COLUMBUS, Ohio — It’s been approximately two months since Ohio governor Mike DeWine and many other state leaders imposed stay-at-home orders for all businesses and people deemed “non-essential”.

Today, here in my home state of Ohio, DeWine has “reopened” parts of our economy such as restaurants and retail stores, while businesses such as spas and salons will reopen this Friday, May 15th.

Just Monday afternoon, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, claimed that, “We have met the moment and we have prevailed,” when it comes to containing and defeating the novel coronavirus. This statement was made less than 24 hours before Trump’s own Coronavirus Task Force member and top infectious disease expert in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told The New York Times before testifying in the Senate that, “If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to ‘Open America Again,’ then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country.” Fauci went on to say that, “[Opening the economy too early] will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal.”

Yet states are “reopening” all over the country without nearly the proper amount of resources and guidelines needed in order to keep Americans “safe”, as safe as anyone can be in the midst of a global health pandemic due to a virus that has no proven treatment plan or vaccine.

Most infectious disease experts and epidemiologists believe we need much higher levels of testing and contact tracing in order to “safely” reopen our economy. Right now, the United States is only testing approximately 248,000 people per day, or approximately .076% of the country’s population. However, reports from top universities such as Harvard and Johns Hopkins estimate that we need to be doing much, much more than that.

Harvard University’s Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience states that we need to be testing five million people per day by early June, which is just a few weeks away, and as many as 20 million people per day by late July here in the United States. That means we would need to expand our testing capabilities by more than 20-fold within just a few weeks in order to properly keep people as safe as possible out in public.

We are now several months into this pandemic and we are not even close to finding a way to keep Americans safe out in public, so why are we reopening businesses without those proper safety resources?

There is one major answer to this catastrophe. Our government failed us.

While the vast majority of Americans took the call to action (or inaction, if you will), stayed at home and practiced social distancing for two whole months, our government squandered all of that time and essentially put over 20 million American workers out of a job for almost nothing considering most states are already reopening their economies without the proper safety precautions that are needed.

We’ve lost over 81,000 American lives from this virus and our governments are telling us to go back to work, to move on, that “we have prevailed” over COVID-19.

Our governments failed to put in place mass testing and contact tracing to keep us safe when many of us finally return to work. They failed to provide us with any sort of meaningful financial aid. Congress gave Americans a $1,200 check, an amount so small that it doesn’t even cover a single month’s rent for many Americans, and then basically told us that we’re on our own now.

Not only did Congress barely give Americans any economic relief through stimulus checks, they also botched the Paycheck Protection Program, which was supposed to provide financial aid to the small businesses in this country who need economic relief the most, but instead much of the money was given to large corporations who more than likely could survive on their own during this pandemic.

So I understand the anger and frustration of some of these protesters outside of statehouses. They simply are protesting the wrong things and channeling their anger to the wrong outlets.

While many of these “protesters” are simply scum from white supremacist, anti-semitic and people from various other hate groups or groups that have nothing to do with protesting stay-at-home orders, there are many people out there, most of whom are probably smart enough to stay in their houses where it’s safe, that are angry at our government.

The only thing wrong with some of these people who are angry is that they are directing their anger at the stay-at-home orders that are helping to keep them safe from the virus and aren’t getting mad enough at our state and federal governments who have failed to take care of us while we’re waiting at home and who failed to put systems in place to keep us safe as we start to reopen our economy.

Don’t get mad at Mike DeWine for making people stay at home to prevent the spread of the virus, get mad at him for slashing Medicaid benefits by $210 million in the middle of a global health crisis despite Ohio having a $2.7 billion Rainy Day Fund.

Don’t get mad at “the mainstream media” who are doing their jobs by informing the American people during a time of crisis, get mad at Donald Trump for downplaying the virus for months, calling it a “hoax” by the Democrats to try to impeach him again, and doing nothing to prepare for the foreseeable pandemic that he was briefed on not once, but twice, way back in the month of January.

