living in austin texas and having conversations with people from the texas country side gave me a perspective on relative freedoms and how much vulnerable minorities; like the person in this article; will give up to pursue them.

i had grown accustomed to the liberties afforded to me in my lgbtqia identities in san francisco and new york and it made it crystal clear how conservatively regressive austin was despite its blue reputation; it felt like it was the 1990’s and i had to go back into the closet.

nevertheless i would encounter people from the texan countryside; particularly trans people; who exclaimed to me during our conversations how awesome austin was compared to the town that they grew up in. i identified with them since i was born and raised in small town arizona with sunset laws; but i also felt bad for them since they were led to believe that austin was a liberal panacea where it unquestionably isn’t. (lauren hill said it best: respect is just a minimum and you sometimes have to fight to get that much in austin).

the person in this article, marisol, likely felt the same way since i’ve heard the same austin-esque opinions i’ve heard from my fellow latin americans who come to this country to avoid persecutions like marisol did. like the texans, they feel that the united states is a panacea of equality. to be fair: there are some places where it is a panacea within the united states; take my references to new york and san francisco for example; but there are precious few of them and i suspect that there will be even fewer thanks to trump and the democratic leadership for pushing us further to the right to enable people like trump.