June always fills my heart with joy and wonder because of the very real achievements of LGBTQIA activists and the rest of us who simply live our lives as out gay people. I’m celebrating hard-won victories this month. For instance, when Walter and I decided to get married, we had to go to Canada—because our union was not yet legal in the USA. That was 2007! And now equality is the law of the land. For the moment, anyway.
I’m proud. But I’m also terrified. And I think we all should be. There have always been spoilers and fanatics and White Supremacists and fundamentalists of various stripes. Most sensible people ignored the fanatics—not because they expected them to go away, but because their power base was so limited. Not so today. Now the fanatics have the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court of the Unites States by the throat. Not to mention numerous state governments.
Outliers used to communicate in dog whistles. The like-minded knew the codes for non-Whites, homosexuals, Jews, liberals, and the targets of the moment. Now these “low lives,” as Congresswoman Madeleine Dean (D-PA) called them in a recent interview on MSNBC, are so emboldened that they speak very plainly about their plans and prejudices as they pursue their “celebration of indecency” in a Congress that has become “a very sad circus.”
But of course, it’s not just about the recent debt-limit-increase shenanigans. Book bans, purging of school curricula, and hate speech as free speech—that’s exactly how fascists and autocrats do it. Have for generations. And everyone knows it. Any court that can disenfranchise half the population (Dobbs) can be expected to attack more than just the autonomy of women and their right to medical care. Is Marriage next? You tell me.
Despite the new transparency of hate speech among the MAGA wing of Americans, there is a newly minted code word that chills my blood every time I hear it: Trans. The new power word among haters. Everyone with a whit of intelligence knows that trans people make up such a tiny portion of the global population—1% to 2% perhaps?—that they have been able to fly under the radar for ages. No longer. Now they are fair game, and in some states their parents can be arrested for seeking proper medical care for their children.
The suffering is real. But every time I hear the word Trans, I hear, “Get ready faggots and Jews, because you’re next.” It’s not pretty, boys and girls and everyone else. I wish I had some answers. I have none. But I do know that awareness and voting and activism are more important than ever. But I’ll step down from my soap box and celebrate this lovely month!
Thanks for joining me on this journey,
Bruce
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