I started PRISM when I was 17. I didn’t know anyone in the nonprofit scene, I had never worked for a nonprofit before, and I was completely lost. But in good ‘ole American fashion, I picked myself up by my bootstraps, opened up my laptop, and read all 87 pages of Chapter 617 of the Florida Statutes for nonprofits. If I’m going to do this, I thought, I better do it right. If I want to be taken seriously, I need to know everything there is to know.

And so began two grueling years of pretending that I was older, wiser, and significantly more charming than I actually was. This wasn’t new to me; in the three equally grueling years of high school that led up to this facade, I dated (and some may say was groomed by) a man nine years my senior. Looking older, wiser, and significantly more charming was the defining challenge of my adolescence.

All of that shattered in 2022, when I was swept up in one of the largest student movements of the 21st century: the statewide – and then nationwide – walkouts in protest of the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill. I witnessed so many people my age and younger who were proud of their youth, who recognized it as a powerful and integral piece of their identity. In a profoundly sentimental evening in the bathroom, I shaved my face after realizing I had been using my facial hair as a mask to conceal who I was. My twenties would have no place for shame.

It’s 2024, and PRISM is now four years old. I’ve graced the cover of this paper three times – its predecessor even made me Person of the Year once – and yet I feel like I’m exactly where I was before anyone knew my name.

In this alternate universe I’ve been so hesitant to enter, I too often feel compelled to take on the necessary evil of smiling and gritting my teeth and nodding along at every advance. Every grant proposal is preceded by a proposal for a ménage à trois. Everything is cute, or it’s sexy, or it’s too loud and too abrasive. I’m forced to witness the chortle of a transphobic joke at a fundraiser on Wilton Drive before every check. I’ll be put on a pedestal so donors older than my dad can get a better view. To them, I’m candy, I’m meat, I’m prey, and they’ll pay by the pound until there’s nothing left of me to sell.

That’s exactly what I told a man earlier this year that I met at a young adult networking event. I was by far the youngest one there, and I felt beyond out of place. As I was walking back to my car, he invited me to get tapas with his friend down the street. Tapas became a glass of wine. When his friend offered another, I told him I had to drive home. He poured another glass anyways.

When I was no longer capable of driving, he offered to let me come back to his apartment a few blocks away to sober up. They both seemed nice enough, they knew I had a partner, and they had already heard me drone on about how much I hate being hit on and objectified by old men. Maybe most importantly, the first man had made it a point to talk about a recent $10,000 event sponsorship his business had given to a less-than-grateful nonprofit.

And so we talked for a few more hours about all sorts of things. PRISM, his job, my partner, our pets, and what it was like to be surrounded by people who think they can purchase a night with you. And as he nodded along, he placed his hand on my knee. I ignored it, thinking if I pretended it wasn’t happening he might take a hint and break contact. But I felt his hand slowly slide further and further up my thigh until, finally, I told him that I was sober enough to drive now. I made it three blocks, pulled into an auto repair shop parking lot, and prayed that someone was still awake to pick me up.

In South Florida, queer liberation starts with letting rich men strip you of everything you are, grinning into the camera as they tear your printed face to shreds and paste down a collaged mouth that can’t yell back at them through a megaphone.

You call young people the future, but what kind of future can my generation create if success necessitates abuse? You are so ready to pass the baton onto Gen Z, but how do you expect us to cross the finish line when you shackle our feet to the pavement because you can’t trust us to run without your supervision or control?

I’m tired. Not because of DeSantis, not because of “Don’t Say Gay” bills, but because of you.

Maxx Fenning is the Founder and Executive Director of PRISM, a youth-led nonprofit that works to expand access to LGBT-inclusive education and sexual health resources for young people in South Florida.