Navigating the Aftermath of the Election and The Power of LGBTQ+ Community Support

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The Mutual Broadcasting System presents Richie and John, the podcast that connects you with the people, events, headlines, and lifestyle interests of the global LGBTQ community. Here's Richie Roy and John McMullen.

John McMullen: 00:01:41

Well, it's been a really grim week and a half or so, and I think that most people are still feeling really down from the election results, especially in our community.

But I think a lot of different communities and I spent some time this weekend, Richie, or this past week talking with people who are Democratic Party officials and people who ran for office and also people who are going to be at the front lines of making a fight for our civil rights to continue to be protected.

It's going to be a tough road ahead, but for that reason, I thought rather than our bringing a guest on today, maybe you and I could take a little more time and talk about what it's going to take to get through this rough patch and to persevere.

And so I know that you and I have both been in online spaces over the course of the past week and listening to a lot of our friends fretting about what's going to happen to them. I've had conversations with a few of my friends who are transgender, and they are absolutely petrified at what may come about now.

So maybe we take 20 or 30 minutes and talk about that on this episode of Richie and John.

Richie Roy: 00:03:00

Yeah, I think it's a good idea. I mean, you know, obviously we're all processing a lot of things at once. There is.

There's election that happened, there's the administration that is incoming, and then there's this kind of like free form sense of dread. What is happening? What's going to happen next? What are they going to do?

And I think it leads to a lot of speculation and sometimes kind of rumination about out what bad things could possibly happen.

And I think when people, especially when they're by themselves, can kind of get into a doom spiral, thinking themselves into a place where there feels like there's no way, there's no way forward.

And so I think that, I think it's a good thing for us to talk about what are both things that we can do for ourselves to kind of weather the storm and what resources are out there that we can marshal if we need additional support during these sort of very stressful and anxiety inducing times.

John McMullen: 00:04:01

Some of the resources that I have been reading from over the course of the past week have talked about the significant importance of making sure that we're doing things that involve a lot of self care.

And in addition to that, also banding together with people in our community who share our values and our concerns and who are going to be hopefully working collectively to make this a time that we can survive together. This isn't the first time we've been through this. I mean, this country has gone through patches before and it wasn't even all that long ago.

I think I mentioned in our last episode that I remember feeling similar to how we did last Tuesday night. Wednesday morning, as we dealt with the reality of a reelection of Donald Trump as president, I recall thinking about how I felt when George W.

Bush was reelected in: 2000

And so we have to maintain some level of hope and understanding that the reason that we could actually live with that hope was because we stayed active in the fight for our own rights. And I don't think that this is a time that people should throw in the cards and just say to hell with it, you can't beat them, join them.

I don't think that we're at that point at all.

But I do think that it's going to be really important that over the next weeks, months and couple of years that we're going to need to rely on the people who we have always counted on the most among our friends and our allies.

And in some cases, it means people are going to have to walk away from some of the people who they had hoped as their loved ones would be there for them. And, and again, focus on the fact that first and foremost, you've got to, you've got to make a commitment to self care.

Thirsty The Announcer: 00:06:07

Yeah. And especially, you know, we touched on it briefly last time.

But this is especially relevant because we're coming into the holiday season, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Christmas and New Year's, and a lot of those are times where we' to be with our bio families.

And for many of us, that includes people who we know or we suspect voted Literally against our interests and in some ways voted against our existence. And some of the advice out there is this might be a year to sit some of that out. And those are not easy conversations to have whatsoever.

And trying to it, trying to explain, hey, Aunt Gladys, you know that every year you host Thanksgiving. This year I'm not going to be coming. Of course the question is going to be, well, why?

And then you have to figure out, are you going to have that conversation now or are you going to, you know, need to be shampooing your hair that day or, you know, or some other exigent circumstance that you come up with on the spot.

But, you know, this might be a time where, especially if you have a lot of family members who are maybe Trump supporters and maybe might be gloating in that moment in front of you to consider whether you want your presence to be the president this year.

