I’m getting up on my soapbox today. This is a political post. If that makes you uncomfortable, then scroll on by. But know this: living under a tyrant-king is incompatible with every principle of female-led power. Femdom does not thrive under kings. It flourishes in consent, autonomy, and freedom.

Last month I shared about my dear friends, CK and his husband, who fled Los Angeles for Canada because they no longer felt safe in the country they had built their lives in. I was relieved when they made it across the border and were welcomed with open arms by family and allies. It wasn’t a dramatic escape story, just a quiet acknowledgment that they no longer felt protected or free.

Now, one month later, we’re watching the manifestation of what they feared. The military has been deployed in our cities to intimidate and silence protesters who dare to speak out about the abuses of ICE. We are seeing state-sanctioned violence and media suppression play out in real time. We are seeing the rise of a dictator dressed up in cheap patriotism and insecurity.

Today is that dictator’s birthday, and he’s celebrating it with a pathetic attempt at a military display. A man-child who throws tantrums from the safety of a stage built on stolen valor. A man so insecure he needs tanks to feel like a king.

But he is no king. And we are not his subjects.

All across the country today, people are gathering for the No Kings protest. From tiny towns to major cities, people are rising up and saying enough. My house will be among them. I’m heading out to protest on our main road with my neighbor, houseboy at my side. Thing1 and thing2 are joining a larger protest across town. I worry for them, of course… the response to these protests has been violent in far too many places. But I am also filled with pride that they are brave enough to be there. Brave enough to raise their voices.

Many of our Magazine staff are doing the same in their own communities. Even one of our volunteer subs told me he’ll be on the streets, standing for what is right.

This isn’t about partisanship. This isn’t about red or blue. This is about dignity. This is about refusing to be ruled by fear. This is about rejecting a government that uses cruelty as its currency and demands silence as its price.

Oppression thrives in silence. Authoritarians rise when the rest of us keep our heads down. But today, we rise.

We rise with our signs. With our voices. With our bodies in the streets.

Because there are no kings here. And there never will be.