Unto the breach

Today I dodged a battle on social media, and I honestly don't know if it makes me a coward or just someone who tries to be prudent about which battles are even winnable.

The person in question, an acquaintance I only know through a mutual friend but who connected to me a couple of years ago for reasons unknown, has thrown out some questionable stuff before, but nothing as bad as this. " There aren't many genders," she posted.  "There are TWO genders and many mental disorders."

After I stopped seeing red enough that I could tell what was on my computer screen, I pondered a variety of responses I could have made.  Among the top contenders:

• "Wow, that's some weapons-grade stupidity, right there."
• "Do you realize what a narrow-minded bigot this makes you sound like?"
• "Get off your fucking high horse and do some research."

Then I calmed down a little more, and considered other, marginally less obnoxious responses:

• "Maybe before you post stuff like this, you should talk to someone who is trans and get actual information on what it's like."
• "I believe the Bible you claim to be so fond of has a lot more to say about charity, kindness, and passing judgment than it does about the biology of gender.  You should reread those verses."
• "I hope like hell your grandchildren don't turn out to be LGBTQ.  For their sake, not for yours."

But finally I said nothing, and unfriended her.

I know it's the duty of every responsible person to confront racism, homophobia, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, and general idiocy.  Not doing so, leaving this kind of thing unchallenged, gives it tacit permission to continue.  I never would have let something like this go in my classroom; the few times I ever got really, truly angry at students during my 32 year career were over issues like this.

But lord have mercy, I am tired.  I'm tired of seeing this kind of bullshit trumpeted as if it was a proclamation of an eternal truth.  I'm tired of trying to convince the anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers, the nitwits who claim the 2020 election was stolen and that Trump is the Second Coming of Jesus, the people who believe that the January 6 insurrectionists were Antifa and liberals in disguise.

Plus, there's the question of what good it would have done if I had confronted her on her nasty, sneering post.  She barely knows me; I think we've maybe talked in person once.  Since then I've had zero interactions with her, online or anywhere else.  Why would she listen to me?  More likely she'd write me off as another godless liberal, getting all bent out of shape because she dropped a Truth Bomb on me.  What is the chance that anything I could have said, polite or rude, would have changed her attitude one iota?

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Blaine A. White, The Argument 01, CC BY-SA 4.0]

Still, I can't help but feel that I took the coward's way out.  If I'm not going to challenge stupidity and bigotry, it kind of gives lie to the entire raison d'être of this blog I've written so diligently on for the last fifteen years.  Every time we let someone like her get away with something like this unchallenged, it does double damage -- it further convinces any LGBTQ people who read it that they don't have (or aren't deserving of) unequivocal support, and it gives any other bigots in the studio audience free license to perpetuate their own hateful views.

So I dodged my responsibility, and I'm still feeling a little sick about it.  I'm not going to go back and re-friend her just to have an opportunity to say, "Oh, and about that post...!", and I guess there's an outside (probably minuscule) chance that when she sees she's lost friends over it, she might reconsider.

But I still think I made the wrong decision.

Right now, I'm taking a deep breath and recommitting myself to fight like hell against this sort of thing.  I can't let bigotry slide, excuse it by saying "it's just their religion/politics/age," give it a pass because I'm afraid of what they might say in response or who else I might piss off.  Okay, I'm tired, but it's still a battle worth fighting -- and one that can be won, but only if we refuse to accept prejudice and hatred every damn time we see it.

Shakespeare put it far more eloquently, in Henry V:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

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Good friends

It's a point I've made before, but it's worth saying again: we queer folks are not "pushing our lifestyle in other people's faces" simply because we'd like (1) some acknowledgement that we exist, and (2) the same rights and respect that everyone else gets automatically.

In the current regime here in the United States there are places of employment where people in same-sex relationships aren't allowed to display photographs of their partners, or even mention them.  "It's okay, I guess, as long as no one knows who you actually are," is the general gist.  There seems to be a real fear that just being around openly queer people will cause straight men and women to switch teams.  But really -- do you honestly think that's how all this works?  I mean, think about it.  Some one hundred percent straight guy finds out his coworker is gay, and suddenly gets this dazed look on his face and says, "I shall go out and kiss a man immediately"?  Seriously?

After all, it's not like it works the other way, is it?  As a teenager I was exposed to dozens, probably hundreds, of books, movies, and television shows depicting couples in straight relationships, and not a single one about queer people, and I turned out queer anyhow.  Funny thing, that.

Almost like it's inborn and hardwired, or something.

The result of this mindset is that we not only have to deal with out-and-out homophobia, but a whole array of attitudes that don't wish us active harm, but just would prefer it if we were invisible.  Take, for example, the article about a monument built by Alexander the Great for his lover Hephaestion I just stumbled on a couple of days ago.

There, I said it, didn't I?  They were lovers.  Alexander was either gay or bisexual, and he was deeply in love with Hephaestion.  They were described as "one soul inhabiting two bodies" by Aristotle, who knew both men well.  Their relationship was compared more than once to that of Achilles and Patroclus, which is not exactly a chaste allusion.  Plutarch recounts that they paid a visit to the tombs of the two Greek heroes, where Alexander garlanded Achilles's tomb and Hephaestion Patroclus's -- then ran a race, naked, in their honor.

