Suffice it to say, we all know members of the LGBTQ+ community. They are our family, our neighbors, our fellow congregants, our co-workers, our teachers and principals, and all around us. If you don’t believe that’s the case, if you believe that the LGBTQ+ community is more of a threat to you than the threats they are experiencing now from our politicians and other haters, then I really don’t want to know you.
I’ve had just about enough of the trans and gay communities being vilified by politicians, pundits, and other pricks. Since these haters seem to have no problem interjecting their ideas about morality into the private lives of others, I have no problem returning the favor by telling them they are immoral, inhuman, un-American, and I’d go so far as to say un-Christian too. How dare these people keep blaming the LGBTQ+ community for anything and using them as human pawns in your attempt to divide this country?
It doesn’t have to be this way, and it won’t be in a couple of decades. The young generations are discovering their identities and being out and proud like never before. They won’t stand for this hate for too long. I believe LGBTQ+ issues are the fault line that will tank the right, or at least I hope so. It’s the wedge war they started, and good people and even businesses are just going to finish it.
Until then, it’s going to continue to be ugly, hateful, and even violent…just like it is every day for the BIPOC community.
It may offend some of my black friends, but I believe parents of trans kids need to their our own version of “the talk” that black parents have with their kids. I know of this only through the media, as I have no experience being black or having black kids: many black parents tell their children, particularly boys and young men, how to behave if they’re ever pulled over by a cop, how to be respectful, how not to argue, how not to make sudden movements, etc. This is just one of the many ways that white people will never understand the daily lives of black people unless they have one in their nuclear family.
But now parents of trans kids need to have this talk. Trans kids could be anywhere, in any state—red or blue—and the haters will be gunning for them. These tiny little men with their big guns have itchy trigger fingers the same way that cops apparently have for black people. And I blame our politicians for sowing this hate in the name of votes.
How did we get here? I mean we in our communities, we as a nation, we as a people, we as the human race. Why should any parent have to have a talk with their kids about the world being more dangerous for them than it is for other kids? So much for all of us being equal under the law.
Our kids, yours and mine, have their whole lives ahead of them. All kids have challenges, and the rise of depression and anxiety has exploded since the pandemic (not that they were great before). Kids shouldn’t have to overcome large swaths of America hating them, bullying them verbally or violently, or voting for politicians who tell them trans people are the problem with everything in their lives while doing absolutely nothing to solve the real problems in this country.
Hate is the bigger problem, perhaps the biggest problem in our nation right now. We should have filters on when someone tells us a whole group is to blame for our problems. We wouldn’t accept such talk from our neighbors, our friends, our co-workers, our faith leaders, or anyone else. Why do any of us applaud it when politicians talk this way and demonize people who are different?
I see the only solution as drowning out this noise. We need to shine a light on hate when politicians or anyone else talks down about a whole group of people or uses them as political pawns, whether they’re LGBTQ+, migrants, black people, or anyone else. The LGBTQ+ community has exponentially more allies than haters out there, and it’s time for us allies to speak louder about politicians who hate. The Ron DeSantis’s of the world dredge up a lot of the anger and violence out there. But as Dr. King said, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Allies need to talk about love and drown out the haters.
Calling out these haters is my new mission, and I am fully engaged. We need all good people to join in.
