We’ve Been Here Before: When Fear Comes for the Queer Community

There’s a particular kind of silence that follows a warning. Not the kind that’s empty, but the kind that hums with memory, with grief, with fight. When Russell T Davies recently said gay society is in “the greatest danger I have ever seen,” it wasn’t hyperbole—it was a reckoning. And for many of us, it was a familiar sound.

Davies’ alarm comes in the wake of Trump’s return to power in the U.S., a climate where trans rights are being systematically dismantled, and queer people are once again being painted as threats rather than citizens. It’s chilling—but it’s not new. We’ve seen this cycle before.

What makes this moment feel uniquely precarious is the speed and scale of the cultural regression. Social media — particularly platforms now controlled by billionaires with openly transphobic views — has amplified anti-queer rhetoric under the guise of “free speech.” The past few months alone have seen surges in hate speech, proposed laws restricting LGBTQIA+ expression, and targeted campaigns against trans healthcare and education.

But fear, as history shows us, can also be a rallying cry. We’ve fought before — fought in the streets during Stonewall, fought for medicine in the AIDS crisis, fought to exist on screen, in courtrooms, in classrooms, in families. And we did it not just with protest signs, but with art, with joy, with community.

It’s easy to feel paralysed right now. For some, there’s the added weight of déjà vu—the realisation that despite the wins, we’re still vulnerable. For others, especially the younger generation who didn’t live through the darker days, this moment may feel like a betrayal. Weren’t we meant to be past this?

And yet — something is different this time. The infrastructure of queer life is stronger. We have more allies. We have legal protections in many parts of the world (though not enough). We have stories. We have platforms. We have each other.

Still, we need to be honest. Visibility, for all its benefits, doesn’t equal safety. Having a rainbow flag in your office or a pronoun pin doesn’t shield you from the structural violence brewing in the wings. As Davies warned, the threat now isn’t just legislative — it’s cultural, and it’s coming fast. A wave of resentment. Of scapegoating. Of forced invisibility.

So what do we do?

We do what we’ve always done. We gather. We create. We protest. We protect. We remember that no political wave, no hateful policy, can crush the human instinct to connect. We lean into each other. We challenge fear with visibility, with storytelling, with fierce tenderness.

We refuse to be splintered. We hold space for the trans kids navigating school in fear, the queer elders watching history repeat, and the artists whose work keeps our stories alive. We write the uncomfortable truths, even when they’re not trending. We speak up in rooms that weren’t made for us. We check in on our people. We build something more permanent than a trend.

In the face of growing hostility, it’s easy to shrink. But shrinking never protected us. Silence never kept us safe. And as Davies so powerfully said, if we need to gather in basements again, we will. We’ll plot. We’ll sing. We’ll build worlds from the margins, as we’ve always done.

This is not the end. But it is a reminder. Of what we’ve survived — and of how much we still have to lose if we don’t act. So, let’s not waste time. Let’s not wait until the lights flicker again.

Let’s start now.