Straight sisters need us more than ever.
The furore and the fury over the Brett Kavanaugh nomination to the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) has been the greatest, most unified outcry I’ve ever seen on Facebook. Virtually every single post by each of my hundreds of friends has been protesting Kavanaugh’s appointment and supporting Christine Blasé Ford‘s bravery in coming forward, to tell the truth about how she was abused by a man who is positioned to judge others in the highest court in this country.
From my viewpoint, this upheaval is distressing but also exciting – behind the tears and the anger and the trauma, we are, I think, uniting and united. The first women’s march after Trump’s “election” to the presidency was exhilarating; the second one, last January, was strong and stead. I’m sure that the one in early 2019 will be the most energetic and exciting one so far: I feel that the #metoo movement, far from fading away, is surging forward into a widespread feminist allegiance we haven’t seen since the Second Wave in the 1970s – which most long-lived lesbians will remember.
Despite the serious setbacks our community has suffered in recent political developments, despite the splintering and confusion around trans issues that has marred our efforts in the last decade, and despite the fact that a lot of us are sick to death of battling patriarchs, the Millennials are a force for political good, and the anger spreading through even conservative factions of the United States (about threats to abortion rights, about backlash against queers of all kinds) is a purifying force. Trump, Kavanaugh, and their ilk have done incredible damage, but they have at least at last galvanized the resistance. And we long-lived lesbians can take a deep breath, being grateful to ourselves and the others who’ve been fighting these battles a long time – and then we exhale, and renew our minds, hearts, and bodies to keep fighting.