Thirsty The Announcer: 00:07:25

Well, however the situation is for you in your life, we hope that you make the best decision for you and that you don't worry about how other people are going to feel about that when it could potentially put you into a spiral, because we don't want you in a spiral. We need you for the fight.

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Richie Roy: 00:08:07

Yeah, I think that that's right.

And I think the chosen family might take new forms, because I think one thing that might happen is in the LGBTQ community, chosen family has very specific meaning. And many of us have chosen families.

I think this might be a time where, because of all the upheaval that is likely going to be happening economically, socially, otherwise at the hands of a very bizarre administration, everyone is going to need chosen families. They're going to need support networks locally, they're going to need resources locally.

They're going to need to reach out to people across the country and even the world and build networks of like minded folks and people who can be there for you.

I was talking with someone, and if you think about some of the economic policies that the Trump administration is just kind of floating around, whether it's immigration or tariffs or whatever, there's a likelihood in the next couple years that if you've got a sofa, someone might be staying on it for a while, and.

John McMullen: 00:09:10

Hopefully it's not a Hillbilly Elegy person who might be humping it.

Richie Roy: 00:09:16

Right, Right. But, yeah, I think chosen family more than ever is going to be something that we need.

And it also is a place, I think when we've had discussions on, in the Twitter spaces and stuff, it can be good to check some of your internal kind of spiraling and kind of have some mutual kind of catharsis because we're all feeling really overwhelmed.

But when you kind of air it out with people who are sharing, who share your feelings and your values, at the end of the day, it takes a while to get there, but there's kind of this deep breath, this exhausted breath when you've kind of all talked it out. And it can be really helpful to do that. So.

John McMullen: 00:09:57

And I think too, for people who maybe are feeling disconnected from having chosen family of people who are going to be really supportive around them in these next four years, that one of the recommendations I think both Richie and I would make to you, because it has actually been a huge source of comfort and of support for both of us, is that we found each other and a number of friends, people who shared our common interests and our common values through going online and through being in a community of people in, initially in Twitter spaces. I have been one of the millions who have now abandoned the Twitter platform.

And I know that others are doing it at lightning speed right now and going to places that are committed to creating really a safe environment online for people to communicate with one another and to share and to. Just to help each other get through these headaches. And that is with bluesky.

And there are other places you can go as well and still have access to some of those same kinds of resources, like Discord.

We want to encourage you to find places where you can socialize and hang out with people who you feel safe and the ability to talk these things through with and not, not be ridiculed or, or worse, as can happen sometimes when people go and try and do that with, with their biological families. I think one of the things I wanted to share with you today, and I've.

I've written some things down, basically paraphrasing information that is available right now on the American Civil Liberties Union website. But they are going to be one of the many organizations in the country that are going to be fighting hard for all of us over these next few years.

And here's what they had to say really, about where we stand right now. In a second term, Trump aims to revoke federal protections currently preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

And his administration would assert that federal civil rights laws don't cover anti LGBTQ discrimination, actively promoting such discrimination where possible.

Alarmingly, Trump's team could use federal laws to override state protections for transgender students, forcing governments and organizations to discriminate. And a second Trump term could eliminate many safeguards against discrimination in jobs, housing, education and health care.

Transgender individuals might face bans from military service and lose gender affirming health care under federal programs. Such actions threatened to erase transgender visibility from public life. Historically, Mr.

Trump opposed efforts like the Equality act, which sought to expand civil rights for LGBTQ people. He blocked job protections and removed health care discrimination defenses introduced by the Affordable Care Act.

His judicial appointments have further complicated efforts to fight these policies legally. And in response, the ACLU plans to use courts to affirm LGBTQ protections and push back against federally mandated discrimination.

They'll lobby Congress to constrain anti LGBTQ actions through fiscal controls.

