The current political climate caused Josey Nett and Grace Duncan, who met as freshmen in college, to change their long-term plans.
Josephine Adel Nett is a planner. So, one night in July 2023, even though she and her girlfriend of more than four years, Grace Elena Chun Duncan, weren’t yet engaged, they envisioned the next few years of their lives together. This included a 2026 wedding, traveling the world in 2027, and, hopefully, starting a family in 2028.
On the night of Nov. 5, before the election was even called, Ms. Nett abruptly changed her mind.
“I’m gonna throw up,” she texted Ms. Duncan, who was on duty that night, at the Portland V.A. Medical Center, where she works as a registered nurse.
Ms. Nett said she fears for the rights of same-sex couples to marry under the new administration. And, she added, they simply did not want to marry while President Trump, whom they do not support, is in office, feeling it would “always be a blight to the memory of the day.”
She told Ms. Duncan they must marry before Inauguration Day. Romantic proposal, it was not.
The next day, Ms. Nett, who goes by Josey, spent two hours searching for appointments in the city halls of Portland, Ore., where the couple live, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Ms. Duncan was raised.
Ms. Nett’s search yielded openings in Alameda County, but for Ms. Duncan, who grew up in Oakland, Calif., only San Francisco’s majestic City Hall would do. After hours of its website functioning slowly because of high traffic, she found a slot.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
The couple met as freshmen at Boston College in 2016 while playing on the Ultimate frisbee team.
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