I woke up on November the 9, in 2016 to find that Donald J. Trump had won the electoral college with 287 points the night before mere minutes after I had fallen asleep and my heart sank. Having had watched all the coverage from 1 pm until roughly 10:30 pm, I knew that the results weren't going to end up pretty, but I still hadn't accepted the reality of the entire situation as I downed my last glass of wine last night.

Now having been raised in a deeply Catholic, Democratic family offered me a very wide scope of the world and though I personally tend to be rather hard-headed in opinions, I have been able to accept a large variety of views. I come from a long line of strong women, with my grandmother who opted to be a single mother rather than remain in a marriage she was unhappy with, and my mother was flung into single parenting when my father passed away so to finally have a woman represent the entire country was something I had always hoped for. When Trump announced his candidacy, it seemed to be a great joke, commentary on how to Republican party has been suffering in more recent years. He spat bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and basically any other offensive word vomit imaginable, and man did we laugh. He was one of seventeen different candidates in the Republican nominee pool, but it seems almost as though he took out a gun and shot each of them down separately. Carson, Bush, Rubio, Kasich, even Cruz, with his hatred and scorched earth policy. By the time the Republican National Convention rolled around this summer, the party knew they were in seriously deep with this orange-faced bigot.

I like to think I can empathize with most people of different views, but this is unacceptable. This man is the one who believes that we need to send entire religions out of the country, is backed by the Klu Klux Klan, and claimed rights to women's bodies without consent has been chosen as the Commander in Chief. In regards to the electoral college's decisions last night all I have to say is; I am very, very pissed off. My sister is openly gay, my cousin is in the military, and I am the owner of a fully functional PUSSY. The Trump presidency causes me to fear for my safety, considering that there are supporters who have already walked up and grabbed woman's crotches, and ones who have told the black community that their lives do not matter while sprinkling the N word in to top off their racism.

Following the national decision, our campus Democrats rallied in order to get our voices heard. We gathered in the central piazza and held signs in a very respectful, and peaceful manner while remaining a marginalized group. As we moved to the front of the union, the protest grew to roughly 200 students and hundreds of spectators, including Trump supporters. His followers began to poke holes in our statements, by screaming profanity and Trump-endorsed slogans such as "Lock her up" and "Make America Great Again", but we did not retaliate, as much as we wanted to. We marched into downtown with our signs held high and our voices loud enough for every business to hear and got overwhelmingly positive responses from students and civilians a like.

Later came a pro-Trump rally held by the on campus Republican club. It included their president standing on the fourth floor balcony of the building above our protest spot, and rained down his card stock Trump signs, without thinking about the fact that they are far heavier than regular paper, in a fit of anger. He then proceeded to tell the school news paper that he felt it was "a very liberal thing, to be making a lot of emotional decisions." Quite literally pushing responsibility for his actions onto Democrats, that even when his candidate won and we got angry, he's allowed to be angrier and violent. It's very important to acknowledge the amount of hatred, anger, and lack of self-awareness that has already resulted in less than 24 hours.

The next four years means all of our campaigning for equal rights in the establishment of marriage is going to be completely neglected. The safety of our Queer community has come into question. Our call to equal pay among sexes and POC will be ignored. Our need for clinics and the rights to our own bodies will be gone. And our fundamental human rights will be denied so long as we belong to any group other than White Male and Christian. This is the fate our country has chosen for us, and I will fight like hell in order to change that fate. We will not be silenced and invalidated, even by the President of the United States.