By: Jada Fulcher
Less than two months separates Americans from the second inauguration of former President Donald J. Trump after a surprise-laden 2024 election season. For the queer residents of Champaign-Urbana, this means planning for another tumultuous four years of a Trump White House.
Chandler Schmidt, 32, is an app tester by day and a drag queen named Herra Winn by night. Schmidt voted for Kamala Harris, but not enthusiastically.
“Do I like it? No," said Schmidt. “Do I wish we could vote third party? Of course. But right now, in the climate that we are in currently, I don't know if that is a necessity that I am afforded as a queer, Black person in America.”
Schmidt was traveling down to Dallas as the election results rolled in, but he didn’t feel dissuaded by the results.
“It's the hand we've all been dealt, and I'm not gonna let it stop me,” said Schmidt.
While Schmidt was on his way to Dallas, food service director Jim Hudson, 56, was watching the results roll in at Anthem, a Champaign-based gay bar.
Hudson has lived in Champaign since 1996, and before Donald Trump he was a lifelong Republican. Then in 2015, he felt the party shift.
“I knew the Republican Party wasn't, you know, wild about gay people,” said Hudson, who is a gay man. “It wasn't until gay people started to have some rights, started to have some say in how they live their lives, that the Republican Party, I feel, really showed who they are.”
In 2016, Hudson voted Democrat for the first time in a presidential election, and that continued onward to 2024. After President Biden dropped out of the race, Hudson felt a new energy in the Democratic party, comparing it to the feeling of the first Obama campaign.
“It felt like there was such a groundswell of support for [Vice President Kamala Harris], and it really felt exciting,” said Hudson. “It just felt like she had this tremendous amount of excitement behind her, and I'm still baffled as to what happened.”
While Hudson doesn’t fear much for his personal safety, he worries that hard-fought wins like legalizing gay marriage will disappear during a second Trump term.
“It does scare me that they’re gonna take away rights,” said Hudson. “I've been married since 2015, and I do think: is this going to be the end of my marriage? You know, am I going to be going backwards?”
While residents like Hudson were surprised by Harris’ defeat, some others saw this as a symptom of a larger problem.
Jaz, 36, has lived in Champaign-Urbana for most of the last decade, outside of a two year period in Vermont. Unlike Hudson, Jaz was not surprised that Vice President Harris lost the election.
“I felt that when Biden pulled out, Trump won,” said Jaz. “I’ve been dealing with this for months because America is so racist and sexist. They won’t elect a white woman, much less a woman of color.”
Jaz is Mexican, and is grateful to be in Champaign-Urbana after their brief stint in Vermont, which they called a “gay white utopia.” The lack of people of color there and the expensive cost of living in the region lead them back to Central IL.
“They [white queer folks from Vermont] thought of the south and midwest as flyover states, and it’s such an incorrect way to think of those regions,” said Jaz.
Jaz is grateful to be back in Illinois, and is ready to do community building with folks of a “different level of need.” Even so, they worry if the community will be up to the challenge.
“I’ve really questioned people who are shocked [that Former President Trump won],” said Jaz.
Whether the community as a whole is ready remains unseen. However for folks like Chandler Schmidt, now is the exact time to be a queer presence in the community.
“I'm gonna keep going to the day I die, because there are too many queer youths in this country for me to be scared,” said Schmidt. “I need to be a visible face for these youth to let them know, ‘Hey, you can make it through. Tenacity and the homosexual Spirit will guide you through.’”