In the present political climate, these are not good times for minorities whether based on race, gender, or any combination of them. The Supreme Court has been stacked and Clarence Thomas has expressed an idea that all un-enumerated rights, those not specifically implied in such statements that the all men are created equal with Creator bestowed rights or specifically stated ones in the Constitution must be revisited for removal.
And with this attitude and a GOP controlled House, the process of rights being challenged, mostly on religious grounds beginning with Trump’s initial anti-GLBT moves commencing at the beginning of his administration in 2017 with the process guaranteed to continue under the present life long Supreme Court Justices appointed by him, Women and Gays have lost greatly and there are more losses to come.
I completely understand the young people’s horror at this, especially as seen by the increase in the number of social media posts and memes demanding someone do something. Often, they seem so horrified that attending a rally or any of a series of regularly held ones is out of the question because it calls for visibility and action.
Each time I advertised for people to gather at a major city intersection for two hours one day a week for 6 weeks. I got a lot of likes, encouragement, expressions of support, and memes advising what must be done. At the once-a-week sit outs it was usually me and my Kindle with the occasional passer-by asking questions and getting answers and misinformation corrected.
Did the same thing one week for five days in a row recognizing that , perhaps, with the one day sit outs I might have picked a day good for my schedule but not that of others, offered a choice of day or days. Lots of passers-by, some good conversations, a dollar from a woman who could hardly speak English, letting me know she was donating to me an old man in a chair begging for money, but, otherwise, again, just me.
Posting any pictures after any of the sit outs, I got a lot of likes, bravos, praise which I suppose is supposed to be enough. The public does not see the posts that demand change,that are strong in the images and language, but this Keyboard Combatant approach is not working.
At those occasions when groups of Gay people are gathered and the present situation is being discussed, the self-initiated lectures on why the older generations of Gays have do idea what the younger generation is going through or they would be more active in protecting those rights. We elders just have no idea what it is to be young and Gay and facing loss of rights.
What they seem to forget, or ignore, is that the older Gays are losing the same rights as the youth. We are losing together and action must go beyond self pitying claims of no one understanding that come across like the Christians claiming they are persecuted because they cannot discriminate but have to follow the laws like the rest of us.
Those rights being lost came about because people fought for them, died for them, lost their careers for them. They were not always there like they were supposed to be and we did not get them because of other people’s largesse. We got them because we fought for them.
It is one thing to be losing that which you had inherited from others; it is another to lose that which you had because you had fought to get them for yourself, your contemporaries, and the future.
I, a Boomer, spent 12 years fighting the Homophobia in the Buckle of the Bible Belt to have Gay students protected in all policies and watched as one class entered first grade and graduated high school 12 years later as the first Gay students to go their whole public school careers included in policies, and then got to see the rights of the protected Trans students removed because the locals handed control of the discussion to national groups with their way of handling things who then went on to presenting their usual boiler plate arguments to keep those rights without once referring to the school district that had total protection with no harm of any sort being caused by that.
For the students in that school district, and the state it is in, this was a betrayal and the loss devastating to the future students. There were the usual memes, the “if I was there” style reactions, demands that someone do something, but then things calmed and all the other letters of the Rainbow Alphabet and stripe on Whatever the popular pride Flag is now just took it in stride as they still had their rights.
They had not fought for those rights. They had been given them by the generation they claim is the biggest detriment to the Gay Community who fought for them knowing they themselves would not benefit, but, in the future, students would not have to go through what they had.
We knew what it was like not having those rights and we know the cost of getting them.
I had some rights when in Boston, got more in Los Angeles, lost them when i moved to Oklahoma, and at the age if 62, after my adult years fighting for them, I got my rights when I moved back to Massachusetts where anyone under the age of 30 had had rights as Gay people longer than I did, and I had fought for them. I have only had rights as a Gay man for all of 12 years. In this process I have both won and list my rights
Although at the time I was advocating for student protection I was aware that with political and religious machinations I would probably be removed because of the old killing the messenger kills the message, and actually was. I had to fight in court to be reinstated. The chanevwritge in the school policy would never affect me as, at the time, I was a Boomer in my fifties but knew the inclusion was the right thing do do and after an over 40 year career in Gay Rights Activism, If I was the one to have to do it, so be it.
Most of the students who benefited from the advocacy were born into the rights and took them for granted and lost them.
The issue was getting the rights we as a Community should have, not just ones that benefited myself. I know some very wonderful activists whose work was only realized after their deaths even as they had spent their adult lives fighting for them, if for themselves great, if just for those yet to come, that was great too.
They never saw what they had won, and, for the most part, those who have those rights take them for granted ,erasing the work of these people as they allow the rights to be taken away assuming a . meme is all that is needed.
Maybe I have become a curmudgeon after some wild experiences, but like the wrinkles, gray hair, and extra pounds I earned it.
Remember. The young are losing rights they have had. Elders are losing the rights they fought for, got to enjoy for a minute because they are being taken away and too many among us abet this.
.
.
.
.
.
.
