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cw: violence, homophobia
as the election and the possibility of organized right wing violence approaches, I want to express something to my fellow very young gay people:
as the election and the possibility of organized right wing violence approaches, I want to express something to my fellow very young gay people:
for most of our lives, at this particular juncture in history, many of us have felt safe, and as though our rights are more or less guaranteed, and have not yet felt death, disease, insecurity, and lack of safety, from peers and employers, from strangers on the street.
incidences where we have been truly unsafe have largely been cast as isolated "backwards" experiences, and "it's 2020" or "it's 2017" or whatever have always been sort of rallying cries about progressiveness-- homophobia is behind us, the narrative goes, rainbow capitalism won,
our generation is accepting, and so on and so forth,- it's true, sort of, for many LGBTQ people, especially cis LGB ppl for whom acceptance is coming quicker than for trans people. but we need to remember that queer people have not always been safe, and will not always be safe.
in fascism and when the right wing has power, our very lives are at stake in terrifying ways that we do not understand, because (for the most part) most young gay people in America growing up in the 21st century haven't experienced what the generations before us experienced.
So I have this to say: things may get worse than they have ever been for us. Cling to your chosen families. Lean on each other. Don't let other queer people slip through the cracks. Activate support networks ahead of time.
Remember that we are for each other. The acceptance, rights, tolerance, and feelings of safety that we have gained are fragile, as we all know-- and those older than us can (and should!) be quick to remind us that it's a privilege to not yet have fully realized HOW fragile.
it's a privilege to be born in this time, when we had access to whatever rights the state gave us, and illusions of protection. But the right wants the queer dead, and we should remember that our goal can't JUST be to retain our own legal, state-granted rights--
but to form coalitions with other oppressed groups, to prioritize the recognition that all oppressed Others are targets of the right wing, to prefer solidarity to whatever fragile security we might have gained as a spared minority from the death machine of neoliberalism--
and to fight against the thing that would have us all dead. this requires realizing that it does want us all dead and then loving each other with all the strength and desperation that such a realization entails.
so things may get bad! and as we grow into adulthood they may get worse rather than better, when we may have expected that they would only get better in a linear sort of dan savage fashion. and those older than us and in different demographics told us and are telling us.
the people I'm talking to have been kids, are just barely becoming adults, promised a world of freedom & tolerance- I was 13 when Obergefell happened. it sounds unbelievable & is an unbelievable privilege, but many of us have truly never experienced the fragility of queer life.
but we can still have that world. there is another world that is possible, different from this one. so hold on, whatever comes. survive this year and whatever comes from this era out of spite of them. survive out of love for yourself and for your friends and lovers.
