Welcome to The Social Swarm Speak, where on Fridays, I dive into the issues that truly get my hive in an uproar. Today, as we stare down the barrel of the upcoming 2024 presidential election, I can’t shake a chilling feeling, a persistent “buzz” of dread that reminds me of one of my all-time favorite (and most terrifying) dystopian novels: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
As a liberal, a gay man, and someone who’s seen a bit of life, I fear that America, the land of the free, could very easily be on a path towards its own dystopian nightmare. It’s not about a sudden, dramatic collapse, but rather a slow, insidious erosion of freedoms, a gradual heating of the water that could boil us alive before we even realize it. Atwood herself famously said, “Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub, you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.” And honestly, looking at the current landscape, that bathtub is feeling mighty warm.
Let’s break down how the threads of Gilead seem to be weaving their way into the fabric of our nation, a pattern that should make us all, regardless of political affiliation, pause and truly consider the direction we’re headed.
The Retreat of Reproductive Freedom: A Woman’s Body, A State’s Control
One of the most immediate and stark parallels to The Handmaid’s Tale is the dramatic rollback of abortion freedom. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we’ve witnessed a seismic shift that echoes Gilead’s fundamental premise of state control over women’s bodies. As of December 2024, 12 states have enacted total abortion bans, and another 4 states have implemented 6-week gestational bans. This isn’t just theoretical legal maneuvering; it has devastating real-world consequences, creating a human rights crisis where access to essential healthcare depends entirely on zip code and resources.
A Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study found that abortion bans in just 14 states resulted in an estimated 22,180 additional live births and 478 more infant deaths than expected between September 2021 and August 2022. The impact is not felt equally: alarmingly, Black infants died at a rate 11.0% higher than expected in these states, accounting for 265 additional infant deaths. This disproportionately affects marginalized communities, who already face systemic barriers. While the overall number of abortions nationally has surprisingly increased by 11% since 2020 (largely due to increased interstate travel and telehealth medication, a testament to resilience and ingenuity in the face of adversity), the reality on the ground in many states is one of severe restriction. This forces individuals to carry unwanted or unsafe pregnancies to term, much like the Handmaids in Gilead are brutally reduced to their reproductive function. The fear of criminalization for both pregnant people and healthcare providers is palpable, creating a climate of fear that impacts all reproductive health. This erosion of bodily autonomy directly reflects the dehumanizing policies that defined Atwood’s dystopian vision.
The Swarm Against Queer & Trans Rights: Erasure and Fear
Another deeply unsettling parallel to Gilead is the relentless attack on trans rights and the broader LGBTQ+ lifestyle. The legislative “swarm” against the queer community has reached unprecedented levels, aiming not just to restrict rights but to erase identities entirely, pushing trans and queer individuals further into the shadows. The Trans Legislation Tracker reports a record-breaking 937 anti-trans bills under consideration across 49 states in 2025, with 114 already passed. This follows 701 bills in 2024 and 615 in 2023, showing a terrifying, exponential acceleration of discriminatory efforts. My home state of Texas alone leads with 130 anti-trans bills in 2025, a grim indicator of the battlefront.
These bills are not merely symbolic. They encompass a wide range of harmful policies: bans on gender-affirming care for minors (and increasingly for adults), restrictions on sports participation for trans youth, bathroom bans, and limitations on the use of gender-affirming pronouns in schools. The impact on mental health and well-being within the LGBTQ+ community is devastating, leading to increased stigma and reduced access to vital resources. A February 2025 Pew Research Center survey found that public sentiment is shifting, with majorities of U.S. adults (e.g., 66%) favoring policies requiring trans athletes to compete on teams matching their sex assigned at birth, and 56% favoring banning gender transition care for minors. Support for protecting trans people from discrimination has actually dropped by 8 percentage points since 2022, indicating a troubling normalization of prejudice. This rhetoric and legislation don’t just restrict rights; they actively aim to erase identities, echoing Gilead’s enforced conformity where only prescribed roles are permitted. The real-world consequences are dire: LGBTQ+ individuals are five times more likely to be victims of violent crime and nine times more likely to experience violent hate crimes than non-LGBTQ+ people, with Black LGBT individuals facing the highest rates of victimization. The very right to publicly exist as one’s authentic self is under assault.
The Buzz of Extreme Rhetoric, Racism, and Bigotry: Normalizing the Unthinkable
Perhaps the most insidious shift, and one that lays the groundwork for any slide into dystopia, lies in the terrifying rise of extreme rhetoric, racism, and bigotry. The language we hear in political discourse has become increasingly dehumanizing, aggressive, and conspiratorial, normalizing sentiments that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. This fuels tangible, real-world harm and violence, directly mirroring the indoctrination and propaganda used to control the populace in The Handmaid’s Tale.
This rampant spread of hate speech is not merely online; it translates to physical attacks. The FBI reported 11,862 hate crime incidents in 2023, a slight increase from 2022 and the highest number since the agency began tracking such incidents in 1991. This isn’t just a statistical blip; it represents real people being targeted for who they are. Racial bias was the most common motivation, accounting for 5,900 incidents in 2023, with over half (3,027) targeting Black individuals. Anti-Jewish incidents (1,832) reached their highest recorded level, signaling a broader resurgence of antisemitism from various ideological corners. Even within the LGBTQ+ community, hate crimes based on **sexual orientation (**2,077 incidents) and **gender identity (**492 incidents) also hit their highest recorded levels in 2023. We’ve seen a disturbing surge in anti-Asian hate, with a 66% increase in online anti-Asian slurs since the 2024 election to January 2025, often driven by xenophobic narratives. This constant barrage of hostility, often amplified by loosened content moderation policies on social media, creates an environment ripe for the kind of social control, mistrust, and fear seen in Atwood’s cautionary tale. When dissent is demonized, and specific groups are scapegoated, the path to a totalitarian regime becomes chillingly clear.
Finding Hope in the Hive: Our Collective Resistance
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, like the walls of Gilead are truly closing in, bit by bit. The parallels are stark, the statistics are grim, and the future can feel profoundly uncertain. The weight of it all can be paralyzing, tempting us to retreat into our own private “hives.” But just as Mayday fought back in The Handmaid’s Tale, our own “swarm” of resistance and hope continues to buzz and grow stronger.
My personal journey, particularly my fight with cancer, taught me that life is precious and fleeting, too valuable to spend in fear or inaction. It instilled in me a fierce commitment to live authentically and to fight for the rights and dignity of all. We must cherish our hard-won freedoms, actively protect our most vulnerable communities, and keep fighting for the inclusive, equitable, and democratic society we believe in. This requires more than just passive observation; it demands active participation, engagement, and a refusal to normalize the unthinkable.
This Friday, as the week closes, I urge you to stay vigilant. Pay attention to the rhetoric, understand the legislation, and recognize the patterns that are dangerously familiar. Our future depends on whether we allow the water to keep heating, or if we finally rise up, amplify our voices, and turn off the heat before it’s too late. The fight for freedom and human dignity is a continuous one, and our collective buzz is our most powerful weapon.
What are your thoughts on these parallels? Do you feel the same chilling “buzz”? Share your perspectives and calls to action in the comments below.