The ACLU also has strategies for states to defend LGBTQ rights, including advocacy for protective student policies and support for non discriminatory state practices. Public mobilization is key to resisting draconian measures.

And Mike Zamor from the ACLU vows strong opposition to any efforts that hinder LGBTQ freedom, insisting that everyone deserves to live and love openly without discrimination.

Again, when you're thinking about the people that you need to network with and support, this is not a political candidate, but it is an organization that is going to be fighting tooth and nail for our rights.

And I would highly recommend, and the same goes, by the way, for the New York Civil Liberties Union, which has also put out messaging about how to deal with this upcoming period of what we expect to be a massive amount of trans and homophobia.

I highly recommend and encourage those of us who are, you know, whether you can afford to send a dollar a month or to send $100 a month, you know, budget some money to send, if you can, to people who are going to be on the front lines fighting this fight for us for the next four years. That's one way that you can feel really good about knowing that you're involved in that process to defend us all.

Richie Roy: 00:15:08

Yeah, it's one of the few real mechanisms at the moment, because when we have, you know, a Republican president, House and Senate, you know, and what seems to be largely kind of a supine Republican Party that's in lockstep with whatever Trump wants, at least for now, that they're going to be able to push through a lot of things, and then where we really.

One of the few lines of defense is through the judicial system and through places like ACLU and NYCLU bringing lawsuits and saying, hey, this is outside of your authority. This is illegal. This is contrary to law and running sort of trying to uphold our protections through the courts.

And so I agree, I think that paying attention to what the ACLU is doing is going to be important.

And to the extent, I mean, they're going to have their hands, especially I think in that first period where it seems like through sort of all the news stories, they're going to try to just flood the zone with a bunch of garbage all at once and really just try to radically push through as much as they can as quick as they can.

And it's going to be the ACLU are the ones that are staying up late writing legal briefs and filing temporary restraining order petitions to try to stop this stuff.

John McMullen: 00:16:26

And as insane as it has seemed in this last week with the announcement of people he's planning to make as ambassadors and people who he's planning to announce as members of his cabinet and people who he wants to appoint into various jobs who will do his bidding and who have basically earned their way into his administration through their loyalty to his insanity, I think it's important to remind people, because not everybody is watching the news. I know some of you actually rely on us to kind of filter the news and so you can keep it limited to a certain amount that you ingest yourself.

But the reality is that even members of his own GOP of the Republican Party are not going to be completely in lockstep with him because some of his efforts, and I think it's a litmus test, some of his efforts are so over the top with regards to some of the people he's trying to bring into the administration that he's not going to succeed. And I would not fret as much about some of these nominees that he has had in the last week. As an example, Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.

Beyond the fact that that is one of the most absurd nominations that has ever been made, the fact that most of Mr.

Gates colleagues on Capitol Hill in his own caucus cannot stand him because of his reprehensible behavior and his morals that are completely non existent and his being happy to show people the underage women that he has been with, I think we can rely on to some degree on some people who are, should I say, old school Republicans to stand in the way of that.

And I think that this is part of the litmus test that Trump is doing because in the last couple of weeks he's made it clear to the United States Senate that what he is hoping is that they will stand aside and let him do recess appointments and meaning that they don't have to be on the hook for the appointment of certain people into membership in his cabinet and so on. And I think that if they were to do that, things would get so bad that even, it would be too much even for many of them.

And so I'm not convinced that this is going to be the case because we've seen that thought process fail before. But I am hopeful that a lot of this is going to end before it starts. And so that said, it will be interesting to see who makes it through.

I, I also think it's highly unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard is going to be in her position in terms of international intelligence, considering the fact that she has become very friendly with the Kremlin. And that is well known to many people who are on both the Republican and the Democratic side of the aisles.

I asked a question, and I think you know this, Richie. I've told you this story before.

I asked a question of my friend Rachel Maddow four years ago, or no, almost eight years ago, when Trump was just about, he was just a few days from being inaugurated. And I asked her, I said, you don't really think he's going to be that bad, do you?

