A Lament for This Moment

We cry out, not to a distant God,

but to the air that holds our breath,

to the soil that carries our weight,

to the circle of human hearts that might still listen.

We cry into the silence,

into the roar of a nation that does not want to hear

,into the deafness of leaders who trade lives for power.

They take the gun from his hand

and place it into ours.

They call him a “good Christian son,”

while calling us abomination,

as if our existence rewrote his rage,

as if being trans or queer

is more dangerous than the bullets that shatter classrooms.

We know the truth.

It was not some imagined “trans spirit” whispering death into his ear.

It was the voice of a country that worships violence,

a culture that baptizes guns in patriotism,

a system that names enemies to bind the fearful into obedience.

This killer was not remade by proximity

to a queer or trans roommate.

He was remade by the steady catechism of hatred,

by voices teaching boys that cruelty is strength,

by leaders who profit when division becomes law,

by a nation that feeds its children war stories

and then wonders why they carry rifles into schools.

We are so tired.

Tired of proving our humanity with every breath.

Tired of waking to rumors that twist like serpents.

Tired of seeing our sisters, brothers, siblings, children, beloveds

become headlines, hashtags, bodies laid down on altars

we never asked to build.

Tired of politicians turning our backs into targets

to score applause from crowds already drunk on fear.

Hear this truth:

There are more people with red hair in this world

than there are trans lives.

And yet we are hunted,

relentlessly,

because our courage to live unmasks their cowardice to love.

We are dragged through pulpits,

debated in courtrooms,

mocked in classrooms,

erased in families.

Our names weaponized.

Our joy criminalized.

Our very breath politicized.

This panic is not new.

We remember the Satanic panic of the 1980s,

when children were told their daycares were cults

and entire lives were destroyed on the strength of rumor.

We remember witches burned

because someone whispered fear.

We remember every false gospel of blame,

every story invented so a crowd could feel holy

while another body was condemned.

Still, we rise.

Each morning, we rise.

We walk our dogs.

We pay our bills.

We raise children.

We love fiercely.

We live honestly.

We build futures in a world that insists

we should never have been born.

This lament is not a prayer to be saved.

It is a cry to be seen.

A cry to the memory of those already lost.

A cry to the community who will not abandon us.

A cry to the future,

begging it to be gentler than the past.

Hear us, all who are listening:

Trans lives are not the enemy.

Our existence is not a threat.

The real threat is a nation that refuses the mirror,

that builds power on scapegoats,

that sacrifices its children to the idol of the gun

and dares to call it freedom.

We lament with you at gun violence.

We rage with you at lives taken too soon in our schools and on our streets.

We grieve.

And still we speak

because silence is the grave they want for us.

And still we cry out for justice and for truth.

And in crying, we plant seeds

no bullet can erase,

no rumor can silence,

no hatred can overcome.

In crying out, we remember love

fierce love,

defiant love,

enduring love.

The only word greater than death. The only power greater than hatred. kfr, 2025