Roots of Resistance: Finding Strength in the Silence Between Steps

In Like a Love Story, by Abdi Nazemian, Judy asks Reza if she can make him over. He asks her what she wants to make him into. She promises the clothes she makes for him will be “very cool and cut to perfection.”

After she discovers that Art and Reza are in love, Judy is trying to pinpoint whether she is feeling anger, fear, sadness, or all of them simultaneously. All Art can think of to say is, “Hey.” And all she can think of to say back is, “Hi.”

Art feels like he and Reza are under a magic spell. People don’t see killers in pearls and tailored suits. He has stores of anger reserved for Darryl Lorde and the assholes that sneeze and cough words like “faggot” and “pansy” when they walk by.

Art counts the number of gay people on a train, and says that the sixteen fags he counted are in line with ten percent of the world at large being gay. Reza corrects him and tells him the number should be eighteen because Art forgot to count them.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the ACLU of New Mexico specifically named Utah-based Management and Training Corporation when calling for accountability for the death of 32-year-old Benavides Quintana in one of New Mexico’s detention facilities holding immigrants prisoner for ICE. The events leading up to the death were clearly negligent, and we have no business using public money to fund private prisons. The bottom line for these companies has always been about their profits and not the people they serve. We need to dial the deportations back, dismantle the private prison system, and pour money into helping people that desperately need asylum get the asylum they seek without having to circumnavigate the system to protect the lives of their family members.

In Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, by Juno Dawson, Hale’s voice is smeared in sarcasm. Helena thinks to herself that at eighteen a woman can see a twenty-four-year-old boyfriend as a status symbol instead of as the creep he actually is. Hale’s blue eyes have a history of being very convincing.

In Tricks, by Ellen Hopkins, Cody Bennet tosses out a prayer or two. Whether they bounce back to Earth or spin into outer space, he’s willing to give it another try. He doesn’t feel he has anything to lose in the effort.

Whitney doesn’t know if she’s got enough cash for a taxi home. A name is at the bottom of a business card for Perfect Poses Photography that falls out of her purse. Remembering Byrn Dawson from the mall, she figures he must be out somewhere. Nevertheless, her hand still reaches for the phone and dials his number. She imagines Paige asking her what the heck she’s thinking. She asks herself why Bryn would even remember her.

It takes twenty minutes for Bryn to collect her. While she’s waiting several people she’s known for years walk past her without a word. And yet Bryn, a complete stranger, arrives in his midnight blue BMW, pulls over, double-parked, and comes around to open the passenger door for her.

It has been a busy weekend. Friday night I drove out to Mueller Park and went a about a mile up the trail to where it started switching from the bluff itself to going deeper into the woods and away from the brooke. Overall, it was about a 2 mile hile, with another 2/3 mile hike to the campfire site and back where we played Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza and Cards Against Humanity. It was fun to sit and chat around the campfire after the games.

On Saturday, at the Utah Stonewall Dems Board meeting, we approved using our scholarship fund to be used for campaign management training, and started planning the Dem Bones event for August. We’ve reserved the Centennial Park West Pavilion for the August 24 potluck, and are ready to start entertaining sponsors for the event. We will also have the opportunity to endorse municipal candidates at the event.

That afternoon, I checked out the first ever West Valley Pride at the West Valley Cultural Celebration Center. My first impression was the disappointment of not seeing pride flags in the parking lot. This was thanks to Trevor Lee’s bill that essentially banned pride flags. It was almost as if we were having a celebration in secret with a few rainbow colored inflatables marking the entrance.

Once inside the doors, the main area was blocked off requiring a trip to the back hallway, where there was finally a lot of photographs celebrating Pride around the world. Next I passed a room set aside for telling our stories and a gallery set aside for providing gender neutral clothing, when I finally emerged into the vendor zone. The staff had a button maker so people could make their own buttons celebration pride, and I picked a design with a rainbow strecthing from cloud to cloud and the words Love Wins surrounding the image top and bottom.

I walked the booths to see who was present, and noticing that we were going to have a preview of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I took a seat in the auditorium to enjoy the singers before I headed back home. Overall, it was a good event for their first year, and I have to admire the West Valley City staff for putting on this event so the city can feel even more inclusive. Our LGBTQ+ community is a part of our culture and should feel welcome. So the Utah Cultural Center was a very appropriate place to host. Now if we can just do something about the flags.