So, to recap, our state and federal governments have had two whole months of stay-at-home orders to prepare mass testing and contact tracing to ensure a safe reopening of our economy; two whole months to pass legislation to provide real economic relief to working-class Americans and small businesses, and they failed miserably, meaning that tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs and tens of thousands of Americans lost their lives in vein because of the incompetence of our government.

When this pandemic started, I was actually hopeful (as hopeful as one can respectfully be during a global health crisis) that this could lead to real, fundamental change in our country to take care of and protect people. I thought that this could be the crisis that finally proves that working-class Americans, who many upper-class Americans look down upon and say aren’t that important, that are being deemed as “essential workers” would finally get paid fair wages and receive benefits.

I thought that this virus would finally prove to the doubters of a “healthcare for all” system that we have serious systemic problems with our for-profit healthcare system; that, with millions of Americans losing their jobs and therefore their health insurance, our government would finally act on providing healthcare to all Americans through a new Medicare For All system that would ensure Americans can still be covered even if they lose their jobs.

I thought that people would finally see that we need to raise our federal minimum wage and to expand social benefits in order to ensure a better and balanced society that takes care of its people, not just those who have the financial means and economic fortune to sustain themselves.

Those hopes and dreams were so quickly shattered when Congress decided that Americans could have $1,200, as the kids say on Twitter, “as a treat”; when our state governments decided to slash healthcare for poor people during the middle of a global health crisis; when the American people failed in our democracy by electing two presidential candidates who both don’t believe in extending healthcare benefits to all Americans, even though 69% of Americans support Medicare For All.

My faith in our government, our people, and our democracy has been almost completely shattered. However, there is still a small part of me that believes Americans will someday use their voice and vote for good; to stand up for what’s right, not just what’s convenient; to get angry, but to channel that anger to the proper places.

Our government has failed us, but we as Americans cannot keep failing ourselves. It is time to not ask, but demand a better future, a better society, and a better America.

As just about every person who knows me knows, I am transgender.

Being a member of the LGBTQ+ community as a trans/queer woman has affected me every single day of my life, whether it be in my personal life, my work career or in numerous political aspects.

We are in yet another election year and my rights and the rights of all LGBTQ+ Americans and Ohioans are at risk more than ever.

There are many LGBTQ+ issues being debated in our federal, state and local legislatures. Currently, in the Supreme Court, we have a destructive presidential administration in the White House that is fighting against the protections of LGBTQ+ Americans in the areas of employment, healthcare and more.

We have a Republican-controlled Senate that refuses to pass the Equality Act, a bill that the House of Representatives passed last spring that would add gender identity, sexual orientation and other minority groups to civil rights protections across this country so that members of our community can’t be fired from their jobs or kicked off their healthcare plan or out of their homes simply because of who they love or who they truly are.

We have a similar bill that we are trying to pass in the Ohio Congress as well called the Ohio Fairness Act that offers protections to LGBTQ+ Ohioans in employment, housing and public accommodations.

We have two radically anti-trans Republican representatives in the Ohio Statehouse who are working on legislation to punish doctors who help transgender children with their medical transitions that would do irreparable damage to trans kids in the state of Ohio.

Long have I said that people can’t just sit behind social media to voice their concerns and fight against hateful policies and for far too long have I let myself fall into that same hole, only coming out from behind the keyboard in the occasional march or two.

I am excited to announce that I am stepping up to help make real change for the LGBTQ+ community by joining the Columbus branch of the Human Rights Campaign as a member of the Steering Committee and Digital & Social Media team.

I am excited to finally get off my butt and take real action to make this city, state and country a better place for LGBTQ+ people like me.

I’ve had the pleasure already as a member of HRC Columbus to meet members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community here in Central Ohio, meet with the other leaders of the steering committee for HRC Columbus and make phone calls to the great people of Ohio about contacting their state legislatures to support the Ohio Fairness Act.

I am eager to continue working towards equality for all members of the LGBTQ+ community and all other minorities as a member of the Human Rights Campaign and I urge everyone who reads this to do as much as you can through speaking, voting and being as engaged politically and socially as you can to help make our city, state and country a better and fairer place to live for all.