Blood on the Dance Floor. Again. {guest post}
by M.J. Schwartz
Today is National Transgender Day of Remembrance. Last night there was (yet another) mass shooting in an LGBTQ+ bar that left five dead and eighteen injured. Every time I think I'm done crying, I'm not. I don't cry easily or often, but this morning I can't seem to turn it off. I'm the queer parent and step parent of a lot of queer kids. Those kids have partners and friends. A lot of my queer friends have queer kids.
I've spent much of my adult life trying to make the world safer and more welcoming for queer kids than it was for me while I was growing up. Some things have changed for the better in ways I never would have imagined possible when I was young and afraid. It would be easy to lull yourself into believing we're past all that. And yet...
Sometimes I feel like nothing I've done has moved the needle an iota. Not on a macro-level, anyway.
We're never past "all that."
Is this the legacy that will never die, yet always ends in death?
If you've never had to plan your road trip routes to avoid certain areas of the country due to excessive risk of being harmed or killed for existing,
If you've never made check-in plans so people will know if you've been killed while you're out dancing (drinking, celebrating, whatever),
If you've never held in your pee to avoid using a public bathroom, been accosted in a public bathroom, or been openly talked about by others in a public bathroom,
If you can go to the doctor without having a therapy session first to prepare yourself for the experience,
If you've never heard of anyone being lit on fire on a public bus because their identity is similar to your own,
If you've never had excessive absences from school because you were being bullied and the adults told you it was up to you to change how you present,
if you've never worried that your child will be murdered, raped, or otherwise assaulted just for being themselves in public,
if you've never experienced any or all of those things and *then* been told that the LGBTQ+ community invents their own oppression and forces their identity down everyone's throats by talking about it all the time -
Please remember, for some of us, pronouns and gender neutral bathrooms aren't the issue. They are representative of the issue.