“Are we safe?”

That’s the question of the day among so many LGBT people I know in the wake of Donald Trump’s crushing victory over Hillary Clinton. Same-sex couples say they are rushing to the altar ahead of the likely appointment of a “Scalia 2.0” to the Supreme Court. (Many worry that a change in the same-sex marriage law might invalidate existing unions, too.) Meanwhile, the gay white father of an African American son told me he’s deeply concerned that his teen will now be bullied because of the “otherness” of his family. Then a young gay man from Israel living in the United States asked me on Facebook: “Will my fiance now be deported because he’s Muslim?” And a trans activist tells me she fears for her “body and life, which are now on the line.”

These are just a few of the intersecting anxieties ricocheting around us after Tuesday’s election — and prompting important and painful conversations in the LGBT community about what exactly to do about the surge in discrimination that is expected to come. Fight fire with fire? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Civil disobedience?

Jacob Tobia, a 25-year-old transgender Arab American, is one of many young activists urging an “intersectional” approach, acknowledging that individuals experience different kinds of discrimination based on their different identities. The theory of intersectionality pushes us to understand ourselves — and others — as having overlapping identities that include gender, race, sexual orientation and religion. Tobia said in the wake of Tuesday’s election, “[LGBT people] need to start prioritizing intersectional issues — state violence, income inequality, immigration, health care and voter suppression, to name a few — with the same vehemence that was given to [same-sex] marriage.”

[LGBT and GOP? 12 percent of the community supports Trump]

This is another way of saying you can’t end one kind of oppression or discrimination without eliminating the others, which is why it is imperative that LGBT people do better at listening to and supporting one another from different communities. And, vice versa.

Barry Yeoman, a gay man and an investigative journalist, agrees. “This election feels like a referendum on the ‘other’ by white, working-class Americans who feel economically insecure, and when some groups are targeted for scapegoating, the rest of us will be, too.” When politicians are “whipping up hate” against women, immigrants, refugees, people of color and the disabled, Yeoman says, LGBT people must understand that that “harms us, too, in equal measures.”

I’d also add a core constituency of Trump’s into this mix: white Americans without a college degree. People of color have long understood that the ladders for economic mobility are broken; the results of this election make clear — or should make clear — that the same is true regardless of race. “Millions of Americans in the majority of states clearly feel disenfranchised,” Liz Margolies, the founder and executive director of the National LGBT Cancer Network, says. “Even if they seem privileged to me, their vote conveyed that this system isn’t working for them, either. And, while I don’t share their proposed solution or choice of leader . . . I want to listen respectfully to their pain.”

That doesn’t preclude the anger I’m hearing from many LGBT people now, including Noah Michelson, editorial director of the Huffington Post’s Voices, who wrote: “There are plenty of homosexuals who want to ‘out love’ our enemies and that’s fine if that’s your thing but it’s not my scene.” With all sincerity, I say go for it, Noah, and to the thousands participating in anti-Trump marches nationwide. Civil disobedience is as American as apple pie.

For the rest of us who feel like strangers in our own land, we need to understand better the ties that bind us rather than that which divides us. It’s now time, as Freedom to Marry founder Evan Wolfson said, “to listen, learn, think and move forward.” Or as Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah told me: “We must face defeat by building stronger communities, find beauty in the world around us and not allow this political defeat to undermine our humanity.” Amen, Rabbi.

Email questions to Civilities at stevenpetrow@gmail.com (unfortunately not all questions can be answered). You can reach him on Facebook at facebook.com/stevenpetrow and on Twitter @stevenpetrow. Join him for a chat online at washingtonpost.com on Nov. 22 at 1 p.m.