Totally straight behavior, that, right?

Of course right.

Then there's the incident -- also related by Plutarch -- where Alexander allowed Hephaestion to read something he'd written but wanted to remain secret, and to symbolize this touched his signet ring to Hephaestion's lips.  The moment has been depicted many times in art:

Alexander Touches His Ring to Hephaestion's Mouth by Johann Heinrich Tischbein (1781) [Image is in the Public Domain]

When Hephaestion died suddenly of what was probably typhus in Ecbatana (now in Iran) in 324 B.C.E., Alexander was inconsolable.  The historian Arrian says that upon seeing Hephaestion dead, Alexander "flung himself on the body of his friend and lay there nearly all day long in tears, and refused to be parted from him until he was dragged away by force by his companions."

Oh, what good friends they were.

Alexander commissioned a massive tomb in Hephaestion's honor at Amphipolis in Macedonia -- the Kastas Tomb -- which is the subject of the article I linked above.  [Nota bene: Alexander didn't live to see it completed; he died himself the following year of uncertain causes.]  The tomb is filled with symbolic representations of the spiritual and physical bonds of love, and the hope for being reunited in the afterlife.

Despite all this, when the two were depicted as lovers in the 2004 film Alexander, there was an outcry that "Oliver Stone turned Alexander the Great gay!" and how dare they depict this heroic figure as perhaps having same-sex attraction.  It's apparently hard for some people to imagine that a guy could be a brilliant king and military leader, and still be queer. 

What's striking, though, is that there's a much more subtle aspect of this, beyond the predictable snarling from the overt homophobes.  What I noticed about the archaeology article was that never once was it explicitly mentioned that Alexander and Hephaestion might have had a sexual relationship.  Throughout, they're referred to as "friends" or "confidants" or "companions;" the closest the writer comes is saying that they clearly had a "strong emotional bond" and that the tomb is a "tribute to love and loyalty."

Why the hell are they afraid of saying it?  I mean, if you want to err on the side of caution, at least admit that it was possible.

Apparently even that is a bridge too far.

It's all part and parcel of the "don't ask, don't tell" mentality, isn't it?  "We're fine as long as we can pretend you queer people don't exist and never have."  Well, allow me to point out that this, too, is homophobia.  I spent decades in the closet out of fear and shame from this kind of thinking.  And, straight readers, if you don't think this is damaging, I want you to imagine what it would be like if your employer told you that you must never mention you are in an opposite-sex relationship.  Oh, it's fine, as long as no one knows.  Don't bring your spouse or significant other to the company picnic, don't be seen holding hands in public, don't have a photograph of you as a couple on your desk.

Now imagine if your government was saying the same thing.

Yes, I know that there are places in the world that have it much worse, where being openly queer can get you imprisoned, tortured, or executed.  But we here in the west need to keep in mind that there are ways to oppress people that are subtler and more insidious.  How is this sort of thing any different from putting Jews, Romani, and Blacks (just to name three of many groups this has happened to) in a position where they feel like they have to hide who they are in order to "pass?"

If you think that's wrong, then so is this.

I'm out publicly, so it's far too late for me to hide even if I wanted to.  But honestly -- I wouldn't go back to being invisible even if I could.  All those terrified years did a lot of damage to me emotionally, damage I doubt I'll ever completely heal from (and that's not even counting the regrets over the richer, more honest life I could have had).  To make it clear, I'm not unhappy where I am today; despite all I've been through, I've arrived at a good place.

I just wish I'd had a happier past, is all.

And I will continue to speak out against this kind of straightwashing.  Because it not only is an inaccurate view of history, but does damage to queer people right now.  I've often wondered if there had been honest, positive depictions of LGBTQ+ people in the fiction and nonfiction I read as a teen, maybe I'd have come out as bi when I realized it (age fifteen or so) rather than hiding for another forty years.  Maybe I still wouldn't have, I dunno; southern Louisiana in the seventies wasn't exactly a congenial place for people who were different, and I'm honestly not a very brave person.

But if by speaking out, I can help other people who are still in the closet -- well, don't expect me to shut up.  It's the least I can do after maintaining my own personal silence for four very long decades.

****************************************

Unleashing the tsunami

Today I have for you two news stories that are interesting primarily in juxtaposition.

The first is a press release about a study out of Stanford University that found LGBTQ+ people have, across the board, a higher rate of mental health disorders involving stress, anxiety, and depression than straight people do.  Here's the relevant quote:

New research looking at health data of more than a quarter of a million Americans shows that LGBTQ+ people in the US have a higher rate of many commonly diagnosed mental health conditions compared to their with cisgender and straight peers, and that these links are reflective of wider societal stigma and stress.  For example, cisgender women who are a sexual minority, such as bisexual or lesbian, had higher rates of all 10 mental health conditions studied compared to straight cisgender women.  Gender diverse people, regardless of their sex assigned at birth, and cisgender sexual minority men and had higher rates of almost all conditions studied compared to straight cisgender men, with schizophrenia being the one exception.  A separate commentary says these differences are not inevitable, and could likely be eliminated through legal protections, social support, and additional training for teachers and healthcare professionals.

