Right after I returned from a visit to a Denver senior residential center where I had spoken with 20 or so residents about the current political situation, I received an e-mail from Doug Kimmel asking me to write an article for the Division 44 Newsletter on the same topic. The center I visited houses a couple hundred residents, approximately 90% of whom receive Medicaid. Aside from a few guests invited by the center, the audience consisted of residents who attended a monthly support group for LGBTQ+ people.
The group's facilitator had asked me to talk with the group in the aftermath of widespread expressions of worry and concern during last month's meeting. The focus of residents' concerns was the rash of political changes that had been rapidly unfolding since the new presidential administration gained power. This group was mostly old, mostly poor, of multiple racial and ethnic backgrounds, and mostly sexual and gender minorities. Many were reeling from the sudden changes and the prospect of more to come.
I walked into the gathering with a hefty outline and the hope that I would not have to use it. Instead, I was hoping that we could all join in a conversation about how the events in the broader world had made their way into the private lives of these folks and, more importantly, what we could do about it. The anxiety was palpable as we began introductions of names and pronouns. I told the group how excited I had been to learn that they'd been meeting for many months. I also said I had an outline and could talk with them, but I preferred we all talk together. They were game.
I had one question on a sheet of paper – my alternative to the outline. It said: Who here lived in Colorado in 1992?
Before describing what happened next in our discussion, let me fill you in on why I began with that question. In 1992, after a year-long vitriolic campaign, Colorado voters passed Amendment 2 to the state’s Constitution, which effectively eliminated any legal recourse for lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men who encountered discrimination in any of its forms. The amendment had significant psychological and social impacts on many LGBTQ+ Coloradans. Having conducted research on the social and psychological consequences of Amendment 2 in the election's immediate and longer-term aftermath, I was keenly aware of the impact.
What follows is a synopsis of the conversation among the residents, guests, and me. I took only a few notes when I wanted to remember to bring up something someone had said that might get lost in the dynamic interplay. My synopsis is much more organized than was the freely moving conversation occurring in real time. Nonetheless, I think it captures many of the major foci of this wide-ranging dialogue.
After ascertaining that all but one person had been residing in Colorado in 1992 (this person appeared to have no difficulty engaging in the subsequent conversation), I asked how many of the participants remembered something called Amendment 2. Everyone had at least some cursory knowledge of the amendment. To make sure everyone was on the same page, I went over a few details of the amendment.
I asked folks to recall what the Amendment 2 campaign was like.
People generally talked about the stereotypes and lies from the campaign, some recalling specific campaign rhetoric. Some pointed to the difficulty of refuting the outrageous falsehoods suffusing the rhetoric.
I asked people in the room if they had memories of how they felt during the campaign.
People said that they had felt criticized and dehumanized. Some reported being afraid. A few recalled being angry.
My next question asked if they recalled the outcome of the election. Everyone, including the one person who hadn't lived in the state at the time, knew the amendment had passed.
I asked how they had felt about the passage of Amendment 2.
The words came easily: disappointment, fear, anger, loneliness. Several added that some people in the broader community felt empowered to harass LGBTQ+ people. Some had friends who left the state because of the election. Some recounted losing friends who had voted to deny them legal protections. Some people talked about Colorado being labeled "the hate state" and what that felt like. Someone reminded us of conflicts among LGBTQ+ community members about the best strategy for dealing with the aftermath of the election.
One person noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had found that Amendment 2 was unconstitutional [on May 20, 1996]. That observation gave way to memories of other positive outcomes of what initially appeared to be the beginning of the end of equity for our community. People spoke of how many LGBTQ+ people came out, how the community grew and coalesced, how we built Colorado's first true state-wide LGBTQ+ organization. Someone else mentioned the emergence of heterosexual allies and what a difference that made; another person suggested it would have been better if the allies had come out more forcefully before the actual election. [Editor's note: Colorado currently has an openly gay governor, Jared Polis.]
I directed our focus to how we had felt about these changes. People spoke of being more out and empowered. Many clearly found the emergence of a more visible and active community to be of personal and social benefit. Some recalled a sense that the changes were rapid; others had the impression that the changes were more gradual but consistent. People spoke, with obvious pride, about the changes in the political status of LGBTQ+ Coloradans from 1992 to the present. Over time, the legislature had granted LGBTQ+ people in the state most of the protections that were so far from our grasp at the time Amendment 2 passed. Just last November, the voters handily endorsed a ballot measure that removed a one-man/one-woman proposition that had been adopted during the country's marriage wars in the 2010s. At this point in time, Colorado is widely seen as one of the best places in the country for LGBTQ+ people, an observation that has been supported by the large numbers of trans individuals and families who have migrated to Colorado in the last few years.
My next question: How did we get from where we were in the aftermath of Amendment 2 to where we are now? The members of the group offered responses from all sorts of experiences, both recent and historical. Some spoke of the political changes that had occurred. We returned to the issue of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to rule against Amendment 2. I reminded us that the Romer decision in the case was the first high court decision to treat LGBTQ+ people as real human beings worthy of dignity and respect.
