When it’s scary to be queer and scary to be Jewish, being both is downright terrifying.

Last month, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak on a panel at the Capital Jewish Museum. Just hours before the panel began, while I was preparing to talk about the accomplishments of the LGBTQ movement, two people – Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgram – were murdered while standing outside the museum in a targeted, intentional attack on a Jewish event. This attack reflects growing antisemitic sentiments: The New York Times recently found that Jewish people are more likely to be targeted for hate crimes than any other marginalized group in the United States. 

At the same time, anti-LGBTQ legislation is advancing at an alarming rate. As of this month, the ACLU is tracking nearly 600 anti-LGBTQ bills in states across the United States.

We’re also seeing the U.S. government increasingly targeting queer people’s rights, access to care, and attempts to remove them from the public narrative – just last week the Supreme Court upheld a ban on gender affirming care and the Trump administration will shut down 988’s hotline for LGBTQ youth next month. These are not isolated incidents. They are coordinated attempts to harm and erase people like me.

But here’s what I know: Our communities have never survived by shrinking away from persecution. As Jews and as queer people – two groups who’ve been oppressed and attacked throughout history – our coping mechanisms have never been silence. We fight back by being ourselves. By existing. By celebrating despite the pain.

Right now, queer Jews are afraid to be “out” as Jewish in queer spaces. Jewish organizations are backing out of Pride marches, around the globe from San Diego to the UK. At the same time, Jews who are queer are being excluded in Jewish spaces, like at Yeshiva University, where top rabbis recently instructed the Office of Student Life to once again shut down the LGBTQ student group.

It’s enough to make anyone want to disappear. And yet, that’s never what we’ve done.

Jewish people in ghettos in the 1940s held secret seders in the dark. In times when being out as queer was illegal, LGBTQ people signaled safety and belonging with coded phrases such as “Friends of Dorothy,” and other symbolic items such as carabiners and green carnations. Even in hiding, we have always found ways to see each other, to celebrate, to stay alive. That sentiment – that refusal to disappear – is in our blood.

Today, we fight back by being even more visibly Jewish – wearing stars of David when others say we shouldn’t – or by being even more visibly queer, in attire and in attitude. We embrace joy and resist when we refuse to choose between parts of ourselves and instead showing up as our full rainbow selves. 

That’s why I’m marching – loudly and proudly – as a queer Jew in the NYC Pride March this year. Not because I’m unafraid. I feel disheartened regularly by the constant stream of negative headlines or the flood of antisemitic and queerphobic comments in my newsfeed. But I’ve learned from both my Jewish and queer ancestors that in times like these, the answer isn’t to hide. It’s to show up.

And so we will.

JQY will once again march as one of the organizers of the Jewish contingent in the NYC Heritage of Pride March. And it matters more than ever. Whether you’re Jewish or queer – both, or neither – I invite you to march with us. Or cheer us on from the sidelines. Your presence matters. You showing up matters. Because not only is visibility powerful, solidarity is as well.

It takes unimaginable courage to live out loud right now. Those who already do are heroes. And for those who want to support us, this is your moment.

To quote Rob Madge in My Son’s a Queer (but what can you do?), a show that recently finished its run at New York City Center: “We bring joy and happiness, and if you choose to miss out on joy, that’s weird.” Come join us. Add to our joy. We have plenty to share.