Not that they wait until June to make their bigotry known, but they seem to really ramp it up during Pride Month.
The most recent talking point among the bigots is that their opposition to anything having to do with gay people, transgender people, diversity, equality...even books, is that "they" are coming for "our kids". The bigots' assumption is that acknowledging that LBGTQ+ people exist, and making public spaces welcoming, not only to the majority, i.e. white, cisgender, heterosexuals, is pushing inappropriate discussion of sexuality on children, or in its more extreme iterations, "sexualizing" children, or grooming them for pedophilia. The overwhelming majority of adults in this country certainly don't want to "sexualize" children and want to keep them safe from pedophiles. They don't believe that pornography should be available in grade school libraries. They don't want third graders focusing on sex. But the bigots have redefined the terms, just have they redefined "woke" and "Critical Race Theory". To them, recognizing that there are LBGTQ+ people out there who deserve to be treated with respect, and viewing LBGTQ+ people as just as "normal" as non-LBGTQ+ people is sexualizing, grooming and even child abuse. Pornography is reimagined as two male penguins raising a baby penguin together.
They're not concerned about children, that's just a cover for their bigotry, hatred and contempt for LBGTQ+ people. Even this year's signature issue, denying gender-affirming care for transgender youth zooms in on surgeries that they characterize as mutilations and castration quickly devolves into mockery and disdain for transgender people, whether they opt for any kind of medical intervention or not.
The bigots often say that they don't have a problem with gay or transgender people, but that they're tired of their agenda, or of having it "shoved down their throats". They wonder aloud why there is even such a thing as "LBGTQ+ Pride Month"; why there isn't a straight pride month, why "they" define themselves solely in terms of their sexuality. Well, it's not LBGTQ+ people who define themselves solely in terms of who they want to have sex with, it's always been the bigots and the haters who have done that. Queer people that I know are students, business owners, musicians, photographers, parents, athletes, spiritual advisors, teachers, comedians, authors and government workers. Not one of them has discussed with me (or anyone else in my presence anyway) or made it the center of who they are, that they prefer sex with [fill in the blank]. No, it's always been the bigots who have ignored the entirety of a person's life and worth and defined them primarily (if not entirely) in terms of who they preferred to have sex with. (In general, it's never the marginalized people who define themselves solely with respect to what makes them different, it's the majority, oppressing, population who "others" them and forces them to identify as such.)
So why do we need a "Pride Month" for LBGTQ+ people? Is it any surprise that after years and decades and centuries of being discriminated against, beaten and killed based on one aspect of their lives, that a marginalized demographic will stand up and say "Hell no! - We're not ashamed of who we are, we're not going to skulk in the shadows, we're PROUD of who we are".
Why is that so hard to understand?
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