Honoring the Past, Fighting for the Future
by Lex Ortega
As we brace for an administration threatening mass deportations and rollbacks of LGBTQ+ rights, I ground myself in my lineage of resilience.
When I say resilience, I don’t mean some vague optimism. I mean the very real resilience of my people – queer, trans, people of color, women, immigrants, and more. I often say that the world we know today was not made for us, as queer and trans people. And yet, my people have endured unkind worlds and fought for their rights.
This legacy fuels my gratitude for elders. As a queer person living in Palm Springs, California, in 2024, I enjoy privileges hard-won by those who lived in face (and defiance) of laws criminalizing their identities. They lived openly, proudly, and without shame.
Similarly, as a person assigned female at birth and having identified as a woman for much of my life, I have many rights thanks to the feminists and allied who battled for them. I can own property, have credit, and pursue careers.
Finally, I’m here because of my parent’s resilience. My dad, an immigrant from Mexico, migrated to this country knowing little of the language, all in search of a better future for himself and his family, amidst anti-immigrant sentiments that still exist today.
In the past month, I’ve heard from many people who have succumbed to despair and fear. I’ve also witnessed and experienced so much queer joy – particularly around LGBTQ+ youth who have found community and belonging too. I’ve felt despair and fear too, but those moments of joy help my fear harden to defiance. My ancestors didn’t endure for me to give up. They survived so I could too.
So, I will continue to fight. I have no other option. The young queer and trans people who come after me – the children and the teens of today, and tomorrow — deserve the same resilient and rebellious energy I am the beneficiary of. I take seriously the legacy I want to leave behind. I will survive and thrive, in and amidst my community, so they can too. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are we at The Center.