The second is from Newsbreak and is entitled, "Trump Signs Sweeping Executive Orders That Overhaul U.S. Education System."  The orders, as it turns out, have nothing to do with education per se, and everything to do with appeasing his homophobic Christofascist friends who are determined to remove every protection from queer young people against discrimination.  Once again, here's the quote:

The executive order titled Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools threatens to withhold federal funding for "illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools," including based on gender ideology and the undefined and vague "discriminatory equity ideology."

The order calls for schools to provide students with an education that instills "a patriotic admiration" for the United States, while claiming the education system currently indoctrinates them in "radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight."...

"These practices not only erode critical thinking but also sow division, confusion and distrust, which undermine the very foundations of personal identity and family unity," the order states.

So how is it surprising to anyone that we queer people have a higher rate of depression, stress, and anxiety?  Funny how that happens when elected officials not only claim we exist because of "radical indoctrination," but are doing their damnedest to erase us from the face of the Earth.

If you think I'm exaggerating, take a look at this:

It's a good thing I retired in 2019 (after 32 years in the classroom), because if anyone -- from a school administrator all the way up to the president himself -- told me I couldn't call a trans kid by their desired name or pronouns, or had to take down the sticker I had on my classroom door that had a Pride flag and the caption "Everyone Is Safe Here," my response would have been:

FUCK.  YOU.

And I'd probably have added a single-finger salute, for good measure.

Mr. Trump, you do not get to legislate us out of existence.  You do not get to tell us who we can be kind to, who we can treat humanely, whose rights we can honor, who we can help to feel safe and secure and accepted for who they are.  I lost four damn decades of my life hiding in the closet out of fear and shame because of the kind of thinking you are now trying to cast into law, and I will never stand silent and watch that happen to anyone else.

So maybe your yes-men and yes-women -- your hand-picked loyalist cronies who do your bidding without question and line up to kiss your ass even before you ask it -- are jumping up and down in excitement over enacting this latest outrage, but you (and they) can threaten us all you want.

I'm not complying.  I will never comply.  And I know plenty of high school teachers and administrators who feel exactly the same way I do.  You may think you've picked an easy target, but what you are doing has unveiled how deeply, thoroughly cruel your motives are -- and it will unleash a tsunami of resistance.

LGBTQ+ people and minorities and the other groups you get your jollies by bullying will always be safe with me.  And if you think any stupid fucking command from on high will change that, you'd better think again.

To put it in a way even someone of your obviously limited intellectual capacity can understand: you can take your executive order and stick it up your bloated ass.

Sideways.

****************************************

The fight continues

September is Bisexual Awareness Month, which ironically I only became aware of on September 1.

I guess I must have known that at some point, but given that my entire approach to life has been one long tug-of-war between "please notice me" and "OH NO SOMEONE JUST NOTICED ME," I'm not sure how comfortable I am adding to my own visibility.

Be that as it may, and notwithstanding how many days and months are set aside to commemorate ridiculous stuff (January 21 is National Squirrel Appreciation Day?  Really?), overall I think Bisexual Awareness Month is a good thing.  When I was a teenager and first figured out that I was equally attracted to men and women, I had no idea there was even a name for that, much less that it was normal and okay.  The fact that we're now able to talk about this stuff will -- I fervently hope -- save the current generation of shy, scared, confused fifteen-year-olds from going through the hell I endured.

However, in the past ten years we've seen a staggering upsurge in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the United States, and as we queer people and allies have become more vocal, the bigots have, too.  Just last week Baptist minister Dillon Awes, of Watauga, Texas, said that another minister -- Andrew Stanley -- should be shot in the head for allowing two gay men to deliver a sermon at his church.  The fact that there was a single person in the congregation willing to sit there and listen to his vicious diatribe shows that we are far from eradicating homophobia.

When Awes is screaming his ugly invective into an empty room, I'll be satisfied.

However, we're also far from done as far as legislation goes.  Anti-LGBTQ+ bills are like the Hydra -- defeat one of them, and nine more spring up in its place.  Here are a few current battles:

• Arizona -- House Bill 2657, which forces school employees to out queer children to their parents -- even if that would put the child in danger.  Parents, the bill says, have "inalienable rights" to know everything about their children, including information given to school employees in confidence.
• South Carolina -- Senate Bill 3728 -- places all authority over the teaching of "morals, ethics, and civic responsibility" into the hands of parents, allowing them carte blanche for prohibiting undefined "certain concepts" from being mentioned in the classroom.  It doesn't take much imagination to guess what "concepts" they're talking about.
• Delaware -- Senate Bill 191 -- defines sex and gender as binary (contrary to known biological science) and restricts athletes from competing on teams split by gender according to "sex as determined at or near birth."
• Oklahoma -- House Bill 3120 -- prohibits any mention in public schools of "sexual activity that deviates from a traditional family structure" and "non-heterosexual orientation."
• Florida -- Senate Bill 1382 -- allows employers to use whatever names and pronouns they see fit, irrespective of the employee's request.

And so on and so forth.

