*The following is an edited excerpt of a journal entry written on March 6

Today, I had the opportunity to meet Jim Obergefell and hear him talk on a panel about being the plaintiff of Obergefell v. Hodges — the Supreme Court case that granted same-sex couples the right to marry across all 50 states — with its upcoming 10-year anniversary. It was so lovely and empowering to hear people talk so passionately about queerness and equal protection. The audience was filled with silent tears and unabashed hands intertwined as stories were recounted and the orchestra played. At the end of the panel, person after person shuffled to the front of the stage to offer hugs, handshakes and thank yous, myself included. There’s so much you want to say to someone who has changed your life in such a way, but in the end, I think I just blurted a thank you and something about wanting to go into constitutional law. How can you politely tell a stranger everything there is to say? 

I was 11 years old when the news about the Obergefell ruling came out in June of 2015. Having grown up sheltered and Catholic, this is the first memory I have of really hearing about the LGBTQ+ community. I remember hovering around the TV, halfway between the kitchen and living room, with a forced nonchalance, pretending I wasn’t listening as my mind was blown. How had I not known this was even an option? I had the fascination of an anthropologist studying something totally new, and I spent the next year obsessively thinking about this revelation. This memory is book-ended by the only other time I heard about queerness before questioning my own identity: Almost exactly one year later was the Pulse Nightclub shooting, which at the time was the deadliest mass shooting in recent United States history. I was given two distinct glimpses into this elusive identity I had never known about until then — slings and arrows, I suppose. Very soon after this, internet access and fellow middle schoolers offered me clear explanations and labels, and my whole world began to make sense. I came out as trans a year and a half later. 

Now, having been out for about eight years and planning to become a lawyer, I find myself thinking about Obergefell v. Hodges often — which, as I write, I realize now sounds a bit ridiculous, but honestly I do. I remember that day so clearly despite the blur that permeates most of that time in my life. I also remember the constitutional basis for the ruling and the case precedence because, apparently, a certain nerdiness about court rulings has also been instilled in me. Being both of such deeply personal and professional interest, I jumped at the chance to hear Jim talk at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts.

The event was beautiful and deeply interesting, but the current American political climate hung in the room in an ironic air as we talked about progress. It gave me full-body chills to hear Jim Obergefell and a panel of other academics explicitly call out recent transphobic legislation to a room full of claps and nods. In a political culture that has made the trans body out to be something grotesque and burdensome, I think I forgot that despite my complete comfortability in myself, a bit of that rhetoric still gets internalized. I found myself surprisingly moved by adults so willing to draw a hard line against transphobia, to hear community members of varying ages make no attempt at distancing themselves from me as a political liability. Similarly, you could feel the charge of a community willing to fight for each other. It’s no secret that now, only 10 years after the ruling, judges and political leaders across the country are looking to overturn Obergefell, allowing queer couples to be denied marriage licenses. In the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, this feels like a distinct possibility. But I know there is strength in community building, and there is strength in this community.

I don’t have the exact words, but one of the speakers said something along the lines of, “We have been here before, and we will get through this again,” and we have and we will. Don’t get me wrong, I know a rousing speech will not fundamentally change things. I will look up from writing this, and there will still be violent transphobia and a government hellbent on seeing my community suffer. But getting to hear story after story of queer people pushing back and loving the families they have made for themselves has been life affirming. Jim shared the story of meeting a woman who thanked him, saying the court case saved her life, and I cried because I know just how many more would not be here without the progress won and how many more will not be here tomorrow if we don’t fight today. I am reminded of the police violence of the Stonewall era, the radio silence from the government during the AIDS epidemic, Pulse and a president who would rather we not exist at all. But in front of my very eyes, I see a community that keeps loving and fighting, and I am reminded that there are people in my corner. And I’m in their corner too. 🙂