When belonging is under attack: examining the painful legacy of anti-DEI legislation, immigration raids, and gender politics in the new era.
I have struggled to find belonging all my life.
As a child, born middle, with no special place.
As a student, hiding my vocabulary and lowering my hand to fit in, writing stories alone while others played.
As a homeless teenager, thrown out by my family to fend for myself. Hiding the shame of being unwanted and alone from affluent peers at school.
As a young adult immigrant, immersed in a new place, a new culture, differing ideology, where my views don’t fit and peers call me “alien.”
As a religious heretic, questioning contradictions that do not make sense, refusing to hate those whom I am told I must condemn.
In group, out group. Black sheep apostate. Throwaway child. Trailer trash. Misfit. Alien. Foreigner.
So many labels.
It has taken many years and painful self-excavation to excise those wounds and find self-love. To find acceptance. To find belonging, first within, then without. To learn that belonging isn’t bestowed from outside but grows quietly inside, sending down roots that anchor and extending branches toward others.
It is my life’s work to help others find belonging, too.
Belonging is a core psychological need and critical element of mental health. We have a neurotransmitter, oxytocin, dedicated to fostering feelings of connection. Belonging and attachment are as much biological demand as they are emotional. When belonging suffers, depression inevitably follows.
Conversely, one cannot fully heal from depression in isolation and with a sense of disconnection. This makes it the work of psychologists such as myself to speak out against exclusionary politics that are actively harming millions.
Politics such as banning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives1. When inclusion becomes a dirty word, belonging is under attack. When such policies aimed at creating a just and equitable society are repealed, not gently, as a society having achieved enlightenment, but with scorn and derision and the racist assumption that if the table is broad, unworthy people sit at it, minorities are falsely told they don’t belong. When diversity is prejudicially rejected as a drain on success rather a source of richness, unique and valuable perspective, and a broadened talent pool, minorities are devalued, stigmatized, and unwelcome.
When a tragic plane crash costing 67 lives is baselessly blamed on people with disabilities2, they expound the ableist belief that those who are differently abled and employed in simple jobs through inclusive policies have nothing of value to contribute. Their value and worthiness of dignity is further stripped when the same simultaneously defund programs that would financially support them at home.
When pride flags are banned from federal outposts3, when the White House website declares an official and unscientific policy on gender in defiance of chromosomal realities4, when American passports with an X designation even for those born intersex are declared invalid, the LGBTQI community is reminded they are unwelcome by the half the country with power, that their authenticity does not belong5.
When Latino communities are targeted by deportation raids6, characterized counter to evidence as criminals and murderers and rapists, when documentation becomes irrelevant and concentration camps constructed7, and schools and churches cease to be safe places to congregate, learn, make friends, give and find support8, belonging is under assault.
When observation of cultural history, pride, holocaust remembrance, and women’s equality months and days of celebration are canceled9, the multicultural mosaic of community is attacked, and everyone who is not a straight, white male is on notice that they are unwelcome and do not belong in the republic that has long been home.
Twelve days in, and the collective assault on belonging reverberates into every corner of this vast nation.
It becomes tempting to shut down. To give in to the inward withdrawal, isolation, hopelessness, and helplessness that accompanies depression. This is not an unwanted side effect of the barrage of assaults.
But I have found that Black Sheep can be the strongest. When we have nothing left to lose, there is no reason to keep our voices silent. Black Sheep are rabble-rousers, prophets, out-spoken activists. We are change-makers, because we no longer question if our truth will be accepted, if it has place, if it is too much.
I was recently asked which five dead people do I wish I could have met? I quickly listed them off: Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Diedrich Bonhoeffer. And then I realized: my list consisted entirely of activists. Resisters. Difference-makers. There’s something to that.
Black Sheep can change the world.
Exclusion is fundamentally isolating, and that can (and is perhaps meant to) steal your power. We are strong together. Few activists spark a movement in isolation, and none carry it through alone. So as they try to steal our belonging, resist the urge to withdraw in defeat and fear. Let righteous anger burn hot and fortify your metal for resistance. Let the flame growing in your belly ignite out through your lips in a clarion call to others targeted and hurting around you. Gather, virtually and in person. Build community. Organize.
In ancient religious practice, scapegoats were selected and sent outside the city to die alone. We may be scapegoated; we may be excluded. But if we find one another, if we create new community, we will survive, we will thrive, and perhaps, with courage, we will overcome.
So my challenge to you today is simple: look around. Reach out. Find someone who is hurting, who is targeted, perhaps in ways different than you, perhaps the same. Be there, extend compassion, provide comfort, be a support. Start with just one.
May we all be found, and find one another, and may no one believe the lie that they are alone and do not belong.
For those of you struggling under the weight of alienating words and actions, lies enforced with the stroke of hasty pens attempting to separate us from our humanity, here are some truths that this regime’s assaults can never overcome:
You belong.
You have so much value.
You have so much to offer, to share, to contribute.
The fabric of this society, this world, would be incomplete without you.
You have a place here.
You are wanted.
You are cherished.
You belong.
You belong
You belong.
No matter the richness of your melanin. No matter the expression of your gender. No matter your origin, your accent, your traditions. No matter your religion. All of it is beautiful.
A painting with one color is a wall, a backdrop. Incomplete. A canvas filled with color and movement intersecting is art.
You are art. We are art.
You’re so beautiful.
Beautiful Black Sheep.
- https://www.npr.org/2025/01/23/nx-s1-5271588/trump-dei-diversity-equity-inclusion-federal-workers-government ↩︎
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/02/trump-crash-disabilities-dei/ ↩︎
- https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/pride-flag-ban-us-embassies-government-shutdown-deal-rcna144647 ↩︎
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/ ↩︎
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/ ↩︎
- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/trump-immigration-raids-citizens-profiling-accusations-native-american-rcna189203 ↩︎
- https://abcnews.go.com/US/housing-migrants-guantanamo-bay-challenges-national-security-expert/story?id=118264025 ↩︎
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/migrants-can-now-be-arrested-at-churches-and-schools-after-trump-administration-throws-out-policies ↩︎
- https://www.sooleader.com/michigan-news-ap/pentagon-agency-pauses-celebrations-for-martin-luther-king-jr-day-black-history-month-and-more-10167940 ↩︎