I have to state for the record that there's a discussion to be had about age-appropriateness of any educational material surrounding sexuality (and anything else, honestly).  That is not what this is about.  No one -- no one -- is recommending placing sexually-explicit or age-inappropriate material of any kind into public school classrooms.  The characterization of legislation like South Carolina SB 3728 as "protect the children" is a smokescreen, designed to deflect criticism and re-marginalize queer people, returning us to the closeted, terrified environment I grew up in back in southern Louisiana in the 1970s.  If you doubt this, ask yourself seriously how long it would take for Oklahoma HB 3120 to be used to prevent a gay teacher from being out publicly.  Is having a photograph of him and his husband on his desk "promoting sexual activity that deviates from traditional family structure"?

Yes, we queer people have much to be thankful for.  We've come a very long way.  Had the general tolerance and acceptance we have now been present when I was a teenager, my life would have had a very different trajectory.  And if you look at the list of current and proposed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, it's heartening how many of them are labeled "defeated."  Just the fact that I can post Bi Awareness Month stuff on my social media, and have nothing but positive responses, is encouraging.

But the fight isn't over.  

So buckle up, friends and allies.  We still have work to do.

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License to hate

By now, I'm sure all of you have heard about the 6-3 decision by the United States Supreme Court in favor of a Colorado web designer who felt like it was her right to refuse service to a gay couple on the basis of her "sincerely-held religious beliefs."

What you may not have heard is that upon looking into the details of the case, investigative reporters found that:

1. ... the man, named only as "Stewart" to protect his privacy, whom the plaintiff Lorie Smith said was one half of the gay couple who asked for her services, has never attempted to hire her, and in fact had never heard of her before the case became public;
2. ... he's a web designer himself, so in his own words, "It would make zero sense to hire a web designer when I can do that for myself;"
3. ... his gay fiancé, "Mike," doesn't exist;
4. ... and Stewart himself not only is not gay, he's been happily married to a woman for fifteen years.

So the upshot of it all is that Smith is so motivated by hatred of LGBTQ+ people that she invented an imaginary grievance, lied about it repeatedly through the various tiers of the court system, and eventually got license to deny service to a gay couple who doesn't, technically, exist.

The lawyers from the virulently anti-LGBTQ+ Alliance Defending Freedom, who defended Smith, don't seem at all upset by this.  After all, they got what they wanted; a court-sanctioned right to discriminate.  Kellie Fiedorek, who represented her, responded with a verbal shrug.

"No one should have to wait to be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law," Fiedorek said.

Apparently this allows you to invent a grievance, along with imaginary adversaries, and carry it to the highest levels of the judicial system.

And win.

Smith immediately took the mic on right-wing news to crow about this being a "victory for free speech and freedom of religion."  Because, of course, the explicit outcome was to allow her to get away with discriminating against a particular group she despises.  But what baffles me is how neither the six justices who sided with Smith, nor Fiedorek and the Alliance Defending Freedom, nor Smith herself, seem to realize how quickly this could be turned around.  What's to stop a queer-owned business from putting up a sign saying "No Straight People Allowed"?  Or an atheist-owned business refusing to serve Christians?  Or a liberal-owned business stating that no Republicans are allowed on the premises?

You have to wonder what the Religious Right will think if this decision starts being used against them.

Wasn't there already a battle over this sort of thing?  And didn't the bigots lose?  [Image of the February 1960 sit-in at Woolworth's, Durham, North Carolina is in the Public Domain]

Discrimination laws are there to prevent one individual's prejudice and hatred from impinging on the rights, security, safety, or life of someone based upon their demographics -- and especially, to protect members of oppressed or marginalized groups.  And before anyone comes at me about how oppressed and marginalized Christians are, allow me to point out that an overwhelming majority of Americans -- 63% -- self-identify as Christian.  In large swaths of the country, a non-Christian has a snowball's chance in hell of being elected to public office.  And in any case -- as I pointed out earlier -- Lorie Smith's grievance was completely spun from lies.  She created a bullseye herself, pasted it on her own forehead, and then claimed she'd been unfairly targeted.

And two-thirds of the Supreme Court agreed with her.

It's not just queer people who should be worried about this.  This ruling blows a gaping hole in prior protections from discrimination, not only on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, but race and religion.  "The worry is that this provides a green light to any business owner that they can refuse service to any person on the basis of their identity, whether they’re gay or lesbian, or Jewish or Black, or anything, because they have an objection to those sorts of people being in their business,” said Katherine Franke, a professor at Columbia Law School.  "There was nothing in the opinion that limits it to objections to same-sex marriage."

The only thing that keeps me from despairing completely about this situation is the sense that this is the last gasp of dying ideological bigotry.  Younger people are overwhelmingly in support of full rights for LGBTQ people, including the right to marry, and against the bogus outrage of people like Lorie Smith and the Alliance Defending Freedom.  So inevitably, as the younger generation becomes an increasingly large percentage of voters, it is devoutly to be hoped that the pendulum will swing the other way and sweep away the ugly vestiges of racism, sexism, and homophobia.

In the interim, of course, a lot of damage can be done.  Queer people and our allies need to stand up and speak.  Shout, even.  Friday's decision was a travesty of justice, driven by a warped definition of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and flies in the face of every piece of civil rights legislation back into the 1960s.

