Last week, I participated in a massive march down 6th Avenue to Trump Tower. It was an incredibly powerful scene, with tens of thousands of people standing together in solidarity against fascism. Many people we passed showed their support by honking and cheering. Some even joined us.

But not everyone saw it that way. We've been called "spoiled children", people with no respect for democracy and in the words of Donald Trump himself, "professional protesters incited by the media."

Indeed, there seems to be a popular narrative from both the Left and Right that we should respect Donald Trump because he won. We've been told that although we may not like him, he deserves, in the words of Hillary Clinton, "an open mind."

But I'm not willing to give Trump an open mind. He's made it very clear during the campaign that he does not respect marginalized people. I don't care if he won the election. I do not respect a man that wants to ban all Muslims, order the U.S. military to commit war crimes, deport all undocumented people, establish nationwide Stop-and-Frisk or do any other of the numerous hateful policies he proposed during his presidential campaign.

And if you think Trump won't follow through on his promises, just look at who he's surrounding himself with.

Let's start with Mike Pence, Trump's VP and head of the Trump Administration's transition team. Mike Pence is probably even worse than Trump. Throughout his political career he has:

- Diverted AIDS money to fund conversion therapy for LGBTQ kids.

- Thinks there's "too much talk" of racial bias in policing.

- Signed a bill making it legal to openly discriminate against queer and trans folks.

- Is in favor of stricter mandatory minimums for drug-related offenses.

- Tried to illegally cut off aid to Syrian refugees in Indiana.

- Once said that "Mulan" was liberal propaganda because it showed women fighting.

- Forced women to have funerals for aborted fetuses.

There's also Stephen Bannon, a white supremacist, who is now Trump's chief political strategist. His website, Brietbart.com, has published articles like, "Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer," "Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy" and "Hillary Clinton's Muslim Brotherhood Problem."

Next, we have Jeff Sessions, the new Attorney General. He once said that he thought the KKK was okay until he found out they smoked pot, called a black attorney "boy", called a white civil rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" and said the NAACP along with the ACLU were "un-American" and communist-inspired. He is also fully in favor of Trump's Muslim ban and doesn't believe grabbing women by the pussy constitutes sexual assault. This is the man whose job is to defend civil rights.

And then, of course, we have Michael Flynn, the new National Security Adviser. He believes that Islam is a "cancer", once tweeted that fear of Muslims was "rational" and has strong ties to Putin.

Last, but not least, we have Mike Pompeo, the new CIA director. He is in favor of using torture, expanding the use of Guantanamo Bay, returning to mass surveillance of American citizens and is primarily focused on the apparently dire threat of "radical Islamic terrorism."

Let's not mince words, a Trump Administration is an existential threat to every single marginalized group in this country. We're not protesting because we're spoiled brats. We're protesting because we're terrified for our lives and the lives of our loved ones.

And no, these protests will not stop a Trump inauguration. But they don't have to in order to be effective. Protests can convey very strong messages and they help amplify the voices of marginalized people. We may not be able to stop Trump from taking office, but we can show him, along with the rest of this country, that we will not remain passive.

And as long as Trump is in office, we will continue to protest him.