Although in reality we were simply demanding our Creator endowed inalienable rights be recognized as applying to Gay people as they did to Non-Gay people, those wanting to deny this, having nothing factual upon which to base such a denial, attempted to present it as something other than  what it was, as something threatening to anyone not Gay.

The quest for equal rights was painted as the demand for special rights.

My American born parents, my father a World War II veteran, had three sons. My two brothers have their Creator endowed inalienable rights equally. They did not have to fight for them. They simply exercised them as a matter of course in all things financial, Constitutional etc. However, extending those same rights to me, a Gay man, is somehow bestowing special rights on me.

It made no sense and had no substance.

We had to fight the misrepresentation that we wanted more than others had when in reality we only wanted what they had. 

We wanted EQUAL not SPECIAL rights, and equality does not raise us above others but puts us on the same level as those others.

That is why this present complacent attitude, leaning toward Privilege, really burns my corn.

In Oklahoma City every student who entered the first grade in 2010 was fully protected in all school district policies and that included the students to whom sexual orientation and gender identity applied, and in the following twelve years there had been no problems and none of the predicted disasters and the destruction of schools as we knew them occurred.

I am very familiar with those false predictions.

However, in its desire to fit in and enter the competition among the other red states, the state legislature of Oklahoma ignored its own capital city and went along with the tropes upon which the other red states based their decisions to erase Trans students and their physical, mental, and psychological well-being, not based on evidence that this was harmful, but based on ignoring the state capital’s own proven reality.

In spite of measurable and observable facts, the state chose to assign secondary citizenship to those who had been finally granted their rights after 12 years of advocacy and twelve years under the results of that.

So the state took an action to abandon some of its children and the claim to an “Oklahoma Standard”, a standard that had actually been added to because in 2009 the Oklahoma City Public Schools became one of the very few districts in the country to protect all its students by including “gender identity” and “gender expression” and had been used as a model by other school districts in the state and beyond, in order to fit in. 

Since 2009 the Oklahoma City Public Schools Student/Parent Handbook clearly states,

“The Oklahoma City Public School District (OKCPS) does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, alienage, veteran, parental, family and marital status in its programs and activities, or in its employment decisions, and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts of America and other designated youth groups.”

Beyond speculation, tropes, and the lazy repetition of disproven falsehoods , when those who go after GLBT students to deny them an equal education and involvement in school activities, clubs, and sports in a safe and welcoming school environment which by law they must attend every day, especially the Trans kids who are victimized by ignorance, bigotry, and politics, they should be presented with factual examples from reality that show how wrong they are and continue to be and should be required to supply equally factual and relevant examples to support their claims.

Putting aside the erroneous action of the politicians, this situation has presented the Gay Community with a challenge.

Up until 2022, all the students of the Oklahoma City Public Schools were protected in policies regardless of any deviation from the heterosexual norm or adherence to it. 

ALL students.

Trans students, however, after having had them, had their rights and protections as students removed, creating a second class of students in the system. There are now those without full rights, having lost them to bigotry, existing alongside those who had always had their rights and those who gained them through the hard work of those who came before them, the ones who had fought for and had momentarily won equality for all.

In the meantime, sexual orientation remains untouched, meaning that any member of the Gay Community, every stripe on the Pride Flag, save one, and every Straight kid still has their rights as students while some peers no longer do.

If this is not addressed, then Special Rights have been instituted with the approval of and with the complicity of the cis-gender members of the Gay Community as non-heterosexual students keep their rights and all cisgender members of the Gay Community do as well. 

We did not fight for Special but Equal rights, and those who accept the present situation would seem to be accepting their Special Rights as if that is enough, agreeing with the bigots that in reality we only wanted to be special.

All the other stripes on the Pride Flag have the moral obligation to get the Trans students their rights back. If they accept the present situation where “I got mine”, then the young have proven the bigots correct.

It WAS about special rights.

The generation that benefited by the activism of the past seems complacent to have special rights when that is not what we fought for.

The younger generations, especially in Oklahoma, have the moral obligation to restore equal rights and not settle complacently for special ones.

It is a betrayal of Gay History and their peers.

And as someone who fought and paid a high price to get student equality, I have to ask,

“Who the hell do you younger Gays think you are to be all privileged while spitting on the memory of the real heroes of the fight for Gay rights and not the romanticized mythological creations who did minimal work while you ignore those who got you what you’ve got?”

You have no morality if you bask in your rights while your Trans brothers and sisters have had theirs taken away and just accept it as how it is.

You have a moral obligation.

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