But now's not the time to give up, as tempting as it is.

We can't let the hatred and bigotry of the Lorie Smiths of the world win.

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Discarded genius

Way back in 1952, British mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing proposed a mathematical model to account for pattern formation that results in (seemingly) random patches -- something observed in as disparate manifestations as leopard spots and the growth patterns of desert plants.

Proving that this model accurately reflected what was going on, however, was more difficult.  It wasn't until three months ago that an elegant experiment using thinly-spread chia seeds on a moisture-poor growth medium showed that Turing's model predicted the patterns perfectly.

"In previous studies,” said study co-author Brendan D’Aquino, who presented the research at the March meeting of the American Physical Society, "people kind of retroactively fit models to observe Turing patterns that they found in the world.  But here we were actually able to show that changing the relevant parameters in the model produces experimental results that we would expect."

Honestly, it shouldn't have been surprising.  Turing's genius was unparalleled; the "Turing pattern" model is hardly the only brainchild of his that is still bearing fruit, almost seventy years after his death.  His research on the halting problem -- figuring out if it is possible to determine ahead of time whether a computer program designed to prove the truth or falsity of mathematical theorems will reach a conclusion in a finite number of steps -- generated an answer of "no" and a paper that mathematician Avi Wigderson called "easily the most influential math paper in history."  Turing's work in cryptography is nothing short of mind-blowing; he led the research that allowed the deciphering of the incredibly complex code produced by Nazi Germany's Enigma machine, a feat that was a major contribution to Germany's defeat in 1945.

A monument to Alan Turing at Bletchley Park, where the cryptographic team worked during World War II [Image licensed under the Creative Commons Antoine Taveneaux, Turing-statue-Bletchley 14, CC BY-SA 3.0]

Turing's colleague, mathematician and cryptographer Peter Hilton, wrote the following about him:

It is a rare experience to meet an authentic genius.  Those of us privileged to inhabit the world of scholarship are familiar with the intellectual stimulation furnished by talented colleagues.  We can admire the ideas they share with us and are usually able to understand their source; we may even often believe that we ourselves could have created such concepts and originated such thoughts.  However, the experience of sharing the intellectual life of a genius is entirely different; one realizes that one is in the presence of an intelligence, a sensibility of such profundity and originality that one is filled with wonder and excitement.  Alan Turing was such a genius, and those, like myself, who had the astonishing and unexpected opportunity, created by the strange exigencies of the Second World War, to be able to count Turing as colleague and friend will never forget that experience, nor can we ever lose its immense benefit to us.

Hilton's words are all the more darkly ironic when you find out that two years after the research into pattern formation, Turing committed suicide at the age of 41.

His slide into depression started in January 1952, when his house was burgled.  The police, while investigating the burglary, found evidence that Turing was in a relationship with another man, something that was illegal in the United Kingdom at the time.  In short order Turing and his lover were both arrested and charged with gross indecency.  After a short trial in which Turing refused to argue against the charges, he was found guilty, and avoided jail time if he agreed to a hormonal treatment nicknamed "chemical castration" designed to destroy his libido.

It worked.  It also destroyed his spirit.  The "authentic genius" who helped Britain win the Second World War, whose contributions to mathematics and computer science are still the subject of fruitful research today, poisoned himself to death in June of 1954 because of the actions taken against him by his own government.

How little we've progressed in seven decades.

Here in the United States, state after state are passing laws discriminating against queer people, denying gender-affirming care to trans people, legislating what is and is not allowable based not upon any real concrete harm done, but on thinly-veiled biblical moralism.  The result is yet another generation growing up having to hide who they are lest they face the same kind of soul-killing consequences Alan Turing did back in the early 1950s.

People like Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Texas governor Greg Abbott, who have championed this sort of legislation, seem blind to the consequences.  Or, more likely, they know the consequences and simply don't give a damn how many lives this will cost.  Worse, some of their allies actually embrace the potential death toll.  At the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said, "For the good of society… transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.  The whole preposterous ideology, at every level."

No, Michael, there is no "ism" here.  It's not an "ideology;" it's not a political belief or a religion.  What you are saying is "eradicate transgender people."  You are advocating genocide, pure and simple.

And so, tacitly, are the other people who are pushing anti-LGBTQ+ laws.  Not as blatantly, perhaps, but that's the underlying message.  They don't want queer people to be quiet; they want us erased.

I can speak first-hand to how devastating it is to be terrified to have anyone discover who you are.  I was in the closet for four decades out of shame, not to mention fear of the consequences of being out.  When I was 54 I finally said "fuck it" and came out to friends and family; I came out publicly -- here at Skeptophilia, in fact -- five years after that.  

I'm one of the lucky ones.  I had nearly uniform positive responses.

But if I lived in Florida or Texas?  Or in my home state of Louisiana?  I doubt very much whether I'd have had the courage to speak my truth.  The possibility of dire consequences would have very likely kept me silent.  In Florida, especially -- I honestly don't know how any queer people or allies are still willing to live there.  I get that upping stakes and moving simply isn't possible for a lot of people, and that even if they could all relocate, that's tantamount to surrender.  But still.  Given the direction things are going, it's a monumental act of courage simply to stay there and continue to fight.

