“Doctor Who” Writer, Russell T Davies, Warns Gay Society Faces “Darkest Time” Under Trump And Musk
According to The Guardian, Russell T Davies has warned that gay society faces the “greatest danger” he has seen in his lifetime following Donald Trump’s recent election victory in the United States.
During his speech at the Gaydio Pride Awards, Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T. Davies sent a warning signal to the LGBTQ community about the dangers that Donald Trump and Elon Musk represent. / #DoctorWho #LGBTQ
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The Doctor Who screenwriter spoke at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester last Friday. He expressed serious concerns about rising hostility towards gay people. “As a gay man, I feel like a wave of anger, and violence, and resentment is heading towards us on a vast scale,” Davies told The Guardian.
Davies, now 61, has seen many changes in his lifetime. “I know gay society very, very well, and I think we’re in the greatest danger I have ever seen,” he said. His worry stems from real experiences. “I’ve literally seen a difference in the way I’m spoken to as a gay man since that November election.”
Since taking office, Trump has canceled policies that protected LGBTQIA+ Americans from discrimination. His administration has also limited access to gender-affirming healthcare. The president has stated the US would only accept two sexes and has stopped transgender people from joining the military.
Davies used his speech at the awards to criticise both Trump and Elon Musk. “I think times are darkening beyond all measure and beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime,” he told the crowd, which included singers Louise Redknapp and Katy B, plus contestants from The Traitors, Leanne Quigley and Minah Shannon.
Davies recalled leaving home in 1981, the same year that “rumours and whispers of a strange new virus came along, which came to haunt our community and to test us in so many ways”.
What made that earlier crisis different from today? The community fought back. They “militarised, campaigned, marched and demanded the medicine,” said Davies. “We demanded the science. We demanded the access.”
When writing Queer As Folk in the late 1990s, Davies was part of a movement putting gay and lesbian characters on screen. If asked then about life for LGBTQIA+ people in 2025, he would have hoped for “all rainbows” and “equality, equality, equality.”
The danger now, Davies believes, is even greater than that of the 1980s. “The threat from America, it’s like something at The Lord Of The Rings. It’s like an evil rising in the west, and it is evil,” Davies said.
He points to a new factor: “We’ve had bad prime ministers, and we’ve had bad presidents before. What we’ve never had is a billionaire tech baron openly hating his trans daughter.”
Musk, who now leads the “department of government efficiency,” bought Twitter and renamed it X. A study from the University of California, Berkeley found that hate speech on the platform grew by 50% after Musk bought it.
“We have never had this in the history of the world,” Davies said. “It is terrifying because he and the people like him are in control of the facts, they’re in control of information, they’re in control of what people think.”
Despite these fears, Davies believes the gay community will respond as it always has. “What we will do in Elon Musk’s world, that we’re heading towards, is what artists have always done,” he told The Guardian, “which is to meet in cellars, and plot, and sing, and compose, and paint, and make speeches, and march.”
Will this strategy work against such powerful opposition? Davies seems confident in the community’s resilience. “If we have to be those rebels in basements yet again, which is when art thrives, then that’s what we’ll become.”
Can we find strength in our shared history of resistance? The answer is clear in Davies’ comments about how the community has always gathered “at night” in “times of peril” to fight against hostility and oppression.
