User blog comment:Bionicforce/The Election/@comment-7180588-20161110170949/@comment-27044567-20161110203543

Again, I'm not trying to put down anyone's political beliefs,and I try to respect everyone. I don't judge you based on that. But I will judge you for choosing someone who will take us back fifty years and destroy the endless progress that women, people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community, and more, have accomplished after so much hardship. I don't really care if there was anyone worse than him or not. That fact is that I'm actually scared for my life now - literally.

The presidential elections should not end with people sobbing in the streets, collapsing in the arms of their loved ones. It should not end with stunned silence and quiet tears on the way to school and work the morning after. It should not end with people scared that their marriages will be annulled, or that they could be forced into conversion therapy or even concentration camps as Pence has suggested. It should not end with people terrified that they will be forced to use the wrong bathroom, or the fear that being misgendered every day will become the norm. It should not end with a fear that racism and sexism will run rampant and that everyone who is not like our new president elect - white, straight, cis, rich, a man - will be discriminated and fought against. It should not end with the thought that all these glass ceilings might never be broken.

I didn't especially like many of the choices we had during this election, but for many Americans, this was the worst. I have had multiple panic attacks in the past few days. I seriously contemplated jumping in front of a train. I didn't, of course - I'm still here, and Trump and Pence want people like me gone, and I will not give them that victory. I stay alive out of spite.

That shouldn't be my reason.

I shouldn't have to want to be alive to spite someone. I should want to live because we have a stable, free country that I love living in. Where I can be who I really am, love who I want, be respected for my heratige. Today, that's not why. It could be one day, I hope. But until then, I don't want to hear any arguments of "well, it could have been worse". For many of us, it couldn't have been. We're living our worst nightmare already.