https://mattyberad.medium.com/pride-against-prejudice-d21d63c853e0
"I was in high school when gay marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court.
When the decision came down — complete with a rainbow-colored Whitehouse and
media fanfare — it felt like a confirmation of the story I had been told my
entire life: progress is inevitable. Young and unengaged in the gay rights
movement as I was, it looked to me that a younger more enlightened generation
had leveraged the Obama presidency (itself proof of progress) along with social
media (the Facebook page
Have a Gay Day exploded on Facebook my Freshman
year) to win an easy victory.
This (mis)understanding was only magnified by my personal experiences at the
time. I, cis-het, went from having only a passive awareness that gay people
existed to being active in the LGBT club, having multiple LGBTQ+ friends, and
correcting adults on their outdated terminology. I went to high school in
Colorado Springs — one of the most conservative cities in the country — and saw
shockingly little intolerance of queer students after that year. I did witness
injustices, like a trans friend being forced to move schools by conservative
Christian parents, but these always seemed like the last desperate cruelties of
a dying bigotry. In the news, the failure of homophobic clerks to personally
refuse to certify gay marriages only cemented this idea.
Gay rights had been won. It was only upwards from here.
Of course, it was never that simple. As Yasmin Nair brilliantly outlined in her
article
Where the Gay Things Are, the achievement of gay marriage was not
only an insufficient step in achieving equality, it was also primarily advanced
by wealthy gay couples who were concerned with protecting themselves from
inheritance taxes (from which spouses, and not civil partners, are exempt). To
Nair and others, the achievement of “gay rights” is not marked by inheritance
law but by social acceptance and legal protections. More than simply ending
laws banning homosexuality and gay marriage, but also in the form of new
resources dedicated to protecting gay people and communities from hate crimes.
The gulf between my teenage impression of progress on gay rights and the
current wave of bigotry against LGBTQ+ people (ranging from accusations of
pedophilia, to promises to re-ban gay marriage, laws making it difficult or
impossible for trans people to get healthcare, or even outright violence) makes
much more sense in light of Nair’s argument. As much as gay rights and
acceptance have backslid in the last few years, they were also never
particularly strong in the first place. Media representation and legal marriage
are progress, but they can only do so much against a fundamentalist Christian
far-right."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