Other people spoke at the level of individual change. Several people, some through tears, described how they had declared their sexual orientation at work and to family members in the aftermath of the election. This group included individuals who had been employees of the very state that had just voted to allow lesbian, gay, and bisexual people to be fired at will. People talked excitedly about how the LGBTQ+ community came together in spite of some significant disappointments about how the electoral campaign was carried out and despite differences in strategies for moving forward. Allies were again the focus of memories. There were two PFLAG chapters in the state when Amendment 2 passed. Within a year or so, the number of chapters was in the double digits.
As we moved through the discussion of these changes, the mood in the room also changed. People were in touch with the differences between the time Amendment 2 had passed and the present. Some people in the room had actively participated in making those differences happen. Virtually everyone had benefited from the differences.
I offered another question, prefaced by the acknowledgment that there are huge differences between a state-wide anti-LGBTQ+ election and a national crisis for our and other targeted communities and, perhaps, for the very life of democracy itself. But I invited us to consider what we – who had lived through Amendment 2 and benefited from the changes in its wake – could use from those earlier experiences. What could we take from the experience, and what could be passed on to others, especially to younger people? Here are some of the observations people made.
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Don't assume a bad event is ever the end of the story.
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It's important to pick one thing you can do to fight against oppression and do it, preferably with others.
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Consider what bad things may happen and prepare for what you can.
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Take it one day at a time.
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Have as much fun as much as you can.
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Get as much reliable information as you can.
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Get support from others.
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Give support to others.
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Don't get lost in the chaos.
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Acknowledge the power you have in whatever area and use it well.
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Have a plan B.
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Don't let the bastards get inside your head.
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It's okay to be angry about what’s going on.
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No doomscrolling.
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Don't assume you know what's going to happen.
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Dance and sing.
Members of the group realized they knew a good deal about how to take care of themselves. There was a lot of very positive energy in the room. That's often the case when people are invited to move away from only talking about what they're worried about and, instead, have the opportunity to say what they know, especially based on their own experience.
As we were wrapping up our discussion, a man who had been mostly quiet tentatively stated that he had a question. It wasn't actually a question. He expressed his anger and his refusal to "make nice." He explained that he was "furious" with the people who had voted for the current president. Others joined in as we talked again about the reasonableness of anger. Some allowed as how they were angry as well. Anger makes sense. What you do with it is an important consideration.
We talked about productive ways to manage and express anger, especially the value of channeling anger into positive social change. A few people were able to describe how they did that. One person, for example, wrote a blistering letter to Republican family members right after the election and then began volunteering for an AIDS non-profit the following week.
I recounted a particularly evocative observation made by friends: “Resentment is like peeing down your own leg and hoping it makes the other person uncomfortable.” When the guy who initiated this part of the discussion laughed, I knew he had moved enough to consider a new way to look at his anger. I asked him if he minded if I suggested a different way of thinking about his anger at people who had voted for a candidate who felt so negative and even dangerous to him. His response was straightforward, “That's why I asked.”
I spoke about my anger with a close relative who had voted for the current president. I described how I had talked with that relative prior to the election. I had been clear about how psychologically damaged the presidential candidate was and how problematic his positions were for many people, including members of the LGBTQ+ community. After finding out that my relative had, nonetheless, voted for this candidate, I was furious with her. I then acknowledged that I had expressed my anger with my relative in a variety of ways, including ways that I regretted.
I went on to say that, with some time, I realized that fear was driving a good deal of my anger and that I didn't want to destroy a relationship with a close relative because of her vote. I had long believed that it was a mistake to confuse a leaders' followers with the leader. People had many reasons to vote for a person, reasons that might have little or nothing to do with my reasons for not voting for that candidate. In addition, I didn't want to have the current president and his administration determine who I was and with whom I had contact. I didn't want my attitude and conduct toward my relative to echo the vitriol and judgmentalism and polarizing behavior that I thought the president routinely promulgated and pulled forth from all of us. I didn't want to respond in kind to someone who represented so much of who I didn't want to be. I didn't want someone whom I regarded as morally and socially problematic to have such a big impact on who I was and how I behaved.
As I spoke, I found myself drawn to some barely recalled lyrics of an old song sung by Garth Brooks (though written by Tony Arata and Wayne Tester). As I was gathering some of the lyrics from my memory, I reaffirmed my commitment to doing work that contributed to solutions. However much my work might (or might not) make a difference, it was clear to me that one of the essential ways for me to maintain some sense of power and integrity in this period of challenge and unpredictable outcomes was to hold on to the kind of person I want to be.
From “The Change”:
And I hear them sayin', you'll never change things
And no matter what you do it's still the same thing
But it's not the world that I am changing
I do this so this world we know never changes me
Our conversation ended on that note. Many people in the room seemed to be energized as they broke into smaller conversations. I left feeling good about how our encounter had gone, about how grateful I was to have psychological skills that can be useful to others, and about how impressed I was by what we all know already, if we slow down long enough to remember it.
Glenda Russell is a retired psychologist in Colorado, a long-time member of Division 44, and past-chair of the Fellows Committee and past co-chair of the Public Policy Committee. She now spends her time serving on boards and committees, pursuing activism, writing a book on Boulder queer history, and writing a blog called Tools for Troubled Times.