Jeffrey (in denim) and Amador, in front of one of Jeffrey's paintings from college. "It was taken a year or so before he died," Jeffrey remembers. "It is a small photo I carried in my wallet for decades after his death. It got a little ragged." Credit: COURTESY OF JEFFREY ROBERT

Jeffrey (in denim) and Amador, in front of one of Jeffreys paintings from college. It was taken a year or so before he died, Jeffrey remembers. It is a small photo I carried in my wallet for decades after his death. It got a little ragged.

Jeffrey (in denim) and Amador, in front of one of Jeffrey’s paintings from college. “It was taken a year or so before he died,” Jeffrey remembers. “It is a small photo I carried in my wallet for decades after his death. It got a little ragged.” COURTESY OF JEFFREY ROBERT

Jeffrey Robert gets why queer people are pissed off. He’s pissed off, too. Despite promising on the campaign trail to support the LGBTQ community, Donald Trump quickly proved, once again, that campaign slogans are nothing but empty.

This didn’t exactly come as a shock: Trump may be a gold-plated libertine in his own life, but his Electoral College victory was delivered in no small part by the religious right, and so, once in power, he started pandering to his base. From the trans military ban to rolling back Obama-era protection for LGBTQ people in the workplace to nominating Supreme Court justices with a history of hostility to gay rights, he hasn’t been good for gay people—unless, of course, those gay people happen to be in the very top tax bracket.

And yet, even with all this—all the bigoted rhetoric coming out of the White House, all the lies and misinformation and shrieks of “FAKE NEWS” and “LOCK HER UP”—for gay people of a certain age, life, even under Trump, has never been better, because life before was so very much worse.

Katie Herzog is a former staff writer at The Stranger.