Allow me to set the scene: it’s the day after President Trump’s inauguration and wounds that are still raw and which have barely scabbed over were reopened, and with it, the debate and hashtags that surrounded the entire presidential race. I woke up late this morning and checked social media; in a few places on Instagram I found people against the hashtag” not my president.” Those individuals stated that the use of this hashtag was not valid because of the fact that since President Trump was sworn in he, therefore, is the President of the United States. They continued on to say he’s not going to mess with gay rights and women’s rights and no one needs to be throwing bricks and setting things on fire in the protests that have happened. And finally, they asked why the media hasn’t covered Trump’s good deeds, citing that last night at Trump’s inauguration he gave a poor man in the audience $10,000.

Well, allow me to tell you why those of us who do not support the Trump Administration choose to use this hashtag. First of all, we know that, yes, Donald Trump is the President of the United States as much as we would not like to believe it. This fact does not mean I have to respect him and treat him as such. I disagree one hundred percent with what he stands for and what his vice president stands for. For at 12 o’clock right on the dot, which in my mind sets a precedent for what the rest of his term is going to be like, the presidential website was changed to have zero references to climate change, zero references to the LGBT community, and within hours of taking office, Trump signed an order to cancel Obamacare, effectively taking away healthcare from millions of Americans.

I and the people I feel I represent – the LGBTQ Community, women, and every other minority that resides in this nation – cannot stand behind this president.

The protests of the Trump Administration, held this weekend were my community exercising their First Amendment right. We do not support the protestors who may have gotten a little too overly passionate and started to turn what was a peaceful protest into a riot. For that we are sorry. But that should not serve to degrade what everyone who showed up at the National Mall, in New York City, in Philadelphia, in Detroit, in Los Angeles, and in every other major U.S. City, wants the government at every single level to know- that we will not stand for laws that prohibit who we love and how we live.

We are not being “sore losers;” we are sending a message, and for those of you who would like to negatively compare us to the protests that took place when Obama took office, note that we did not have signs that had quotes such as “ a village in Kenya is missing its idiot” or signs so heinous to say “hang in there Obama,” accompanying a picture of a noose. Then you ask why the media does not cover Trump’s good deeds. Well, for me, one good deed does not erase a man saying “grab her by the pu**y”, implying that he would sleep with his daughter, tweeting about Arianna Huffington (regardless of who it is – a woman) saying: “ [she is] unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man – he made a good decision,” and condoning a vice president, who has gone on record saying that being gay is a choice as a leg to stand on in advocating for conversion therapy and who has an anti-abortion bill in Indiana.

All weekend I watched the protests on CNN and more people attended those protests than our own president’s inauguration. I really don’t think I need to point out how wrong that is. I’m not telling you to either agree or disagree with what I’m saying. I just want to say that these protests are simply making a point: The majority of this country will call President Trump out if he does something wrong and will not stand for their rights to be trampled on. We use the hashtag “not my president” to flagship our cause, not to say that he isn’t our president but to say he needs to earn our respect in order for him to be our president in our hearts.

Of all the celebrities that attended the marches Cher stood out to me in saying, “Stand and be counted or sit and be nothing.” That is what the marches mean to us. People can say we are ungrateful and sore losers, but what can be more inherently American than a protest? We have made our position known, and now we will fight for the next four years until we have a chance to avenge the choices we made on Election Day.