It’s hard to know where to begin. The last week since the Charlie Kirkassassination has been a jumble of feelings I can barely sort through. 

Shock turns to sadness, which turns to anger, which turns to frustration, which turns to abject sorrow. I know I’m not alone in this cycle. His shooting death was horrific. And there are times I could kick myself for watching that gruesome video. 

I’m someone who hates violence, who has always recoiled from confrontation, who can’t bear to see people hurt, both physically or emotionally. Even at the age of 61, I can’t fathom why people are so cruel to one another. 

But in just a few days, I’ve watched all the things I despise, violence, cruelty, hatred, play out before my eyes, leaving me emotionally and physically bruised. It feels like the country I love is slipping further away from democracy and plunging headlong into autocracy. And it’s happening so fast it makes my head spin.

The other morning, I was running along the Hudson River. Out in the middle floated a massive barge. When it passed, violent waves suddenly crashed against the shoreline, leaping over rocks and greenery, soaking the sidewalk and slowing my stride. 

That’s what the Kirk assassination has felt like: a giant barge of trauma, each wave amplified by social media, crashing over us again and again. And I don’t think that barge has passed yet. Its rip current is still pulling, threatening to drag down whatever decency and freedom of speech we still have left.

How did we sink so far, so fast?

Honestly, I’m exhausted from going after the extreme right for the hate they keep shoving in our faces. And Trump? He’s someone who should at least pretend to bring this country together. Instead, he’s gone off the deep end, pushing division and cruelty to new extremes. 

The relentless targeting of queer people, especially our transgender siblings, has been sickening. The firings and public shamings of people who dared to speak out about the hateful words Kirk himself used have been alarming. No one should lose their job, their livelihood, their freedom, because they disagreed with him.

And then there was Jimmy Kimmel. His removal rattled me more than I expected. His comments weren’t about “celebrating” Kirk’s death. Yet he was punished, while right-wing media who eagerly speculated and falsely blamed trans people faced no consequences at all. 

It feels like those of us who stand for decency are the ones being punished. Those of us who don’t harbor hate are the ones being ridiculed and demonized.

During the AIDS crisis, victims were ridiculed, demonized, and their lives destroyed not just by the disease but by society’s disdain. Those were awful days. Just awful. And yet somehow, we got through them. I want to believe we’ll get through this, too. But if I’m being honest, I’m not fully convinced. 

Normality, whatever that elusive word once meant, has left the stage. And I don’t know if it’s ever coming back for an encore.

Because where are we now, after Kirk and after Kimmel? It feels like we’re teetering at the edge of something unrecognizable. We were warned Trump would be a sinister force, but he’s been worse than our darkest expectations. When I think about it, Trump himself is the runaway barge, barreling toward the fragile shoreline of our democracy. And unless something changes, he’s going to crash it.

The right seems emboldened by Kirk’s death, eager to hate with vengeance. Kimmel’s ouster feels like just the beginning. When the FCC chair chillingly declared, “We’re not done yet,” That just startled me.

So what do we do? My God, I wish I had an easy answer. These circumstances have never been thrust at us before. Yes, our country has wobbled on the edge many times in the past. But never like this. Never. And I’m not talking about abstract or, at the moment, crass politics. I’m talking about our very persons, our lives, our safety, our sense of belonging.

We are in a very dark time. It’s chilling. And it feels like we’re only at the beginning.

I just wrote a book on the many couples behind the fight for marriage equality, I learned one important thing during the process. The people who picked up the cause were so ordinary. There was nothing extraordinary about them, until there was. 

They were just regular folks, who when pushed too far, responded in the bravest of ways. Each one of us has something special inside of us, particularly those of us in the LGBTQ+ community. Don’t assume your voice doesn’t matter. It does, and you’ll realize that when you use it.

Yes, the waves are going to keep crashing. We have to comfort each other. We have to stick together. We have to be kind. We have to be honest with one another. We can pray, we can fight, we can keep running forward even when the water soaks our shoes and slows our pace. 

We can keep speaking out, keep standing our ground, and do our damndest to ensure the waves of autocracy don’t overpower us. Because if we stop moving, if we give up, then the barge wins.