Why I March

Like many on the night of the election, I cried. But also, despite having the support of my amazing—proud feminist—husband of twenty years, I felt very alone. 

​I’m an author and professional editor. I run a freelance business that requires an active presence on social media, which can be a fun part of my day. During the election, however, it became a daily dose of environmental depression due to the onslaught of obviously fake news and vitriol spread by ignorant, sexist men and women. Every day I told myself that it would all get shoved in their faces come election day when Hillary defeated the narcissist running a farce of a campaign that had accomplished little more than embarrassing our nation. While Trump's supporters pacified their anger with racist tweets and online gun shopping, girls and women all over the world would be instilled with the type of inspiration, hope, and a newfound confidence that true equality is an attainable goal. 

But we were robbed. By hatred. By ignorance. By sexism. By Russia. By fake Christians with extremist agendas. By Big Oil. The list goes on. Because somehow, every evil in the world came together to help the least qualified candidate in history defeat the most qualified candidate in history and my eternal optimism wavered to such a degree I thought my election-induced, environmental depression, might, for the first time in my life, escalate to clinical depression. 

I’m a sexual assault survivor and that amplified my reaction to the election, no doubt, but my heart hemorrhaged for the women Trump has assaulted, especially taking into consideration the likelihood that the numbers are far greater than who’s come forward. If I feel alone, I can’t even imagine the level of betrayal they’re feeling. Meanwhile, horror stories pouring in from all over the country regarding a spiked number of incidents involving sexual aggression from men towards women, and random acts of violence towards women, immigrants, and anyone not white have made it all that much harder to deal with. (The Chris von Keyserling incident is especially despicable.) And now Trump has appointed a literal socioeconomic-suicide-squad of plutocratic nihilists to rape our nation via the loss of civil liberties and destruction of every social program the best of us fought decades—some centuries—to establish. 

Our fight will go on longer than we’d hoped; as it always goes, I suppose. Novels won’t be written. Songs won’t be composed. Art won’t be created. That energy will have to go into protecting/restoring our civil liberties because without those we can’t progress the fight for the things that should be deemed inalienable rights: the freedom not to be Christian; to love who we choose; to be born into a world with clean air, water, and the opportunity to pursue happiness, which requires healthcare. Loss of culture is the least of our worries; in this political climate, children will starve and people will die—more so than ever before in the U.S. As disheartening as that can feel sometimes, the many men and women who are speaking out now against Trump’s agenda and his high-roller donor cronies are transforming my disappointment into a bonfire of a rage-induced determination, inflamed by compassion for the sisters I’ve never met. Sisters who also often wake up feeling alone in a world where women are still second-rate citizens in the most progressive nations on earth, and are frequent targets of the most heinous acts of violence known to man. 

I am compelled to march this weekend as a show of resistance to the un-American platform and agenda of the Trump administration, including the sexism, racism, hatred, oppression, and suffering that it has already nurtured and will inevitably spawn. I wish I could have made it to DC, but I'm proud to join the movement in Las Vegas. I’ve compiled the images in this video for the many men and women in the U.S. and all over the world who refuse to stop fighting or are just now joining the fight, as a reminder that you are not alone.

This weekend we march!