It's sickening that we are still facing these same battles.  Haven't we learned anything from the example of a country that discarded the very genius who helped them to defeat the Nazis, in the name of some warped puritanical moralism? 

This is no time to give up out of exhaustion, however, tempting though it is.  Remember Turing, and others like him who suffered (and are still suffering) simply because of who they are.  Keep speaking up, keep voting, and keep fighting.  And remember the quote -- of uncertain origin, though often misattributed to Edmund Burke -- "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing."

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Reaping the whirlwind

Once again I'm sick at heart because of the news of a mass shooting, this time at a prominent LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs called Club Q.  At the time of this writing, five people are dead and another twenty-five wounded.  The suspected shooter, Anderson Aldrich, was subdued by two people at the club and is now in custody, currently being treated for minor injuries.

There's a lot to unpack, here.  How Aldrich got a gun, despite a previous arrest for a bomb threat.  Where he picked up the hateful and homophobic ideology that impelled him to do such a thing.  It was just revealed that he's the grandson of California Assemblyman and staunch MAGA Republican Randy Voepel, but whether that will turn out to be relevant to Aldrich's horrific act of violence remains to be seen.

The queer community is, understandably, reeling.  Colorado Springs is soundly conservative, and Club Q was one of the only safe havens they had there.  Social media this morning has been full of tearful, terrified individuals who have once again been reminded of how vulnerable they are, and how much unreasoning and vicious hatred still exists in this country.

My horror started turning to anger, though, when I saw the tweet yesterday morning from Representative Lauren Boebert, whose district includes Colorado Springs.  "This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers," she wrote.  "This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly."

With all due respect, Representative Boebert, you can take your thoughts and prayers and shove them up your ass.

Boebert has been a strident voice in the anti-LGBTQ+ right wing, accusing the left of "grooming children" for such actions as pressing educators to honor trans youths' pronouns and including LGBTQ+ representation in school library books.  She warned drag queens to "stay away from Colorado's Third District."  Oh, but when her own hateful ideology comes back to her own district in the form of violence, she wants to -- as AOC succinctly put it -- "thoughts-and-prayers her way out of" any responsibility for what happened.

There's a line from the Bible that covers this kind of thing.  It's Hosea 8:7.  "Who sows the wind, reaps the whirlwind."

Neither I, nor any of the other members of the queer community whom I've spoken with, wants anything to do with the thoughts and prayers of people who after today will go back to doing everything they can to harm us.  No, not just harm us; eradicate us, erase every last one of us from the face of the Earth.

Think I'm exaggerating?  Consider monsters like Pastor Dillon Awes of the Steadfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas, who a couple of months ago told a cheering congregation that gay people should be lined up against a wall and shot in the head.  Or Pastor Joe Cammilleri, who saw a boy wearing fingernail polish and said to his congregation, "Oh, I just want to break his fingers."  Or far-right commentator Matt Walsh, who has built his career fighting against trans people's right to be who they are, and just last week crowed about once again being allowed to be as horrible as he wants to on Twitter now that Elon Musk has taken over: "We have made huge strides against the trans agenda.  In just a year we’ve recovered many years worth of ground conservatives had previously surrendered.  The liberation of Twitter couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.  Now we can ramp up our efforts even more."

Anyone in public office who honestly wants to stem the tide of violence against queer people can start by speaking out against these ugly spewers of hatred.  Until such time as Representative Boebert and the others like her will stand up and say to them, "This is morally indefensible.  LGBTQ+ people are deserving of the same rights and protections as anyone else.  No one gets to threaten the life, safety, and happiness of any other human being.  Not on my watch," they can sit down and shut the fuck up.

Actions like that of Anderson Aldrich are meant to terrify.  And yes, I've heard a lot of fear in the people I've talked to and those whose posts on social media I've seen this morning.  But not a single one of them has said, "So I'm just going to go back into hiding."  Queer people know all about the devastating effects of shame and fear; it's what kept me in the closet, literally for decades.  Whatever happens, we're not going back there.

Silence validates hatred.  Acquiescence perpetuates the feeling of being less worthy, less valued, less human.  Once we've mourned the victims of the shooting, innocent people who were just there to dance and laugh and socialize and have fun, we will redouble our efforts to make sure nothing like this ever happens again, and you can bet we will fly the rainbow flag more proudly than ever.

You homophobes think we can be bullied and threatened back into silence?  You ain't seen nothin' yet.  Gives a different twist to the line from the Book of Hosea, doesn't it?

Who sows the wind, reaps the whirlwind.

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First, do no harm

I keep thinking I'm not going to need to write any more about LGBTQ issues, that I've said all I need to say, and yet... here we are.

I'm going to start with a question directed at the people who are so stridently against queer rights, queer visibility, even queer existence.  I doubt many people of that ilk read Skeptophilia, but you never know.  So here goes:

How does guaranteeing that LGBTQ people are treated equally, fairly, and kindly, and are given the same rights as straight people, affect you at all?