He'll surround himself with people and they'll keep the wheels on the bus. And she looked at me and she said, are you fucking kidding? This guy can end the world in four minutes.

And my hope is that just because his time is coming short, that he's not that crazy to do this. I mean, end it for all of us, but who knows? But I would like to think that there's enough people on Capitol Hill who are not ready to perish yet.

And he is absolutely, if he were to remain unleashed, he is absolutely marching us towards an Armageddon situation.

Richie Roy: 00:20:28

Yeah. I think in every possible respect, the ideas that are the engine of what they want to do are uniformly bad anathema to American values and interests.

You know, it's like you said, a litmus test. It's almost like this cosmic dare, like, how bad will you let me be? You know, how, how much misery will you let me inflict on the American people?

Because I said I want to. It does feel like that.

John McMullen: 00:21:00

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Richie Roy: 00:21:04

The one thing I was going to say, kind of on the point about all these appointments and, and that news is another self care thing that's important, I think for everyone to gauge for themselves is their media diet. I think how much news you take in, where you get it from, and how often you go back to check it.

I think that it's really important to keep in, you know, generally eyes need to be kept on this administration. People need to be aware of what's going on. That said, not everyone.

There's a lot that's going to happen that's out of our individual control on a daily basis. And hopefully there are people like you mentioned, Republicans in Congress who will stand up. But there's.

There's being engaged and then there's getting overwhelmed.

And I think hitting the refresh button on cnn, I think hitting the refresh button on Twitter or on Facebook or you name it is not going to suit everyone well because this is a marathon. You know, this is going to be a long slog. And so figuring out where you're going to get your news from and then maybe maybe check it once every day.

You know, pick a time of day that not first thing so that you know, it's. You don't want to start your day off doom and gloom and maybe not last thing because you don't want to go to bed and have bad dreams. Maybe at lunch.

You know, maybe at lunch is when you check the news and then you put it away for the rest of the day.

I think everyone needs to sort of figure out how they're going to navigate that to avoid because cnn, Washington Post, New York Times, Fox News, you name it. Their goal has always been and will continue to be to keep eyes glued to their platforms.

And they do that through shock, you know, shock and constant sort of barrage of things, many of which are not actually. They're not actionable and some of them are just not even ultimately turn out to not be true.

They turn out to be whispers and rumors and guesses and opinions.

John McMullen: 00:23:08

I want to use this opportunity actually to let folks know that our parent organization, Mutual Broadcasting System is going to be launching in December a new channel. There's a website up for it and social media sites that are up for it on bluesky and Facebook and Instagram already.

And it doesn't have a lot there, but it will start to fill in very soon. And that is at Mutual Resistance.

And we will be creating a left focused, progressive, focused, honesty focused, no bullshit focused service for bringing you information that you'll need to know and encouragement to do things, to be active in this movement, but not to want to run for the counter and grab a paring knife. And cut your wrist.

I mean, it's just we need to have positive resources where we are committed to having people who are going to speak the truth and not rhetoric, you know, no more misinformation.

And I think that that's the most important thing that you can do in terms of, in your media diet is finding sources that have legitimate journalists and people who are, you know, who are not, you know, some sort of crazy bias. And I mean that from both ends, from either far on the left or far on the right.

It is interesting to see right now how within the Democratic Party there is such an infighting situation going on in terms of finger pointing and blaming. Who. Who's responsible for losing this election? Look, collectively, we're all responsible for letting this happen.

And in some ways, it comes down to that. We didn't work hard enough to, I think, get across what really has happened, what.

What is going on in people's lives, how they've been really affected. And being honest, too, about how things weren't as bad as we thought that they were in the last four years.

Yeah, I don't like paying $3.50 or $4.50 a gallon for gasoline. Who does?

But I also think about the realities in the state that I live in of the things that some of those differences that are at the pump make in terms of the quality of life that I have for living in California.

