opened fire at an Orlando LGBTQ nightclub, Pulse, in June 2016.

The decade ended with the interring of Matthew Shepard’s ashes (in 2018) and the unveiling of a plaque earlier this month at Washington’s National Cathedral. His parents Judy and Dennis recently described to me how it felt to know he was finally “safe,” and voiced their disgust with President Trump. The battle to outlaw conversion therapy continues, state by state.

Politically, the last 10 years in American LGBTQ politics began with marriage equality as a red-button pivot, motivating activists pro and anti. The result was a win for equality, even if—under Trump—its hangover and practical and ideological remnants are still being contested by anti-LGBTQ groups keen to scupper its import.

Obama had undergone his own “evolution” around LGBTQ rights, whichfrustrated many at the time—even if he eventually reached the right destination. Following a momentous SCOTUS ruling, marriage equality was finally legalized nationwide in 2015; the Obama White House was wreathed in the colors of the rainbow that June evening to mark both the key civil-rights victory and Pride month.

But ever since Trump’s election, the victory and meaning of marriage equality—so hard fought, and a brilliant achievement­­­­­­­­—has become imperiled, alongside other LGBTQ rights and protections.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the searingly-phrased ruling in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, has retired. He was also the deciding vote in the key LGBT-focused SCOTUS cases of Romer v. Evans, Lawrence v. Texas, and Windsor v. the United States, culminating in the striking down in 2013 of the discriminatory section of