Drowned out of these “opening” conversations are voices of marginalized people stuck in difficult situations who desperately want the pandemic to be enough under control that they can leave. “I’m a closeted Lesbian that is back in a homophobic house because of COVID-19,” writes one. It’s an anonymous cry for help Avery Smith shared with me. There are so many like it from all over our shutdown nation, and they provide an entirely different angle on the reopening debate.

Avery Smith hosts a highly respected podcast “Blessed are the Binary Breakers” and blog Queerly Christian highlighting the struggles and triumphs faced by the LGBTQA+ and gender nonconforming community. With a theology degree, Avery especially wants to create a safe space where those who are younger and are “still figuring themselves out”—at an earlier stage in their journey, perhaps—can be themselves, can find comfort, camaraderie, support, wisdom. Avery’s spaces are there for hard questions, “anything from ‘how do you know I’m not going to Hell?’ to ‘I’m closeted; I’m stuck at home with my parents; what do I do?’—this is a huge one right now,” Avery points out.

For many younger LGBTQA+ and gender nonconforming people, these stay-at-home orders have become nightmarish for reasons that have nothing to do with the economic ones trumpeted by some governors and corporations. “Say you’re at college, living away from the people who are maybe even hostile toward you,” Avery’s voice drops, “There’s a pandemic. You’re sent home. You’re stuck now—you’re stuck. You’re in this situation and maybe you’re tip-toeing because you’re afraid they’ll find out, or maybe they do know and they’re making your life difficult because there’s a lot of passive aggression and all of that—or less passive aggression. You don’t have your ordinary connections.”

I wondered if social media made things easier now. Avery nodded, but helped me to see that app-based community isn’t enough. “Imagine you’re a high schooler, and you go to your GSA club—so you have a little respite from having no one supporting you. You don’t have that anymore. A lot of clubs just aren’t meeting in any form.” Avery then shares another comment from the Queerly Christian blog:

it’s been really hard to live closeted at home and bc of the pandemic i have nowhere to go but home or work for the most part, and not a lot of hope to move out anytime soon. i think this is an issue a lot of closeted people are having, and those who deal with abuse at home because of being lgbtq+ have had it so much worse. especially minors. i’ve seen a definite uptick in that in my friend groups.

“So, are you hearing a lot of despair like this out there?” I ask. “Is there any hope?”

“At the start of this, I was getting a lot of messages from people that were more on the despairing side, including people asking, ‘Is this the end of the world?’ I’m not going to play the game where you predict the end of the world based on cryptic stuff in the Bible. But I don’t get as much of that now. I think it’s contextual.” Avery pointed me toward “Queer Church AR,” a success story from a “white bisexual woman who was the pastor of a white-majority church” who was fired from her congregation in the middle of this pandemic. It has a growing online following.

Still, there’s no denying that major barriers now stand in the way of safe community and connection. “Pride events are cancelled. Dating or getting together with friends is less safe. LGBT/queer spaces like bars or bookshops are/were closed. For those of us who are students, school years in spring were cut short, which meant for some that bullying was cut short but for others that the one space where they had friends that supported them was taken away.

“I have a friend group … that consists almost completely of trans + autistic and/or otherwise disabled young adults. This group of friends meets every Sunday evening at the house four of them rent to make and eat a meal, play games, and just chat and have fun together. They have not been able to hold these weekly dinners since February. And for some of the group, that was the one time all week they could be themselves: wear the clothes they like to wear, talk about trans and autistic stuff with people who Get It, and/or not have to worry about getting misgendered nonstop. So, it really sucks that the dinners can’t take place. A lot of my friends are experiencing some bad drops in mental health because of that loss of community.”

Later, Avery emailed to emphasize a few points we missed during our conversation.

“Since LGBTQA+ persons belong to every other identity group possible, from the most privileged ones (white people, rich people, etc.) to the most marginalized (BIPOC, disabled persons, poor and homeless persons, etc.), any consequences of pandemic on other identity groups is also a consequence for the LGBTQA+ community—but often with a twist.

“For instance, say a cishet person becomes homeless because of pandemic, and so does a transgender person. The cishet person might be able to find a homeless shelter to stay in; meanwhile, the transgender person may not be able to find a shelter that will take them in or that will guarantee their safety from transphobic violence.

“Another example: say a trans person ends up in the hospital for COVID. They may face transphobic remarks from hospital staff, misgendering, or even outright refusal to treat. I know of many trans persons (and other LGBT persons) who will not go to the hospital unless they’re literally on death’s door because they’ve been traumatized by health providers in the past.”