The car in the parking lot where my daughter takes dance lessons has a bumper sticker. It says “Trump 2020.” Another declaration on the back, “We’re saying Christmas again! ”
I’m a single mother and I’m going to stay that way. I’m disabled, Queerand non-binary. I’m vegan and pagan. So is my fun, precocious 7-year-old daughter. She is the one who advocates both. There was no diagnosis, but we love what she calls “Neurospark.” Home school. Aside from my whiteness and middle-class American upbringing, I am the same as the “other” as you can find in my wealthy little Connecticut coastline town.
So every time I see it, the car drives icicles of fear in my chest. Do you belong to someone else in a friendly neighborhood dance studio?
I don’t think so, but I don’t know.
If so, or even if it was, I know it could belong to someone who is attractive. They were unhappy with the economy and wanted to see change, so maybe they wanted Trump in the White House. The government is too big, and we don’t want to cherish individual freedom and be ashamed of their privileges. It could be someone I love Jesus who doesn’t have beef. I have read the Bible twice, from cover to cover, and thousands of pieces. If he is here today and running for president, I will vote for him.
But here’s a rub.
It could also be someone who hates everything about me and feels that I am destroying my daughter’s childhood by being me. Someone who believes that if my identity becomes illegal and I can’t get a job, I am not a valuable member of society. If I can’t do it without help, then those who think I am not worthy of life believe I am a risk to the structure of my community. People who are happy with violence against people like me. Someone who sees turning their cheeks and throwing people stones, not fragments of helping their neighbors, but fragments of Scripture.
Immediately after winning Trump’s 2024 election, I freeze on my rainbow crocodile and stare at this car.
“What’s wrong?” my daughter asks. I don’t know what to say to her.
I have a visible obstacle. You need a cane to walk. But all of my other marginalized aspects are invisible. I am relatively safe under my huge umbrella of white and overflowing privileges.
We head to our local hair salon, named after a dog co-propriator. I wash my daughter, deep moisturizing treatments, and blow them away. For myself, I request a “non-binary haircut”. My voice shaking, but I say it anyway. My daughter’s animated voice drifts across the salon. She tells her stylist about the book in the chapter she writes, starring three magical kittens.
My stylist asks me what my pronouns are and I feel euphoric. Her Clipper’s topic is oddly comforting. My daughter runs towards me, her waist-length honeyman flowing around her like a princess’ cloak.
“Mom! You look like you!” she cried. She then grabs the stylist’s hands and gallops and praises the boring thing with sparkling hair by the door.
My eyes are filled with tears. I promise to be brave from now on. If there’s nothing else, I would like to be such a parent.
Elise Scott’S’s writing is inspired by their living experiences moving through the shadows of oddity, disorders, neuroproducing, fat-positiveness, and carnivorousness. They earned their bachelor’s degree from Mount Hole York and a master’s degree from Capella University, and are currently writing full-time in Connecticut. Elise is the third place winner of the Not Floty Write Prize and has been awarded the best Net 2025 nominee award. Their work has appeared, approached the choice, and has not written reproductive horror anthology, b’k, v’k, 5 min, high shelf, heurstley, knee brace, all existing, all existence, Quibble, etc. Find out what they’re working on right now http://elise-scott.com.
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