Still Here: In Increasingly Indifferent Texas, Women Cope and Survive by Building Communities of Care

Some days, Texas feels too big for its own good. The sky stretches wide and high, the roads seem endless, and opinions fill the air thicker than the heat and humidity. It can hold so much, but not always gentleness. 

Being a Desi woman here means standing in that vast, complicated space — visible but still unseen, constantly balancing pride and exhaustion. Some of the heaviness comes from systems that were never built for us. Reproductive healthcare feels like a shrinking map with fewer clinics, fewer choices, and more judgment.

Every year, it gets a little harder to find doctors who take our concerns seriously. I’ve watched friends drive hours just to find basic care, and others delay treatment because the cost feels impossible. We’re told that women’s health “matters,” but often that seems in theory only — not in legislation, not in budget line items, not in exam rooms where our pain or symptoms are doubted.

And when it comes to women of color, the disbelief runs deeper. We’re expected to be strong, to “tolerate” pain, to be grateful just to be seen. Contrary to Texas stereotypes, the bias isn’t always loud; sometimes it shows up in the way a doctor avoids eye contact or cuts you off mid-sentence. 

Once, I was referred by my rheumatologist to a neurologist (a pain specialist), to

talk about my debilitating muscle and arthritic pain. He listened just long enough to tell me it was probably in my head, that I should just push through or “deal with it,” as I already had for years. He was a man of color, too, and still, he dismissed me completely. 

How are women supposed to build trust in a system that looks at our pain and asks us to endure it? The same kind of invisibility is sometimes found at home. Domestic violence laws might look “supportive” on paper, but they don’t always fit the realities of many women — women who are told never to “break the family,” even when that family is breaking them. 

I’ve seen survivors stuck between shame and safety, afraid to speak because the police, the courts, or their communities might not stand with them. 

I’ve seen survivors stuck between shame and safety, afraid to speak because the police, the courts, or their communities might not stand with them. The despair isn’t just about violence; it’s about how the world keeps expecting us to be strong and heal in silence. It’s exhausting being praised for resilience by systems that refuse to bend. If those systems truly changed, maybe resilience wouldn’t always be the price of survival.

But underneath all that ache, there’s a latent but strong current: community. Not the Facebook kind or the kind you find on flyers, but the real kind — built from late-night phone calls or texts, shared meals, and words of courage. The kind that shows up when everything else fails.

Women have always survived by building our own systems. Someone drops off food when another can’t leave the house. Someone translates medical forms. A small group starts meeting over chai to check in, to share resources, to remind each other that they are not crazy, and not alone. It doesn’t always look like activism, but it is. 

It’s survival through connection. It’s dignity built from care.And right now, in this landscape, it matters more than ever. Because the world feels harder, harsher, less forgiving. Access is vanishing, safety nets are thinning, and isolation has turned

into a quiet epidemic. When laws strip away autonomy, when the healthcare system mistrusts us, when families still tell survivors to stay silent, in a place that keeps trying to harden us, community becomes more than comfort — it becomes hope, even resistance.

Community is a reminder that we are not disposable. That care and dignity must be inherent and not privileges to be earned. That our stories — our pain, our truths, our joy — still belong to us. It’s a reclamation. This is why we build. Not because it’s easy, but because without it, despair and fear win. 

When we sit beside each other — when we listen, laugh, grieve, and dream together — we start to undo the damage of systems designed to keep us divided or quiet. Connection doesn’t erase the injustice, but it makes it survivable. And sometimes, that’s how transformation begins: with one person saying to another, I see you. You matter. Let’s keep going.

Texas is still a dichotomy — still big, still small, and still imperfect. But across that bigness, circles are forming — in houses of worship and living rooms, in coffee shops and carpool lines, in classrooms and clinics. Women, still showing up, still finding each other, still building small sanctuaries of care that ripple outward.

Maybe that’s what keeps me going. Not resilience or blind optimism, but faith in each other. Because in a place that so often asks us to be quiet, choosing connection is the loudest, most radical thing we can do.

Still here. Still holding. Still building.

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Swati Narayan was born in Houston, Texas to immigrant Indian parents. Her childhood experiences informed her views on justice and the right for all to have access to quality education and life opportunities. She attended public schools, and then the University of Texas and University of Houston. She has worked in the nonprofit sector both in India and in her home city of Houston focusing her efforts on underserved women, children, and underrepresented communities and is currently a nonprofit director in southeast Texas. Swati serves on the Board of Directors for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, and on the Advisory Board of University of Houston’s Friends of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and is an active volunteer in gun violence prevention efforts. Self-motivated and always challenging herself and others to continually delve deeper, Swati is an optimist at heart. Her activism is inspired by the strength of the human spirit. She looks forward to a day where people and organizations thrive by embracing and valuing differences in order to foster belonging. Swati is the mother of three sons and resides with her husband and their rescue dog, Aspen.