's seat. The only proof you need is today’s hateful targeting of the Trans community.

If the queer community has shown the world anything, it's that we are tenacious. We've survived worse. Then, after that, we navigated the Reagan years, the AIDS crisis and every paradoxical Christian boomeranging backlash. We have and will continue to survive the relentless attacks on our rights. The thing about us is that we always find a way to keep going, even when it feels like the world is pushing back with all its might. So here we are again, on the eve of the most important election in American history, stuck on a road paved with hostility, threatening to undo everything we've worked for. 

Just as the South surrendered at Appomattox, the Republican Party surrendered has to MAGA, and just like the South, they refuse to acknowledge they’ve lost . They are unable to do the only thing any god would ever require of us: the ability to admit when we are wrong and make the amends necessary. Instead they have chosen cowardice and zealotry, which is why it's never new, always exhausting. They've been running on their hateful ideals for so long they think they're stride for stride with Jesus, when they've simply been lapped so many times they think they're first. What's so magnificently frustrating is how they've been allowed to flourish, buoyed by a base of predominantly white, predominantly Christian voters who've latched onto the ugly hate machine — who they think deserves to be king. The so-called family values they claim to protect have become twisted into a weapon used to police and punish those of us who don't fit a mold so narrow that even The Bible doesn’t agree.

The queer community used our closets to protect ourselves, never to hide some conjured up harm we wanted to do to others. Hate should be closeted, its driving forces placed in cold storage. All privileges revoked. We talk about needing a seat at the table. Nah, it's time to take the wheel. Love must be what presses us forward. How have we, over and over again, let hate brake us and put us in reverse? We came out of closets to share our love with the world, and we are not going back. Love is stronger than any bigotry because it has the ability to last. Love provides energy; hate exhausts. That’s why we’re still here, with our hands on the car, fighting for a future where we no longer have to play these evil games.

One thing is certain: wherever we end up, we’ll all be there together.

My closet or theirs?

Dc Lozano, Political-Digital Director

PowerPAC is a social justice organization that strategically directs financial and human resources to local and state organizations working to deliver wins in legislative fights, ballot initiatives, and more. For years the money we've raised has, dollar for dollar, been given back to the communities we work with. We've made sure that your investments were being used to build power for our communities because too often we are underrepresented and ignored. 

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