Three months ago, it would have been hard to predict a lot of what has happened so far this year. A solid guess might have been a continued ramping up of anti-trans legislation. Fewer people might have put money on prominent right-wing figures turning on the president while his hold on the nation crumbles.

I started this year with a three-month leave to handle some personal matters. The last column that I wrote before I stepped away said, “As we walk into 2026, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and good reason for hope.” We’re three months into the year, and that might sound like naïve optimism, but I have reason to stand by what I said.

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January through to early April has been an epically bad time for trans rights.

At least nine states have banned trans people from correcting the gender marker on their driver’s licenses, putting trans people in danger of being outed in a hostile society. Kansas has gone as far as revoking previously-corrected licenses.

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Bathroom bans have continued to pass across the country, including in Idaho, where one could result in a five-year prison sentence.

The International Olympic Committee caved to pressure from Donald Trump and announced they would return to gene-testing athletes in the women’s categories.

And the Supreme Court ruled against conversion therapy bans, opening the door for conversion therapy to be re-legalized in many states, and has also ruled in favor of California teachers forcibly outing trans kids and misgendering them in class.

That barely scratches the surface of the anti-LGBTQ+ news of the last three months and doesn’t take into account everything else horrible going on, from the war in Iran to ICE murdering civilians in the streets. It’s bad. And not for a moment do I want to suggest that it isn’t.

But: I didn’t say that 2026 would be great. I said that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel, “but we’re going to have to walk through a dark tunnel to get there.” We are very definitely deep in that dark tunnel right now.

I’m not just going to say “don’t worry, the midterms are in seven months!” That moment might mark a turning point: wresting some power from the Republicans and enabling more roadblocks to the anti-trans agenda might well go a long way. But it wouldn’t change everything overnight, and seven months feels like a really long time right now.

What I will say is look for the light, the good that people are doing, and the good that you might be able to do. Look for the fractures in the hatred and the way that tide is turning. We can’t all sit and hope for a blue wave that will wash over the land—the Democrats aren’t going to solve everything, but a wider tidal shift might mean more lasting change.

And that shift is something that we’re already seeing, even in the darkness.

Hospital systems across the country suspended programs for gender-affirming care for minors. But now court cases are being won, and programs are opening back up. Georgia and Tennessee both failed to pass any new anti-LGBTQ+ bills in their legislative sessions for the first time in years. Activists are highlighting how pointless and unenforceable some of these anti-trans laws are.

I noted in my column that Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) had previously seemed hesitant to fight back, but that was changing, and she was starting to let Republicans have it, while also helping to change minds to work on bills. That has continued, with her shooting down Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) again this week.

And, crucially, Trump’s grip on power is clearly slipping. Not only are the public tired of him, with polls showing that people aren’t happy with ICE, that voters don’t like that we’re in yet another war in the Middle East, and even that the majority of voters want him impeached for a third time. The consistently high turnout for No Kings protests demonstrates a small part of that.

Even those Trump supporters who would once lie down on the smallest hill to die for Trump are turning on him. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said that “he has gone insane.” Alex Jones criticized his recent actions, saying, “This is not the old Trump.” And even Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly seem to have had the scales fall from their eyes.

Trump might not be pulling the strings behind all of this. We know that the architects of Project 2025 and others are orchestrating much of what is happening behind the scenes while Trump claims ignorance of the whole thing. But he’s the figurehead that this whole movement follows; he’s the leader of the cult mentality that brought America into so much hate, and people are seeing behind the curtain.

So yes, vote in the midterms. It won’t be a cure-all for anything, and the candidates might not be the perfect ones you’d like them to be. But they’ll be better than what we have. But beyond that, remember that the tide is turning, even if it’s slow and not the first thing that headlines always highlight.

Protest where you can. Do everything you can to fight back. But if all you can do is get up and hope things will be better, that’s not foolish, that’s its own form of protest. And you’re not alone against it all.

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