A Brief(ish) Detour (Patreon)

Hi Everyone,

If you’ve been a long-time reader, you know I try really hard to keep politics off this page.  I’m aware that folks are here for a very specific reason, and I don’t want to bring down the mood, but today was a lot so I need you to bear with me.  I’ll also fully understand if you just want to skip this post and wait for the next story.  If so, thank you for reading and for your support!

At the risk of alienating everyone else: I’m tired.  Between the relentless anti-trans legislation, the public scapegoating, the constant threats of violence, the Don’t Say Gay bills, the Drag Bans, the HRC-declared States of Emergency, the international atrocities (hi Uganda), and the home-grown shit-shows (hi Florida), I’m fucking exhausted.  Like many of us in this community (by which I mean the broader LGBTQIA spectrum, not just purveyors of niche smut), I dread looking at the news anymore because it seems like tomorrow is always trying to outdo yesterday in terms of how brutally fucked up it can be.  I never would have thought we’d be at this point in the year 2023.  Ever.

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but I came out back in 1995 when I was in the 9th grade.  In my conservative Ohio town (hi again Florida, from one shit-show state to another), I was the only “out” kid in a school of around 2,500 students.  You can probably guess how that went.  I have vivid memories of copying flyers for a Matthew Shepard vigil in my high school library while a kid at the machine next to me was making flyers for a Sadie Hawkins dance.  One of us was processing a world that wants us dead for having the audacity to exist in the first place, the other was getting to be a “normal” teenager.

Which brings us to today.  We had our big, city-wide Pride event last weekend, which was lovely and safe and everyone had a good time.  Today, a local LGBT Youth center hosted their annual Pride event, and it also ended up being lovely and safe and everyone had a good time, but with a catch.  I’ve never seen so many police at such a small event before.  The sheer number of threats the center received, from potential acts of violence to out-and-out death threats, is staggering.  I can’t adequately describe how surreal it was to drive down a quiet street in a suburb of Cleveland, a street I drive down multiple times each week, and see it lined with enough armed police to escort a Presidential motorcade.  I can’t tell you how it felt to be standing in a tiny parking lot with my 8-year-old niece looking up at groups of police covering the roofs of nearby buildings.  There was a whole-ass SWAT team in an unmarked van.  We had to park half a mile away and get bussed in and out for our safety.  That’s how numerous, and serious, the threats were.

But they didn’t cancel.  I wouldn’t have judged them if they did.  Tomorrow’s anniversary (June 12th, depending on when you’re reading) is reminder enough that this violence towards our community is all too real.  But these people want us afraid.  They want us to cancel our events and go back into hiding.  Do you know how many Nazis and Proud Boys actually showed up?  None.  I don’t know this for a fact, but I’d be willing to bet that 99% of the threats didn’t originate locally.  There was one lady with a megaphone yelling about how Jesus was disappointed in us.

(Sorry, Jesus.  You should, uh, probably look away from this page.)

Still, that didn’t change the fact that a CHILDREN’S event was locked down like foreign dignitaries were visiting.  We did have Erin Reed and Zooey Zephyr speaking (if you’re not familiar, google those names), but they weren’t the targets.  The kids were.  Our joy was.  Our joy IS the target, and it always has been.

Today both broke my heart and lifted it up.  The power of this community coming together will never fail to take my breath away.  And it’s not all doom and gloom - public support has never been higher, and those winds are only getting stronger.  My fear is how much damage happens between now and the lovely future in which these dinosaurs have all finally gone extinct.

I’m tired.  I’m exhausted.  But Erin and Zooey were at the White House yesterday, drove in for today’s event, and immediately headed back when it ended to keep working.  Dozens of volunteers told those anonymous threats to go fuck themselves and put in countless hours of work to make today happen.  A whole community still came together to make damn sure these kids know how valuable they are and what it looks like to stand up to hate.  It was a good reminder for the adults in the room, too.

So, to do my part, I’m donating the pledges for July to the Colors+ Youth Center.  I’m not Public Speaker Guy.  I’m not an elected rep or on any city councils or school boards.  I just write dirty stories on the internet.  But we can at least support the people who are out there doing the work in whatever way we can.  If you’d like to chip in, feel free to up your monthly amount before July 1st.  It’ll charge you the difference immediately, so once that payment goes through you can drop back down to where you started.  As long as you do that before the 1st, you won't get charged twice for the higher amount.  

I can’t offer much, but anyone who donates any extra amount will get access to the DropBox for a month.  That’s potentially like 500 PDFs for a couple extra bucks.  It’s the best I can do.  When the payments are all processed and the donation is made, I’ll post a copy of the receipt here so you all know it’s legit.

And if you don’t want to contribute to an organization in my backyard, I’d still urge you to find an organization locally that you can support.  The national organizations are great, but these little guys are the ones with the boots on the ground who really need the help.  I can’t even imagine how much today must have cost them.

Okay.  Thank you for sitting through that.  I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.  And by “now” I mean tomorrow afternoon when the weekly story goes up.

As always, thank you for reading and for the support!