There is a war on queer rights-- not only on a statewide level, but a global level.
It comes as no surprise that the rights and inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons has been a hot topic. Legislation that boasts "religious freedom and inclusion" has been floating through the hands of Alabamian legislators at alarming rates since November of 2016. Is this trend of religious freedom bills protecting our citizens or killing them?
Two of the most alarming bills to come into actualization are AL HB-24 and AL SB-145, the Child Placing Agency Inclusion Act. The bill, which passed affirmatively through the House of Representatives on March 16, would allow religious adoption agencies (read as: most adoption agencies in the state of Alabama) to deny to allow same sex couple headed households the right to adopt children in desperate need of loving homes. It would also allow agencies to refuse to foster to members of the child's extended family if they were gay.
Transgender women, particularly transgender women of color, are the most vulnerable demographic to hate crimes. Transgender individuals across America, and particularly in the south, face staggering levels of physical and sexual violence. The south's hate crime laws pathetically fail transgender individuals. Hate crime laws in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee and Texas regard sexual orientation but not gender identity, while those in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, West Virginia and Virginia cover neither. Last year alone, 27 American transgender women were murdered. Be mindful that these are the murders that are reported or in which the victim isn't stripped of their gender identity in death and forced to be documented and buried as their assigned sex.
Across the world, in Russia, gay men are reportedly being imprisoned and murdered for their identities. They are being, according the the Russian publication Novaya Gazeta, illegally detained, beaten, starved, and shocked with painfully high voltages of electricity. Honor killings of gay, lesbian, and other queer individuals often go unpunished by the local Russian government.
There are countries in which being gay is legally punishable by death. There are 12 countries where being gay is punishable by death. There are countries in which honor killings of suspected gay or transgender individuals are routine and accepted. Labeling queer people as perverts, immoral, criminally sexually deviant, or even mentally ill is used to justify their mistreatment.
Unless you are actively speaking against these atrocities, you do not deserve to wear that rainbow button. You do not deserve to call yourself an ally if you turn a blind eye to the suffering of the LGBTQ+ community. You are not an ally if you celebrate National Coming Out Day or GLSEN's National Day of Silence and refuse to integrate new language and activism into your daily life. If you fetishize queer identities without recognizing the constant assault of the rights and autonomy of queer people, you do not deserve to call yourself an ally to their cause.
Anyone that believes Donald Trump's administration, or the global paradigm of peoples' violent views on gay rights, isn't detrimental to the basic human rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer people is removed from reality. Equality for the LGBTQ+ community hasn't nearly been achieved. It didn't end with marriage equality for Americans (which is still met with constant backlash).
It will end with global revolution. Stonewall was neither quiet, soft, nor gentle. Queer anger is queer power, and the community grows more educated and powerful with every day.
