These are dark and scary times, and it can be hard to hold onto joy. But it’s also difficult to motivate people using pure doom and gloom. Activism and action without considering our own happiness leads to burnout.
Since 2021, Becky Bullard has been encouraging playfulness, a spirit of mysticism and even sexiness in political action through Democrasexy, the organization she founded. Her first event was a “Texorcism,” a gathering to symbolically “cast out the demons” at the Texas Capitol who had brought on the state’s six-week abortion ban.
“We all dressed like witches. I had drag performers. We had a panel on abortion rights and a tarot reading for Texas,” Becky told me.
Democrasexy hosts recurring events such as “Tex Support,” a support group that helps empower vulnerable residents, especially LGBTQIA+ folks. In November last year, she organized a “Carnival of Care” election night party at Cheer Up Charlie’s, Austin’s favorite queer bar, which brought out drag queens, educational speakers, and even a petting zoo to try to ease the pain of the Democratic loss and all the fears of what Trump’s reelection might bring.
Some weeks later, just after the New Year, I recorded a conversation Becky and I had over lunch on the patio at Bouldin Creek Cafe, one of our city’s best vegetarian restaurants. Months later, the themes of our conversation — particularly, keeping our hopeful spirits alive — remain with me.
Get involved: On April 24, Democrasexy will be part of the “Denim & Democracy” day of action for reproductive rights.
This conversation was edited for length and clarity.
Becky Bullard: I’m Becky Bullard (she/her), the founder and CEO of Democrasexy, where we make it feel good to learn about power structures, and where best to apply pressure to try and change them, and also create joyful community, especially for women and queer folks in Texas who want things to be different. My whole philosophy is that the type of change that we need to make here in Texas is gonna take a really long time. And so in order for those of us who’ve been doing the work to not burn out, and in order to attract new people, to have the volume of folks that we need to be creating change, it’s got to feel good.
Kit O’Connell: A lot of your stuff has similar kind of, I guess, ‘witchy vibes.’ What is that about for you? How does that connect to this political moment and what’s important about that?
BB: I think part of it has to do with myself, a queer person who grew up in the Baptist Church. I had to abandon my religion, basically, to live as my authentic self. I had been given a framework for how to participate in the world and my beliefs and all that, and now I have to figure it all out for myself. I find myself attracted to traditionally feminine ways of meaning making, like tarot and astrology and that kind of stuff, and also just like the idea of being able to connect with folks who have come before us. I’m reading the histories of women and queer folks who made change in Texas, and I’m learning very practical information from their stories and lessons that I can apply to the work I’m doing today, but it also helps me feel connected to them, sort of spiritually, like, you know, Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan are kind of helping me out. Whether or not that’s true, it feels really good. So I’m gonna just lean into that.
KO: There’s a long history of resistance by women and queer people in Texas that I think gets overlooked a lot. What are some lessons that you’ve taken away from these kinds of ancestors?
BB: I lead Texas Foremothers Tours at the Texas State Cemetery. We visit the graves of Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan and Sarah Weddington. Each of them have things from their life that really connect with me and in the way that they used their power. For example, Ann Richards, when she was governor, she recognized that as a governor in Texas, you only have certain powers. So she recognized that her power as governor was more in who she was appointing to run state agencies, how she was making up the government, and the folks who were in charge. So she made it the most representative of the people of Texas of any governor. Using her power to make the government reflective of the people. I think it is a really smart use of that position. So that’s just one example.
KO: How are you preparing for the next few months of intense political action, including whatever happens at the Texas legislature?
BB: I was never involved in politics or activism until after Trump got elected the first time, and I really jumped into educating myself. And then once I felt confident enough, educating other people, and taking a vast array of different kinds of action to figure out what made the most sense for me. I’ll still always do education, I think that’s a really huge piece that prevents a lot of people from being involved, because they just don’t feel informed enough. It can be hard for a beginner or somebody who’s not paying attention all the time to feel like they can speak confidently or take action confidently, because it’s hard to figure it all out. So that’s always going to be important to me, but I think more so than ever this time I’m really focused on the emotional and psychological piece of taking action and staying in it, and how can we sustain ourselves in our hearts, in our spirits? Because I think that’s a piece that gets forgotten a lot when it comes to activism.
KO: We have this really long looking struggle ahead of us. How do we keep ourselves going for the duration without burning out?
BB: Community is the most important place to focus, and mutual aid, obviously, is so important when we’re facing ever accelerating climate disasters. Mutual aid and community support is going to be what gets us through. So that’s a big piece of the emotional sustenance is being connected with other people who feel the same way that you do. We’re stronger when we realize we’re not alone.
