At Election Watch Party, Austin’s LGBTQIA+ Community Vows to Remain Steadfast in a Second Trump Presidency

By Meredith McKelvey

Reporting Texas

 

As former President Donald Trump surged ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in presidential returns Tuesday night, LGBTQIA+ community organizers and activists struck a defiant tone during an election watch party at an Austin gay bar.

“No matter who the president is, things are going to be hard for progressive folks in Texas,” said Becky Bullard, founder of Democrasexy, a for-profit civic engagement organization that co-hosted the watch party at Cheer Up Charlies with Waking Giants and Working Families Party.

They vowed to continue to mobilize against anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation.

“Tonight is about the community — all of us here, gathered together for queer community’s sake,” Sister Serena Severe, a drag queen and member of the Austin House of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, told the gathering in an invocation. “No matter what happens after today, we know that the fight for our destinies begins at this moment.” 

About 100 people danced to live music as election returns projected quietly on a screen during drag performances, Tarot card readings and speeches. Proceeds from the event were part of a fundraising effort for Democrasexy, which has published voting guides and hosted events that fuse politics with entertainment since 2021. 

“Bringing queer joy to this election feels really good,” an attendee named Amy who did not want her last name published said as she watched her teenage daughter and a friend dance in front of the screen that broadcast election results. She said she feels “oddly calm” about the election. 

Travis County District Attorney José Garza, a Democrat who won re-election Tuesday, made an appearance several hours into the party. 

“Because of the work you have done to knock on doors, to get out yourself and vote … we have won big here in Travis County,” Garza said. “It was not easy to get here. We are still in a moment where our national politics are uncertain and where the outcome potentially poses grave danger to us and to our loved ones.” 

LGBTQIA+ rights have been a central theme in this year’s races, leading to an uptick in anti-transgender ads and rhetoric, said Ash Hall, policy and advocacy strategist on LGBTQIA+ rights for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. 

Hall said the Texas Legislature filed more than 140 anti-LGBTQIA+ policies during its last session. While only seven of the proposed policies were passed, including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, LGBTQIA+ youth in particular have been severely affected, with reports of suicide ideation and attempts “skyrocketing.” 

Members of the LGBTQIA+ community in Texas fear that another Trump presidency will result in the removal of federal protections for their community, such as those codified in the Fair Housing Act, and will embolden state legislators to pass more anti-LGBTQIA+ policies. 

“The state has been attacking us relentlessly, and so not having federal support makes us more vulnerable to feeling the full impacts of those attacks by the state because that’s one less branch of government that’s available to help us fight back,” Hall said. 

Bullard said many of her friends who are trans or are parents of trans children have left the state “because it has become unsafe for them or they have experienced violence at the hands of the state and could no longer stay.”

Sera Bonds, the founder of Waking Giants, said that “a lot of people left after the 2016 election and then after the 2020 election. It’s hard to imagine a Texas that is ever safe for those people.”

Hours after her invocation address at the beginning of the event, Sister Serena Severe leaned against the fence on the periphery of the party at Cheer Up Charlies. 

“How much longer until I feel that my rights and my financial future would be better served in a different legal environment?” she asked. 

“To me, this is a city of beauty and a city of tolerance, and I love that… I am very pleased and happy to be in Austin where we have institutions like the University of Texas, that bring so many queer people – so many different walks of life.”