It costs you absolutely nothing to say, "I'm not like you, and maybe I don't even understand this part of you, but even so, I respect your right to be who you are without shame or fear."  For example, I'm not trans; I have always felt unequivocally that I am one hundred percent male.  But when I had trans students in my classes, all it required was my crossing out a first name on the roster and writing in the name they'd prefer to be known by, and remembering to use the appropriate pronouns.  A minuscule bit of effort on my part; hugely, and positively, significant on theirs.

What possible justification could I have for refusing?

The reason this whole topic comes up once again is a link sent to me by a loyal reader of Skeptophilia about a rugby team in Australia, the Manly Sea Eagles, which had seven of its players refuse to play in an important match because the owner wanted the team to wear jerseys with a rainbow design meant to promote inclusivity.

Note that the jerseys pretty subtle.  There's not even any text explaining, or calling attention to, the rainbow bands.  But even that level of support was a bridge too far for seven homophobic bigots, who chose to stand down from the game instead.

The whole incident is made even more outrageous by the fact that the owner wasn't wanting the jersey design changed permanently; it was for one damn game, as a sign of solidarity with LGBTQ players and fans.  But no, seven players refused to wear them, saying it violated their "religious beliefs."

Retired Sea Eagles player Ian Roberts, who is the first rugby league player to come out publicly as gay, was devastated by the players' actions.  "I try to see it from all perspectives, but this breaks my heart,” Roberts said.  "It’s sad and uncomfortable.  As an older gay man, this isn’t unfamiliar.  I did wonder whether there would be any religious pushback.  That’s why I think the NRL have never had a Pride round.  I can promise you every young kid on the northern beaches who is dealing with their sexuality would have heard about this."

Matt Bungard, of Wide World of Sports, was blunter still.  "I don’t want to hear one single thing about ‘respecting other people’s opinions’ or using religion as a crutch to hide behind while being homophobic.  No issues playing at a stadium covered in alcohol and gambling sponsors, which is also a sin.  What a joke."

Which I agree with completely, but it brings me back to my initial question; how did wearing the jerseys, for one night, harm those seven players?  The jerseys didn't say, "Hi, I'm Gay."  They were just a sign of support and inclusivity, of treating others the way you'd like to be treated.

Hmm, now where did I hear about that last bit?  Seems like I remember someone famous saying that.  Give me a moment, I'm sure it'll come to me.

A Christian baker creating a wedding cake for a gay couple is saying, "I may not be gay, but I'm happy you've found someone you love and want to spend your life with."  Straight parents who give unconditional support to their trans child are saying, "I love you no matter what, no matter who you are and what you'd like to be called."  A straight teacher having books with queer representation is saying, "Even if I don't experience sexuality like you do, I want you to understand yourself and be happy and confident enough to express your own truth openly."

I remember when I first saw this tweet thinking, "How about creating a world where if Billy did wake up and go ask Brad to the prom, it would be no big deal?"  It costs cis-hetero people nothing, zilch, to say, "I'm fine with who you are."  And to queer kids, it would be life-changing.  Heaven knows, my life would have been different if I'd been able to ask Brad to the prom.

Not you specifically, Brad.  I'm just making a point.

Really, all it requires is the ability to say (1) "Your experience is not the same as my experience, and that's okay," and (2) "I'm committed to treating everyone with kindness, respect, and love."

Instead, far too many people are still choosing bigotry, exclusion, and oppression.  And here in the United States, there is an increasing push to codify all that hatred into law.

If you're against same-sex marriage, if you bristle at Pride events, if you refuse to use a person's chosen name and pronouns, if you think businesses should be able to deny services to queer people, I want you to stop, just for one moment, and ask yourself: how is any of this harming me?  Maybe it's time to pay more attention to the "love thy neighbor" parts of the Bible than to the Book of Leviticus, of which (face it) 99% is ignored by most Christians anyway.  Maybe it's time to put more emphasis on compassion, understanding, and acceptance than on condemning anyone who doesn't think, act, or believe like you do.

After all, Jesus said it himself, in the Gospel of John, chapter thirteen: "By this all people will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another."

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An open letter to straight Americans

Dear straight people:

I hope you recognize the path the United States is on, and where it leads.  Because it's easy to blind yourself to problems that don't affect you.  That is, at its heart, what minorities mean when they talk about privilege.  As a Black friend of mine put it, "White privilege doesn't mean White people's lives are easy; it just means that race isn't one of the things making them harder."

Recent developments in Florida (why the fuck is it always Florida?) should bring that into sharp focus.  Because of the state's "Don't Say Gay" law, school administrators in Orange County have now told staff that they can't display rainbow "Safe Space" stickers in their classrooms, they can't assign reading material with any LGBTQ content to their classes, they are required to tell parents if they find out a student is queer, and LGBTQ staff members cannot have photographs of their families displayed anywhere -- including on their own desks.

My first question to my straight readers is: do you have any idea what effect this has, both on staff and on students?

