Trump on Edie Windsor: Who?

The LGBTQ community lost a hero this week: Edith Windsor. Windsor, faced with paying over a quarter of a million dollars in estate taxes after the passing of her lifelong partner, sued the United States government over the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that kept her relationship from being recognized as a marriage. Her victory in the Supreme Court brought down DOMA and laid the groundwork for the eventual recognition of the right for all same-sex couples to marry. It was the crowning achievement in a long history of public activism.

With Edie's passing, a pioneer for our community is gone and the world is a little sadder for it. When my editor contacted me about this sad event, he asked if there was a story here about how President Trump had failed to make any public statements to memorialize her legacy, to which I replied, "Of course there is."

The story of Trump's failure to recognize her passing is ... seriously? Really, folks, do you expect anything else from Trump at this point? Whatever illicit substance you bought from that 22-year-old club kid in the bathroom stall, I want some of that, because clearly that's some good shit. He's revoking our rights left and right, has appointed a hostile attorney general, and didn't recognize Pride Month, which is pretty much our birthday. Yeah, Trump forgot our birthday. Hoping Trump will suddenly change and become the bestest friend ever to LGBTQ people is like hoping that crappy-ass partner of yours is gonna ever change.

Trump is our abusive boyfriend, and thinking we can ever change him is us being an emotionally battered partner. Look at how he behaves. He'll spend all this time talking about how much he cares about us, how he'll take care of us, and then just walk all over us. When we call him out, he either ghosts us or pretends he never said anything like he did. Yeah, he's gaslighting us. Then he'll go and do one little thing for us, maybe not us LGBTQ folks, but somebody. Like meeting with the Democrats and deciding to raise the debt ceiling, or he'll say he's real sad about how our friends in Texas or Florida lost everything in the hurricane. Now he's running around saying he'll be nice to our Latino friends if we forgive him for being awful before. He totally didn't mean what he said before, he can change, he's not such a bad guy.

Seriously, girl, just stop it. He doesn't care about you. He cares that you're letting him stay at your place, he likes that you're letting him use your ride, he likes that since you've introduced him to all your friends so he can get them to buy things from his crappy job. He's using you, girl, and you know it. Only problem is, you signed a four-year lease with him and now you're stuck. So now you've got to try to justify him being a scumbag to you while he's running around with some Russian escort and telling you how much he loves you. He's trash and you're trying to justify it now.

We're stuck with Trump for right now. Until he decides to move out, we figure out how to break his lease, or he skips out of town, we're stuck with him. We don't have to pretend to think he's a good person, we don't have to keep pretending he's ever going to change, and we sure as crap don't need to be wasting all our time trying to change him. Edith Windsor's passing is a tragic loss and we should mourn it, but even thinking that Trump is gonna give one rat's ass about it, even if he knew who the hell she was (you know he doesn't), is just dumb.

The only way that this man will ever care about marginalized people, human rights, equality, or fairness is if it gets people to like him long enough for him to do the next terrible thing he has planned. Stop giving him the benefit of the doubt, stop expecting him to change, stop expecting him to ever be better.

AMANDA KERRI is a writer and comedian based in Oklahoma City. Follow her on Twitter @Amanda_Kerri.