The Safety Of a Queer Space: July 22nd, 2025

In the Year of our discontent....

The basement air hung thick as molasses tonight, thick enough to choke on—not from the usual cannabis haze, but from something heavier, something that tasted like despair seasoned with a generous helping of what-the-actual-fuck. I descended those familiar concrete steps into The Sanctuary, my bones creaking louder than the ancient ceiling fan that wheezed overhead like a dying animal. The Christmas lights cast their rainbow fractals across the sweating brick walls, but even their cheerful defiance couldn't cut through the suffocating blanket of collective misery that had settled over my chosen family like a shroud.

Miguel's voice cut through the gloom from behind the bar, his sultry-but-childlike tone pitched higher than usual, betraying the anxiety that had been eating at all of us like acid. "Thank fuck you're here. This place has been a goddamn funeral parlor all day."

Ezra looked up from their beanbag throne, blue hair catching the light like a neon cry for help. "Wendy! Please tell me you brought some fucking sanity with you because I'm about three news cycles away from losing my absolute shit."

Miguel appeared at my elbow like a guardian angel in flannel, sliding a plastic cup across the sticky bar surface. The liquid inside caught the Christmas lights—amber and gold swirling together like liquid sunset, the sharp bite of cheap bourbon cutting through the basement's thick air. "You look like you need this more than oxygen right now," he said, his sultry voice pitched with concern. "It's the good shit from the bottom shelf—Old Crow with a splash of honey whiskey. Tastes like rebellion and bad decisions."

I took a grateful sip, letting the burn slide down my throat and settle warm in my chest. "You're a fucking angel. A foul-mouthed, rock hard angel."

I surveyed my domain—this basement sanctuary that had become more home than any four walls I'd ever inhabited. Della stood at her tiny kitchenette, attacking butter with the same vicious precision she usually reserved for Republicans, the sizzle and pop of grilled cheese providing the only sound that made sense in this fucked-up world. Keira sat hunched over her phone at a wobbly table, her strong shoulders rigid with the kind of tension that spoke of doom-scrolling herself into an early grave.

And there, scattered around like beautiful broken toys, were three more: Brandon slumped in a corner chair, his usual humor buried under layers of grief that had nothing to do with his lost boyfriend and everything to do with our lost country; Miranda perched on the edge of the decimated leather couch, her MILF energy dimmed to barely a flicker; and Sarah, the eternal questioner, staring at the water-stained ceiling as if it might reveal the answers to life, the universe, and how the fuck we'd gotten here.

"Alright, how bad can it be," I said, settling into my usual spot and letting my voice carry the maternal authority that had earned me the 'Mom' title from this collection of fierce souls. "Who wants to tell me what fresh hell has crawled out of the sewers today?"

Brandon let out a bitter laugh that sounded like broken glass. "Take your fucking pick. We've got a buffet of bullshit tonight." He gestured vaguely at the air, as if the very molecules were contaminated with stupidity. "First, they're canceling Colbert because apparently truth-telling is bad for business when you're trying to kiss Trump's wrinkled orange ass."

"Forty million dollar loss, my left tit," Della snarled from the kitchen, her spatula working overtime against the griddle. "That's just corporate speak for 'we're scared shitless of the tangerine tyrant.'"

Miguel slammed a plastic cup down with enough force to make the ancient bar shudder. "CBS paid sixteen million in fucking to join the protection racket, and now they're silencing the one motherfucker who wasn't afraid to call that fascist piece of shit exactly what he is." His hands shook as he poured something that looked stronger than his usual concoctions.

"It's a big fat bribe," Miranda said quietly, her voice carrying the weight of someone who'd held too much pain for too many people. "Just like everything else in this godforsaken administration. Gotta buy access and kiss the fucking ring. They just want their big merger to go through."

Sarah straightened in her chair, her questioning gaze finally finding focus. "But here's what I don't understand—why now? Why are they suddenly so desperate to control the narrative?" She paused, her analytical mind working through the implications. "Unless there's something else coming down the pipeline that has them shitting themselves."

Keira looked up from her phone, her strong features etched with disgust. "Oh, there's more. There's always more." She scrolled through her screen like she was reading a suicide note. "Apparently our dear Deputy Attorney General is having cozy little chats with Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers. First time the government's reached out to that child-trafficking cunt since she got locked up."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Ezra sat up straighter in their beanbag, blue hair practically standing on end. "What the actual fuck? Why would they—" They stopped, their face going pale as the implications hit. "Oh. Oh shit. They're trying to make nice with the Epstein crowd."

"Transparency, they're calling it," Keira continued, her voice dripping with the kind of sarcasm that could strip paint. "MAGA pressure for truth about the Epstein case. Because nothing says 'justice for victims' like giving convicted sex traffickers a seat at the table."

