Twitter chat: How it feels to be a political minority in your community

Athena Brown is a transgender lesbian in Portland, Oregon and an active Trump supporter. April Pierson-Keating is a climate-change advocate battling stage four cancer in Buckhannon, West Virginia, and a member of the Trump resistance movement.

What do these two women have in common? Both represent political minorities in their communities who face backlash for their beliefs.

Brown says she lost hundreds of her existing friends when she came out as Republican. She and the other Trump supporters in Portland, largely identified as a liberal city, told the NewsHour that they face hatred and violence from the left. Across the country in Buckhannon, Pierson-Keating is left sobbing after attempting to educate coal country on the value of renewable energy. She and the growing group of liberal women in West Virginia, a conservative stronghold, said they suffer aggression and sexism from their Republican neighbors.

NewsHour’s Elizabeth Flock (@lizflock) spent time with these two groups as part of our two-part series on women who represent political minorities in their communities and face backlash for their beliefs. Read both stories below:

• For Trump supporters in Portland, the left is the face of intolerance
• A women’s movement grows in ‘the most Trumpian place in America’

Flock joined NewsHour (@newshour) on Twitter on Thursday, July 27, at 1 p.m. EDT to answer questions about what she learned embedding in these communities and just how political beliefs can divide the nation.

Read a recap of the conversation below —