The United States of America commemorates its 250th anniversary of independence today, but I struggle as a Transgender American to find any reason to feel patriotic or celebratory about it.

The country we all inhabit was founded on a contradiction — that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights — yet large swaths of our nation’s peoples were systematically denied, and continue to be denied, those rights by both the government and society. 

What makes these issues feel particularly poignant to me now in 2026, however, are the relentless attempts being made everyday by the Trump administration, and the billionaire/corporate interests behind him, to undermine every fundamental bedrock of our democracy.

Decades of progressive policies enacted to rectify (albeit inadequately) the injustices and imbalances inflicted upon our country’s most marginalized are being gutted left-and-right to make way for a new system of oligarchic tyranny.

The US elites who back Trump have shown little interest in upholding the “Great American Experiment” if it means everyday people will have the power, through their civic participation in government, to hold them in check. So they attack the Voting Rights Act, social safety nets, education system, labor laws, DEI protections, the press, and a whole host of other things to ensure we as everyday citizens do not have access to the resources or knowledge needed to change our environment. 

Fear is also a powerful motivator. Queer and Trans people have served as highly effective political scapegoats to scare and distract working class people. They are told by Republican politicians at both the state and federal level that their attention should be focused on fearing others who are different from them, whether it be LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, racial and religious minorities, etc… This happens all while tax dollars get funneled away from the programs that would ultimately help average people to further enrich the country’s wealthy.

And so on this 250th US Independence Day, it does not sit right with me to celebrate at all a country that has decided to so thoroughly reject, and trample upon, its ideals and morals. 

I believe it is time to return back to the founding principals of the holiday, and embrace a collective sense of rebellion against an authoritarian and injustice system. We the people hold the power, and it will require a mass movement of us to overcome the current and incoming perils we all face together.