How Are You, LGBTQ Friends?
Attacks on our community raise my anxiety, but together we rise.
A friend and I recently had a serious conversation about the current attacks on the LGBTQ community. We shared our feelings of increased stress and the heavy toll on our mental health. We had worked together on same-sex marriage and equality for decades. Setbacks and pushbacks are always part of the fight. We wondered aloud, why did this new backlash feel different?
As we talked it through, we decided the difference was that we always felt before as if we were gaining acceptance in the world. The progress might have been minuscule, but it was forward.
The arc of history appeared to bend toward justice, even if things weren’t perfect. The Supreme Court legalized and upheld our marriages. Attitudes toward LGBTQ people were getting better. LGBTQ anti-discrimination laws gave us a little breathing room. Sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional, homophobic bigots like Anita Bryant were fading into history, and even some churches were opening their doors to LGBTQ people.
Now, after decades of steady progress, our rights are again under assault. Republicans are coordinating fast and furious attacks on our freedoms with shocking intensity and cruelty. Their intent is the elimination of LGBTQ citizens from public society. Under the guise of “protecting” children, they will accept only the complete erasure of our lives. Figuratively or literally doesn’t seem to matter.
This non-stop vitriol is seeping into every facet of society at this point. School curriculum, extra-curricular activities, public libraries, DEI training in the workplace, entertainment venues, social media, TV shows, movies, with the media breathlessly hyping every moment for maximum clicks and drama. There is no escaping the barrage of hostility designed to cast us as dangerous.
I don’t know about you, but I am bone-tired and emotionally exhausted from the firehose of hatred.
The groomer label deliberately depicts LGBTQ people as pedophiles who sexualize children and has always been the go-to slur that stands the test of time. It is the driving idea behind every wave of homophobia and transphobia. This time the worst anti-LGBTQ forces use the power of social media to advance their attacks. They widen the campaign by fear and intimidation, to include threats against allies designed to silence their support.
The strategy works more often than we’d like to admit. The silence of family & friends cuts deep. It’s difficult to watch the ease with which they choose to ignore the harm by claiming some nebulous child protection from those people, without once considering they are insinuating their child needs protection from their own family or friends. They willfully ignore the anti-LGBTQ activists who paint us as dangerous predators and justify discrimination and violence against our community.
These are dangerous and painful times. Some days I struggle to smile through my tears. My heart aches with each new discriminatory bill, headline, or ugly comment piling on. Then, I remember all of you. My community.
So, I wanted to check in on you, to say if you are feeling pain, you are not alone. We will always be here to hold each other up because that’s what family does. We must.
The extremists hope to push us back into the closet and erase our lives from public view by using fear to dehumanize and demoralize us. We have been here before, fighting the hate. They will not succeed because we will demand recognition of our dignity and humanity.
When you feel overwhelmed and discouraged, practice self-care and take a break. We feel the pain because we’re human. Step back when you need to. Find a way to disconnect and recharge. I’ll cover your spot as we hold the line in the ongoing fight for our human rights. Together we will survive and thrive in our truth. Together we will rise.
I will leave you with the words of the great Maya Angelou, who spoke of resilience and hope in the face of sustained bigotry in her classic poem Still I Rise:
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