This kind of ugly, bigoted horseshit is why I spent forty years unable to admit that I was bisexual.  During most of that time I couldn't even admit it to myself.  I grew up thinking same-sex attraction was something to be ashamed of, or at the very least, to be fearful about.  Well, fear was justified; I want you to think, really think, about what it'd be like if you were afraid to take your significant other out to dinner because then people would realize you were together.  That you couldn't walk down the street of your own home town holding hands because you'd be jeered at, have hateful epithets thrown at you, and (in all too many places) risk actual physical violence.  That you'd been told over and over that loving who you love made you abnormal, sinful, disgusting, aberrant.

It's that hell that this law is forcing LGBTQ people back into.

We never really left it, honestly, but a lot of us felt like at least we were heading in the right direction.  In the last five years I've become more and more like the iconic character Nick Nelson from Alice Oseman's brilliant graphic novel series Heartstopper:

I'm damn lucky I'm in a situation I can do that.  I live in a pretty tolerant part of the country.  I'm married to a woman, which is fortunate in two respects; not only does it shield me from the stigma that people in same-sex relationships face every single day, my wife is a wonderful human being who accepts me for who I am.

But consider what I, and countless others like me who spent most of their lives hiding, lost in the process.  Think about what it'd be like if there was something about you that you didn't ask for and couldn't change, and now there were laws against it being out in the open.  How about... wearing glasses?  What if at work, you were told you couldn't wear glasses, and had to pretend you could see well?  If anyone asked you about it, you had to say you could see just fine.  Any visits to the optometrist had to be made in secret -- if possible, in another town where you wouldn't be recognized going into the place.  No books in your kids' school could show, or even mention, characters who didn't have 20/20 vision.  And if you did become angry enough to say "fuck it" and wore your glasses in public, you would be ridiculed or beaten up for it.

See how horrifying that sounds?

It's been years that we've known that homophobic ignorance flies in the face of the actual science, but we Americans don't exactly have a stellar record of listening to the scientists about anything.  Back in 2015, Scientific American published an article that goes into the biology of human sexuality, and the details are fascinating; but truthfully, it can be summed up as, "Sexuality is complex, and it isn't binary."  

The homophobes have responded by mischaracterizing how the medical professionals address the issue, because (unfortunately) straw man arguments are all too effective when people don't know, or don't want to know, the facts.  Just last week I saw someone post on social media, "If a five-year-old is old enough to decide what gender they are, an eighteen-year-old is old enough to own a gun."  I'm not going into the last half of it, but the first half is so abjectly ridiculous it's a wonder it generated anything more than derisive laughter.  It makes it sound like an anatomically male five-year-old says, "Hey, I'm a girl now," and the parents immediately whisk them off to get gender-reassignment surgery.  According to a statement by medical professionals who address issues of gender dysphoria, surgeries of this sort are only done if the child is anatomically intersex, and even then doctors almost always wait until the child is the age of puberty before taking any kind of irreversible action.

Unfortunately, no one I saw responded to the person who posted that with, "THAT NEVER HAPPENS."  We've become afraid even to fight the battle, or perhaps just too damn exhausted to argue.

It's understandable.  This is the third time this month (ironically, Pride Month) I've written about these issues here at Skeptophilia.  At some point we feel like, "What more can I say?  And what good is it doing anyhow?"  So that's why I'm going to ask not my queer readers, but my straight ones, to think long and hard about something: what would it take to make you stand up and say, "Hell no, this is wrong," even though it only directly affects a group you don't belong to?  If you were a straight teacher in Orange County, Florida, would you be willing to put up a rainbow flag in your classroom and say to administrators, "Bring it on"?  To say to Ron DeSantis and the hundreds of other elected officials in this country cut from the same cloth, "This is not gonna happen.  Not on my watch."?

"Tired," by the inimitable Langston Hughes

It's easy to support LGBTQ rights in ways that risk nothing.  You vote for candidates who support equal rights for all?  Great, awesome, good for you.  But we are hurtling down a tunnel into a deep, dark place that a lot of us thought we'd left back in the 1980s.  And that downward spiral won't stop until straight people stand up and say, "I'm going to do whatever it takes to halt this, even if it means putting myself in the bullseye."

That is what it means to be an ally.

Thankfully, there are straight people who do just that.  I've laughed with a dear friend of mine, who is straight as they come, because he owns (and wears publicly) more Pride gear than I do.  He's one of the ones who would not hesitate to give a big old middle finger to homophobes, and say, "What are you gonna do about it, asshole?"

But there are too damn few people like him.

So I'm asking my straight readers to stand up and make your voices heard.  It's the only way any of this is going to stop.  And keep in mind that if the bigots win this fight, it isn't going to end there, because queers aren't the only ones these people hate.  Remember the oft-quoted statement by anti-Nazi activist Martin Niemöller that ends, "Finally, they came for me -- and by then, there was no one left to speak for me."

Please, please don't wait until then.

Maybe there's a time that other-sides-ism is appropriate, but that's not now.  I am not obligated to respect your opinion if your opinion denies the rights, and even the humanity, of another group of people.  There is no morally and ethically defensible justification for what is happening in the United States right now.

Pride ends today, but don't expect me to shut up about it.  I was silent for forty years, and it doesn't work.  And maybe -- just maybe -- if enough straight allies will commit to standing in the breach with us, we won't have another generation of queer children growing up going through the hell that I and so many others did.  

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