I’m partnering with Prism Integrated Health. We’ve been doing this for a while. We run these groups called ‘Texsupport.’ We always try to have a focus. So this one is focused on inauguration day. So it’s facing our feelings around that. And we’ve got Max, who is a licensed therapist, so they’re sort of our guide in this process. We sit in a circle, like a Talking Circle inspired by Indigenous practices. We all go around and answer our prompt and are guided by Max to really look deeply into what we’re scared of. And how can we prepare ourselves? It’s amazing, people are very reluctant to talk about these things a lot of the time, because it’s scary. But then once we get through it at the end, everybody feels like this huge weight has lifted because we’re looking directly at the problem with other people, and it feels like, ‘Okay, I’m not alone. I have this group of people who I’m connected with. We are facing this together and we’re gonna get through it.’ So that’s the kind of thing that I’m really focused on this time, in a way that I wasn’t previously.
KO: My perception is there’s two responses from people, some of which are like, ‘I need to get out of Texas immediately.’ And that is understandable. But then there’s also this other response, where people say ‘I need to, like, kind of dig in with my community.’ Why are you choosing the community side of things?
BB: I feel like I have so much privilege, in so many ways, as a white lady, I’ve been privileged. I’m making ends meet, like I have so much going for me and so much safety. But because I’m as safe as I am here, it feels like I have a duty to offer safety to as many people as possible, and make it a place where people don’t feel like they have to leave.
KO: How do you feel like Trump is going to affect what we’re already dealing with here in Texas?
BB: On my most optimistic days, I sort of think nothing’s gonna actually change that much here in Texas, because all the things that he wants to do Texas has already done. Because we’ve been dealing with this for the last several years, an extreme trifecta in Texas, I almost feel like we should be counseling the rest of the country on how to get through. When I’m feeling less optimistic, one of the things I worry about is that this is a war of creativity, right? Who’s going to be more creative? Is it the right wing folks who are interested in creating as much division, as much oppression as they can, or is it those of us who don’t want all that? How can we be more creative given the constraints that we’re under?
KO: We’re seeing some Dems now turn on trans people in particular, and saying that maybe the party has been too accommodating or too nice. How do you feel about that?
BB: It’s really disappointing, because we can look at any period of history and see that it was never the right move to scapegoat a small group of people. That’s never been the correct take, ever. And when you’re losing, and you’ve been losing for a while, it’s tempting to find somebody to blame, and even worse, people want to blame the people with the least amount of power. But it’s never the right move, and it’s really upsetting. And I think there’s so many of us who have been wishing for something beyond a two-party system for so long anyway, and I think that’s really going to push more people who want to find a viable third-party option.
KO: What would you like folks to do? Say they’re feeling activated. They want to get involved. What steps would you like them to take?
BB: My first advice always is to find an activism buddy. Find somebody else. if nobody in your friend group wants to take action, just show up to a thing and you’ll connect with somebody who shares your interests. Go find somebody who shares your interests and you’ll hold each other accountable. That’s always my first advice. Once you have one person, then it’s easy to kind of start building out your little group, or find other groups to plug into.
KO: How do you keep political action so upbeat and positive? What are some of your tips for that?
BB: Whenever I’m designing an event, I always think about the name. Does the name sound like a fun thing that people want to show up to? So it starts with that. We’re all making decisions based on all the information that gets presented to us. So is the design fun, is the name fun, does it feel like I’m gonna get something positive out of it? So we start with that.
It’s never about toxic positivity or denying the reality of the situation that we face. We always have to be, like, very honest about the situation that we’re in. But then, how do we imagine the future that we want to live in? How do we look past this heavy moment into the future that we want to create? And then, what are the steps that we can take now to get us closer to there? The future that I want to live in is one where queer Texans, trans Texans, are free to be themselves everywhere. Where we can all pursue joy and abundance and all the things. And so we can create spaces that are like that, right now. And so that will remind us of why we’re in this fight, and what we’re pushing for, too,
KO: So we can have our smaller spaces be a model of the larger world we’d like to create. That’s so important. How do you maintain your mental health through this? What do you do to keep yourself going?
BB: I talked earlier about learning from my Texas foremothers. It really helps me to remember that I’m on a long timeline, right? We’re at this one point in history that feels really bad in so many ways, but people have made tremendous change against worse odds in the past. When I remember that and I see change that has happened, it makes me feel so much more hopeful. Also, frankly, it makes me feel less significant, which takes some pressure off. I’m just one person, doing what I can do.
The two questions that always guide my work are, ‘what does loving my community look like today?’ And that changes based on what the community’s needs are. And the second question is, ‘what would feel good for me?’ And it’s important to me to keep that balance, because if I’m only giving, then I’m gonna be depleted and I won’t have anything left to give and if I’m only focused on what feels good for me, then that’s not helpful to the community. So staying in balance helps me with my mental state and my emotional state.
