I was never supposed to see 18. 

This was an intrinsic truth I grew up with. An understanding I could never avoid. I would not live to see 18. 

It started when I was 13. Around that time, my identity began blossoming and I couldn’t avoid it the way I used to. While my friends would giggle over guys, I was left with this sinking feeling of dread every time the topic came up. They would press me about who I liked. I would dodge the question and do whatever I could to extricate myself from the conversation.

At home, I would listen to my uncles make remarks about the queer community and flinch when they would drop the f-slur. I’d power through the day, numb, and spend nights so overwhelmed with fear I would cry until I passed out. 

I felt paralyzed. This huge secret sat on my chest like a stone, rolling the air out of my lungs and turning every half-breath into a battle. 

I turned to the internet for answers, for community, and what I found instead just made it worse. Pages and pages of vitriol, hatred curling like smoke across every conceivable online platform. For every flower of hope rising from the cracks, there were calloused hands quick to rip it out at the root.

Dirty. Lying. Cheating. Amoral. I hope they all burn in hell. They aren’t even human. Mistake. Phase. 

At 13, already crushed under the weight of the secret I carried, that hatred felt like the final nail in my coffin. 

The statistics I began to see dug the hole for my grave. The rate of depression among queer children. (More than half of queer youth reported symptoms of depression.) The heightened rate of suicide. (Queer youth are four times as likely to attempt suicide.) I thought there was no way I would ever make it out of this. I was destined to become just another number on a sheet of paper. 

The election in 2016 just deepened those feelings. 

The hatred that had once stayed confined to online space began leaking back into the world. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence targeted the rights of the queer community from the moment they stepped into office, and emboldened people to act on their hatred. 

If I am entirely honest, so much of that period I blocked out. It was like I was living in a constant fugue state directly following the election. 

The following four years felt like a clock ticking down to its last seconds. 

I wasn’t supposed to make it. 

But I did. 

I got up every day. 

I kept fighting. 

I pressed back everything telling me to just give up. 

I came out to my friends, and then my family. 

I advocated for my community. 

I sowed seeds of understanding and compassion to battle against the hatred. 

And for a while, it seemed to work. When 2020 rolled around and Biden won, it felt like a sign that things were finally changing. That maybe the hatred had passed. Maybe compassion had won. 

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t just surviving. I started living. 

I proudly wore my identity on my sleeve and walked with my head held high. I lingered in my laughter and celebrated with friends and family. 

Eventually, I met a girl who swept me off of my feet in a way that felt like a fairytale. She unlocked visions of a future I had always held myself back from hoping for. Not only was I living in the moment, I began to plan for the future. Finally, I felt hopeful. 

Maybe it was that hope that led to my naive belief on how the 2024 election would go. 

I had seen the compassion that sprung forward over the past four years. I had seen the masses of people promising to stand with us and for us the way they had failed to in 2016. I had seen the outcries at the draconian laws aimed at the queer community and queer youth. 

I chose to trust in the good in people. 

For a moment in time, I wasn’t a confident 23-year-old. I was a scared teenager, choking on the realization that almost a decade later, we’re stuck in the same battle. The future I had just begun to let myself imagine quickly faded to gray. 

So when I woke up the next morning and saw the results…I don’t think there are any words that could properly convey the emotions I went through. 

For a moment in time, I wasn’t a confident 23-year-old. I was a scared teenager, choking on the realization that almost a decade later, we’re stuck in the same battle. 

The future I had just begun to let myself imagine quickly faded to gray. 

There was one massive difference. In 2016, the results shook me to my core but left me feeling empty. This time, while the shock remained, there was something else: anger. I was furious.

Furious that things hadn’t changed. Furious the future we were promised was slipping away. Furious that the lives of most of my friends were once again on the chopping block. Furious that this cycle doesn’t end. Furious on behalf of all the scared teenagers out there who couldn’t be. 

I’m not done fighting, far from it. I plan to fight for my future, for the future of the community I’ve grown to love, until my last breath. 

But those breaths feel more labored now. Hope may not be gone, but it is certainly beaten and bloody, barely clinging on. 

To some people, this election was just another Tuesday. They shrug off the results, saying politics shouldn’t matter. But the truth is, for people like me, this election was so much more than that. It was my right to a future. My right to settle down, to find happiness, to carve out a place for myself. It was my right to not live paralyzed, wondering which friend I would have to talk off the ledge next. 

It is my right to live, to laugh, to love.

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FEATURED IMAGE BY ALI BALCAZAR