So, Bernie supporters. I know you're scared right now, and I know you feel like you're being let down by the Democratic Party, by the media, by everyone around you.

But your fight does matter, and it will result in change. I know that because I've lived this story. (thread) 1/

20 years ago next month will be the anniversary of the Millennium March on Washington.

Don't let media reports from then fool you; there were nearly a million people on the National Mall for it. That was the first-ever show of queer force this size. 2/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_March_on_Washington

By a weird coincidence, my future-husband and I got lost along the way from the train, and wound up at the front of the march. Not the first grouping of people; the LITERAL FRONT OF THE LINE. People started following *us* and I had to scramble out a map to figure it out(!). 3/

Thinking we were leading the hundreds of thousands of marchers, a rookie AP reporter interviewed us, and a quick bite of Adam's interview ended up on the front page of every newspaper in the country. EVERY newspaper — like this one in Lawrence, Kansas. 4/

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=20000501&id=f5AyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5ecFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1970,5936

Afterwards, the media dismissed us. Besides that one news article, we were treated as a group of *maybe* "ten thousand" disgruntled queers.

We felt deflated when all that effort disappeared — hell, even the Wikipedia page about the march is just a couple paragraphs. 5/

You might not know how shitty life was for queer people then. We were starting to get some new, positive media visibility (for instance, "Will & Grace") — and the *backlash* to that exposure was, in some cases, horrific. That was a scary time. 6/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard

This was the end of the Clinton administration, which could fairly be called "gay-indifferent": not really supportive, but the first one not to be outright hurtful.

The first (failed) high court test of same-sex marriage was fresh in mind too. 7/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baehr_v._Miike

We had a lot riding on this movement. Everything seemed to be heading in the right direction. Hate crime legislation, adoption rights, even marriage seemed within reach. Showtime adapted "Queer as Folk" for the US market to create a show FOR us. 8/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_as_Folk_(American_TV_series)

But these things all seem somewhat trivial now, don't they? We got married in 2017. Queer friends have children, mutually adopted. And, for a while, hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people seemed to be on the decline (not counting the current idjit's term in office). 9/

But in November 2000 — well, not exactly then, it took some months to "resolve" — the country got George W. Bush.

All those achievements we thought were in reach, they were all dragged further away from us. The GOP even tried to make it worse. 10/

https://web.archive.org/web/20110513191301/http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/us/2004-campaign-republican-agenda-draft-gop-platform-backs-bush-security-gay.html

It took another decade and a half to queue up a SCOTUS case to take on marriage equality. Many other civil rights and protections are still a patchwork across states that often don't include trans people, intersex people, or create loopholes to make queer life harder. 11/

So that fight? It's still going on, but we're making headway. It has taken resilience and determination to keep going, and honestly, it sucks. That fight has pretty much defined my life.

I'm still fighting it today; I'm not going to give up. And neither should you. 12/

Your challenges and goals today are different, but still rooted in social justice for everyone. That's a fight worth having.

Sanders changed the conversation once in 2016, he's done it again now, and your movement is ALREADY making change happen. 13/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/opinion/bernie-sanders-democratic-primary.html

I wish I could wave a magic wand and bring about sweeping change in a short time. I can't.

Unfortunately, you're going to be disappointed. You're going to feel betrayed. And you're still going to live in crappy times for a while.

But YOU'RE STILL GOING TO WIN. 14/

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., paraphrasing Theodore Parker

Dr. King was right, but the hidden meaning here is this: YOU are the force making that arc bend. YOU are the people making these changes happen. 15/

Yeah, this thread is about the long game, and I know, that SUCKS.

Mitch McConnell has been playing the long game to screw us all over almost as long as I've been alive. We have to play the long game for the goal of positive progress too. Anything short of that will lose. 16/

I believe in you and your fight. I know you're going to win because I see the same damned determination in your eyes and words that I had on that patch of grass in April 2000.

We will all win our goals if we stick together. It may not be Right Now but it WILL happen. 17/

You've heard this retold many ways, often misattributed to Mahatma Gandhi. But it's true:

"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you."
– Nicholas Klein, 1914

18/end https://books.google.com/books?id=QrcpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA53&dq=%22First+they+ignore+you%22#v=onepage&q=%22First%20they%20ignore%20you%22&f=false