Sunday morning, I tabled with the ACLU of Utah at the Salt Lake City Pride Festival. It was wonderful seeing all the people who came by thanking the ACLU, asking what we were about, donating, and signing up to volunteer and receive action alerts. I have been struck by what I feel is missing in all this: we had no signs of demonstration—no rallies, no speeches, no calls to action. Pride has become a rainbow colored flea market. It’s time—especially in today’s climate—that we use every opportunity we can to demand justice, change, and respect for our individual dignity.

At Bed Bath & Beyond, a woman was fired because she refused to use her transgender employee's pronouns, citing religious belief. Overstock, who took over the company, has a nondiscrimination based on gender identity written into their Equal Employment Opportunity Clause, signaling that it is a safe space to work for transgender people. It is one of the reasons I took a job there, moving to Utah in the process. It's about respect, dignity, and belonging. The woman is taking her case to Donald Trump, to ask him to do something about it. This spells MAGA. This is not the way we handle employment disputes, and with universal injunctions harder to obtain, it can make it easier for Trump to harm even more people. Religion is not an excuse for discrimination. I have read the Book of Mormon--and while I highly doubt its historical accuracy as a divine message; there is no reference to using pronouns as a weapon. This woman is using her religion to be a bigot. She deserved to be fired, not because she's LDS, but because she does not value the inherent dignity and value of those she works with, especially those who report to her.

Sunday afternoon found me at the Garden Party in Draper, Utah, a fundraiser for the Salt Lake County Democrats. There were tons of silent auction baskets, we had a dunking booth, and we got to dunk some of party leaders and elected officials. I surprised myself in still being able to throw a ball after all these years, and after almost hitting the dunking arm on the first throw, my third ball hit the sweet spot, and our Salt Lake County Party Chair added another bath to the ones he had already received.

Monday, I met with my new primary care physician and after speaking with him realized that switching providers was the right choice. He asked about my transition path and we discussed my internal medicine needs. He even had me answer an annual depression questionnaire. He seemed pretty knowledgeable and noticed something that my prior provider missed. I may need to have my beta blockers changed or updated, as I appear to be suffering from mild hypertension again. So now I’m taking my blood pressure twice a day to see if I need more help in regulating it. He also quickly found the pinched nerve in my shoulder, and noticed the tension there as well. He recommended a thera cane, and when I couple that with CBD oil, it helps alleviate the tension enough so the buzzing sensation goes away. What’s more, I feel like I can come out to him with whatever is going on without it costing me extra, and that, my friends, is priceless.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the US Food and Drug Adminstration has recently approved lencapavir for HIV prevention. Gilead Sciences created the drug based on the research of University of Utah Biochemistry Chair Wesley Sundquist, who first started his research in the early 90’s, when AIDs was rampant, and the drug costs for suppression were too expensive for most sufferers.

99.9% of the thousands of participants given lencapavir every 6 months did not get infected with HIV, despite having sex with men. This drug binds to the HIV virus and destabilizes it so that it cannot replicate. The structure of the virus actually breaks. It took 25 years for the breakthrough to finally be recognized in 2024.

There are concerns that this newly released drug may not make it to the people who need it most. The Trump administration plans to cut “only those programs that neither provide life-saving treatment nor support American interests,” especially with Trump asking Congress to rescind the $400 million that has “been allocated to help with the global HIV epidemic.” PEPFAR has already been limited to to treating and caring for those who are HIV-infected, preventing transmission from mother to child, administering pre-exposure medicine to breastfeeding and pregnant women, and administering testing. Many of our friends who died fighting for univeral access to HIV-treating drugs--members of ACT UP--must be rolling in their graves.

I just discovered that one of my gay friends that I went to high school with moved to New York and joined the ACT UP movement. He's gotta be so pissed over this news.

HIV infection is still a big problem. In just 2023, 1.3 million people were newly infected with HIV. Sundquist also points to an impact of defunding NIH—it took twelve years of continuous funding by the organization to do their work and produce the results. We should be funding a global distribution to help wipe out HIV, instead of letting bigotry be the excuse that people continue to suffer.

As I stood on the winding trail in Mueller Park, sunlight spilling through the trees and the hush of the forest wrapping around me, I was reminded that healing—whether from injustice, neglect, or silence—requires movement. It’s not enough to exist quietly in the shadows. Like the path before me, change begins with a single step and gains momentum when we choose to show up, speak out, and stand tall in our truth. Whether it’s lifting our voices at Pride, confronting systemic cruelty, or simply offering kindness to a stranger, each act of resistance becomes a root in the forest of progress. And like the canopy above, our collective courage can create shelter for those still searching for safe passage.