One of the things I'm glad about living in the state of California, and I would feel also positive about living in places like you do, Richie, in state of New York, where you have reasonably minded people taking care of, you know, your state government.

We are at a place where we really need to look at how we can benefit from what's going on right here in our own neighborhoods and right here at home and in California.

The one thing that I, as somebody who would be dead tomorrow because of preexisting conditions if we didn't have the Affordable Care act and all the associated stuff that goes along with that. I'm grateful. And I will not leave California because of the fact that if all hell breaks loose tomorrow, I have a safety net in the state.

l be running for President in: 2028

And in states where there are, you know, governors and legislatures who are focused on doing those things for the people who they serve, God bless them. And not everything is perfect in California. It's not. And yeah, I don't like paying four bucks for a gallon of gas if I have to go to the gas station.

Fortunately, I don't have to do that anymore. I plug in. But I understand the pain that most people feel at the pump.

But what I also am smart enough to know that whoever's president of the United States has nothing to do with the price of eggs. Not a damn thing.

And what I do know though is that the President of the United States can limit or expand the protections that I as a consumer of those eggs should and could expect in terms of the safety of them and how they're raised and so on and so forth. They're not exposed to disease and other things like that that could pass down and eventually be consumed by the consumer.

And that's something that this administration that's coming in, those aren't important cares to them.

You know, I know that we have administration that's coming in that was responsible for more than a million United States citizens dying in a pandemic. Now he is going to bring an anti vaxxer in to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Things like that, those kinds of things, they directly affect me.

And so that's why it's really important whether you have a Democrat or a Republican for a member of Congress, you need to let them know where you stand and that you expect them to make sure that the people who are in these jobs to oversee these things are doing what you want them to do. Having an anti vaxxer in the Health and Human Services department, dumb.

But at the same time it could be a lifesaver because in the end run, I think that when people really realize just how damaging things will be in the next four years or how damaged we will be in the next four years, people are not going to go for this when they see that it's happened not once but twice.

Richie Roy: 00:29:01

And I think that, you know, there's some.

There's that classic thing about you tell like a little kid not to put their hand on this on the hot stove and then the only way they learn the lesson is putting their hand on the hot stove and burning their hand is unfortunately, I think there's a percentage of American voters and the American population that will only learn the value of progressive values and Democratic norms by almost losing all of them. Which is what we're about to get.

John McMullen: 00:29:31

Into a perfect setup for, you know, the whole concept of once burned, twice shy. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So if you're feeling too down, if you feel overwhelmed, if you don't feel that there's somebody that you can, at any hour of the day, talk to in your network of friends or family and have an empathetic and helpful ear to get through those tough moments. I want to share some resources with you and we'll put these up on the website this week as well. So they'll be@richianjohn.com if you need to talk.

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Sage, the services and advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and transgender elders. They have a service called Hear Me and you can reach them online at SAGE usa. Hear Me H E A R M E and you can create a free account there.

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And there's a couple other resources I just want to share that.

I mean, Richie and I rely a lot for getting the heads up on a lot of news stories that are going on around the nation and the world by going to LGBTQ Nation.

But there's a couple of other really great sources that I want to recommend for you online just because they've been focusing a lot on the kinds of stories and issues that we're talking about today. And the first of those is www.them us them us. You'll find a number of interesting stories and resources at that, at that service and another.

And I don't, I should have had the URL with me. And I don't.

I'm guessing it's probably teen vogue.com but the publication Teen Vogue T E E N V O G U E Teen Vogue has a really significant array of really well written pieces that are dealing with how to deal with the stress and especially in the LGBTQ market or community, but how to deal with the stress of an upcoming second fascist administration in this country, how to get through it, you know, and talking a lot about self care like we've been discussing earlier and so on and so forth. So I hope that you'll turn to any of those resources as you feel that you need them to get through a tough moment.

