I love how you've connected the queer American experience with that of the Final Girls of the slasher genre. Especially the bewilderment a Final Girl is feeling at the beginning of a requel. It's like, really?! I thought this was settled. In fact I know this was settled: I won! The amount of energy expended and stress felt while policing myself and standing guard against a hostile society was exhausting when I was young. I often wonder, between the two, how I made it out of the 80s relatively unscathed. I will die on the Nightmare 2 is a classic hill. Today I find myself once again girding my loins each day to face an often ugly and hostile world. This time around, I have no interest in convincing anyone that I deserve as much space, respect, safety, love and support as any other citizen, even though I'm queer. It's up to those who have lived through this before to lead by example and show them how we fought for our rights and won them as we enter these battles. Eventually we will need to hand off the torch to those who are coming up behind us. I envision them being armed to the teeth with the tools they need to not just survive, but to vanquish our enemies and thrive forever after in a life not marred by bigotry and religious hatred. Knowing what I do about most queers of a certain age, I'm confident the up and comers will prevail.