Brandon's laugh turned even more bitter. "Right, because Trump's always been such a champion for sexual abuse survivors. Ask E. Jean Carroll how that worked out for her."

“They wanna make sure she won’t flip, or she’ll be the next one to succumb to suicide,” Miranda added, her air quotes over suicide hung in the thick air long after she put her hands down.

I felt my maternal instincts kicking in, the fierce protectiveness that had kept me fighting through every goddamn obstacle life had thrown at me. "Listen to me, all of you," I said, my voice cutting through their spiraling despair like a knife through butter. "This is what they want. They want us fragmented, terrified, questioning everything we know to be true."

"But Mom," Phoenix's voice came from the shadows where they'd been quietly absorbing every word, "how do we fight back when they're buying off the fucking media? When they're making deals with child traffickers? When they're—"

"When they're falling apart," I interrupted, standing up and feeling every one of my 53 years in my bones. "Because that's exactly what this is. This isn't strength—this is desperation."

Della abandoned her grilled cheese to face us fully, her femme butch energy crackling with barely contained rage. "Wendy's right. They're scrambling like cockroaches when you turn on the lights. The health thing, too—did you see that bullshit about Trump's legs?"

Miguel perked up slightly. "Oh, you mean the chronic venous insufficiency? The swelling and bruising that they finally had to admit to because people were starting to notice their seventy-nine-year-old orange emperor looks like he's held together with duct tape and hatred?"

"Exactly," I said, feeling the familiar fire building in my chest. "For the first time in his miserable existence, they had to tell the truth about his health. And why? Because they couldn't hide it anymore. The cracks are showing. The whole fucking facade is crumbling."

Sarah leaned forward, her analytical mind latching onto the thread. "You're right. The transparency about his health, the desperate reach-out to Maxwell's people, the media silencing—it's all reactive. They're not playing offense anymore; they're in full defensive mode."

"Which means they're scared," Miranda added, her voice growing stronger. "And when fascists get scared, they make mistakes. Big boot-in-the-mouth mistakes."

Ezra bounced slightly in their beanbag, the first sign of life they'd shown all evening. "So what do we do with that? How do we use their fear against them?"

I looked around at my chosen family—these beautiful, broken, fierce souls who'd found each other in this sweating basement sanctuary. "We do what we've always done. We survive. We support each other. We tell our truth so loudly and clearly that their lies can't drown us out."

Keira stood up and moved to my side, her strength radiating through the humid air. "And we remember that some of us have survived worse than this piece of shit before. We survived Reagan's plague years, Bush's wars, every attempt to erase us from existence. We're still here. All you younger ones will be here too. Promise…"

"Still fucking here," Della echoed, returning to her grilled cheese with renewed vigor. "And we'll be here long after that orange hemorrhoid is rotting in the ground."

Brandon finally cracked a genuine smile, the first I'd seen from him in weeks. "You know what? Fuck CBS. Fuck their corporate cowardice. We don't need their permission to tell the truth. We've got each other, we've got this place, and we've got voices that can't be bought or silenced."

Miguel raised his plastic cup, the liquid inside catching the Christmas lights like liquid fire. "To telling the truth, even when—especially when—it makes the fascists shit themselves."

"To surviving another day in this beautiful, fucked-up fight," I added, feeling the familiar warmth spreading through my chest—the warmth that came from being surrounded by family, real family, chosen family.

"To being too stubborn to die," Sarah added with a grin.

"To warm food and revolution," Della called from the kitchen.

"To love winning, even when it doesn't feel like it will," Miranda said softly.

We raised our mismatched cups—plastic and chipped ceramic and whatever the hell we could find—and in that moment, in that basement sanctuary with its sweating walls and broken furniture and rainbow lights, we remembered something crucial: they could buy the media, they could make deals with monsters, they could try to erase us from history, but they couldn't touch this. This space, this love, this fierce chosen family that had been forged in the fires of oppression and tempered by joy.

The grilled cheese sizzled on the griddle, the ceiling fan wheezed its familiar rhythm, and somewhere above us, the world continued its march toward whatever fresh hell tomorrow would bring. But down here, in our sanctuary, surrounded by the people who called me Mom and meant it with every fiber of their beings, I felt something I hadn't felt in months: hope.

Not the naive kind that believed everything would be fine, but the fierce, stubborn hope that knew we would be fine, because we had each other, and that was enough. It had always been enough.

Because that's what family does. And that's what revolution looks like: one grilled cheese, one shared truth, one fierce moment of love at a time.

The Equality House Is a Beautiful "Fuck You"

Chapter 18

"Beginner's Magic" a poem by thepoetmiranda