I also want to ask Richie to share with you our telephone number, which is a not a toll free line, but you know, most people know there's not really much of a thing as toll anymore with us all being on wireless for the most part. Richie, why don't you give folks our phone number where you can call and share your thoughts and ask questions.

And also if we get messages that are of an emergency nature, you can count on the fact that we will be sure to refer resources to you. So if you're, if you're feeling lost and you need a friend, we are always here to help you. So with that.

Richie Roy: 00:34:43

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What is your media diet? Like, what some of the stuff we've talked about in the past couple episodes, just where is your head at right now? We would love to hear from you.

Just give us, give us the rundown.

And of course, if you have any thoughts about subjects that we should be covering, topics that are of import that you think need to be surfaced on our show, you can leave those as well. But we really encourage, we encourage you to interact with the show.

Especially as we talked about earlier, we need a community and we want to build a community around the show. This is a resource for the listeners of the show. We'd love for more people to listen.

So to that end, if you do listen on a podcast or on YouTube or whatever, tell your friends about it, drop a review on the podcast service that you use like Apple or whatever and get the word out. We're going to keep doing this.

And we really want this to be a valuable resource not only to the LGBTQ community, but to more broadly, like John mentioned, and a progressive resource. And so please, you know, get the word out, give us a call, interact with the show however you want to.

We have a website, richieandjohn.com which you can leave us messages on there. You can find show notes and other things. So in the coming weeks and months, keep coming back and just start interacting with us.

John McMullen: 00:36:17

And please tell us what you need so that we can bring people together here and have conversations with people who can directly answer the kinds of concerns that you might have in terms of things you're trying to deal with as we get through this together. This program is not here to satisfy the ego of Richie Roy or John McMullen.

It is here to hopefully satisfy informational needs that you need and also give a sense of community for you to be a part of something bigger and stronger. That I hope will give people inspiration, hope, faith that things are going to get better. And I do believe that they will get better.

Sometimes they just have to get really, really dark and shitty before they get better. And we've been here, again, we've been here so many times before, and I know that that's hard to convince some of our younger listeners of.

But I think if I were to reach out to friends of mine who are in their 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s, who remember going through things like the onset of the HIV AIDS crisis and other issues we've had with regards to fighting for equality and being able to party on the last Sunday in June in the streets or whatever, you know, I mean, so much has happened in such a short period of time, and you won't understand it until you're a little older, I think. But when you get to that point, you'll go, wow, look what we accomplished together in this life.

And it really is a lot, and it's a lot to be proud of, to have the strength to make it through these times and to really be a part of your own survival. I think it's a very rewarding experience, personally, even though it's been tough at times. And it's. It. It gives me hope.

And the other thing, it really gives me hope is that we have so many young, brilliant people today who are coming up in this community who maybe haven't known some of those threats the way that we have, who feel like they have superpowers. And so you do put them to use.

Richie Roy: 00:38:35

Yep, absolutely.

John McMullen: 00:38:37

Well, that's going to do it for our Saturday edition. We'll be back with more of our News Day Tuesday conversation and what's going on throughout the world in the LGBTQ news come next Tuesday.

I'm going to be off the following week. I'm going to be away for a few days.

And so we're not exactly sure what the production schedule will be during that week of Thanksgiving because there's also the holiday that week. But we will definitely do something and look forward to getting together with you again.

I think maybe, Richie, what we should do is something a little light hearted and maybe focus on Thanksgiving, things that we do have to be thankful for as well as the stuff that we like to eat and drink.

Richie Roy: 00:39:24

Yep. I think that's a great idea. Absolutely.

John McMullen: 00:39:28

Okay, great. Well, you have a great weekend and I will see you early this coming week.

Richie Roy: 00:39:33

All right. Talk to you later.

John McMullen: 00:39:35

Take care. Thank you for joining us on Richie and John.

Thirsty The Announcer: 00:39:44

This podcast is a production of the Mutual Broadcasting System and is available at richie and john.com as well as most major podcast portals, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and Spotify.