Guest Post: OpEd to Romance Reader Community

This Guest Post comes from Kate Scaife Diaz, a longtime member of the SBTB Community, who is, like many of you, affected by the administration’s attacks on the US federal service, agencies, and programs. Kate never became a romance author, and instead spent the last 15 years supporting community development among farmers, entrepreneurs, and Indigenous communities in Latin America and around the world. She volunteers at her local library, which also needs all our support right now.

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A few years ago, I dreamed of writing a romance series – think Grey’s Anatomy, but for foreign assistance. The series would follow a cohort of idealistic recruits from diverse backgrounds headed to far-flung places. Full of passion and competence, I’d make liberal use of the “just one bed in a remote location” trope, and each book would capture an example of how international aid saves lives.

Reader, I did none of that. At some point I realized I had stopped reading romance under the guise of “background research” and kept reading it for sheer pleasure. Meanwhile, my own career in international aid took off, and let me assure you that hot and steamy usually means thigh-chafing and iguanas scuttling in the rafters above you. A bit of a vibe kill for my romance-series dreams.

And then Elon Musk, in his words, “fed USAID to the wood chipper,” effectively killing my career dreams, too. By ending USAID and upending the rule of law in our country, Musk makes for a classic romance villain. He attacked an institution that feeds orphans, protects the environment, and nurtures civil society worldwide. He used the power of chaos and a few lines of code to break the careful architecture of peaceful relations we’ve built over the last 50 years.

The heroines here are not youthful and energetic like I imagined for my series. It turns out, many of us working in international aid are relentlessly middle-aged. We are also mostly women: USAID had higher proportions of women staff, and women in leadership roles, compared to the rest of the government.

And instead of workplace romances (which tend to raise so many logistical, not to mention ethical, questions), we are passionate about… our work.

An impactful yet cost effective program gives us chills.

A well-cleaned dataset will snag our eyes and hold them.

Meeting people we’ve helped fills us with a deep sense of contentment.

And poor people are not a plot device.

There are real lives at stake, and as health centers for pregnant women across Africa close, Syrian refugee women lose access to security, and Afghani girls can no longer attend schools, thousands of lives–mostly women and girls–will be lost.

The Trump Administration has made no pretense about their attacks on women. The Executive Order ending “gender ideology” has required government websites to take down grants that address violence against women; delete information on abortion, contraception, and maternal mortality; and remove data about women in the workforce.

At USAID, we had to delete all references to the words women, female, or gender in our programs, reports, and internal documents. They took down pictures of breastfeeding women, and they even removed the signs from our lactation rooms. Women, especially transgender, minority, and immigrant women, are being systematically erased by this administration and with it our needs, our desires, and our dreams.

Since this isn’t a romance novel, I don’t know if we are going to get a happy ending.

Perhaps foreign aid will continue from within the State Department, and this whole debacle will spark renewed public support for international aid efforts. But even in that scenario, tens of thousands of my friends, neighbors, and colleagues will have lost their jobs. And countless people around the world will suffer.

We can’t let that happen. One of the most important things you can do is to tell your elected representatives to stop this administration’s dismantling of USAID and its attacks on women and girls worldwide. The app 5Calls makes it easy.

If you are a federal worker, or have been affected by this administration’s efforts to diminish women, share your story with A Mighty Girl or other outlets. Each time we share stories that center women’s passions and desires, we support each other’s resilience and even resistance.

But there’s something even more urgent you can do. In many of our favorite books, the journey to finding community is as important as finding love. And so right now, you can reach out to your friend, your neighbor, your old classmate who is a Federal worker. Ask her how she’s doing, and value her story. Ask her what she wants and what help she needs.

Right now, we are each other’s heroes, and we have to write our own happy ending.

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A brief postscript from Sarah:

The latest update as of 1 April 2025 per Reuters: nearly all USAID employees will be fired by September. All overseas offices will close, and some functions absorbed into the State Department.

I keep typing adjectives and I can’t find the right one to describe all of this. I remind myself that much of what this administration is doing can be difficult to absorb and comprehend because it is comprehensive psychological and administrative warfare. The fear and the chaos are partly the point.

There are many things you can do, from small daily actions to big loud ones. This Saturday, 5 April 2025, Indivisible is organizing a massive rally at the Washington Monument at noon. 

There are rallies all over the world, too, from HANDS OFF rallies to Tesla Takedowns where folks protest at a dealership. Mobilize.us has many options and you can search locally for in person and virtual events.

And in a fun crossover: the Tesla Takedown folks are hosting a Dance Against DOGE party outside the Smithsonian metro from 11-1 welcoming the HANDS OFF rally attendees to a big DC party. “Just show up. Let’s Dance!”

As Kate mentions, 5Calls.org is a tremendous resource for what to say when calling your federal representatives – but don’t forget to call the state ones, too. And you don’t have to call during business hours. Call after hours and leave a message if that’s easier for you.

Another resource that has helped me: 50501 has a subreddit, and flair for each state so you can isolate your own (look in the sidebar for a list of state abbreviations). They have set up a national Discord, and there are also local ones by state that can be accessed by application from within the national one. The Maryland 50501 Discord, for example, is comprehensive AF with actions, rallies, sign making parties, phone banks, state & federal representative call scripts, and local activities.

To quote Cory Booker, who this week busted Strom Thurmond’s record for filibuster with 25 straight hours of speaking, “Never let your inability to do everything undermine your determination to do something.”

Or, as Stacey Abrams said to me in a recent episode, “Everything Everywhere All at Once is a great title a film; it is a terrible mission statement. But we can all do something somewhere soon, and that that has to be our mission.”

One more quote, this time from Tanis from Letterkenny: “Skoden. Studis.”