It’s Pride Month and everywhere I look this morning I see hatred. I made the mistake of looking at Twitter. I normally use it to advertise my personal blog, and to like pictures of animals doing dumb things. The app started with a video of someone burning Pride flags. They called them the flags “of child mutilators”. I then saw a report of senior politicians making fun of trans people. The responses in each thread are full of voices of agreement, and unblinking hostility to LGBTQ+ people.
My social media feed shows proposed changes to how schools interact with young people. One proposal is that teachers should reveal to parents if their children express thoughts about gender or sexuality. This is horrendous and puts people at risk. It makes Section 28 look like a gentle mist in comparison. Whether it’s bots or people actually having these opinions is next to impossible to tell – and it breaks my heart.
Every day, it feels more and more dangerous to stick my head above the parapet and be my authentic self. I’m generally straight-passing. It is unlikely that I’m going to be assaulted at any moment. But the problem is that everything in society feels more and more hostile. My partners, friends, colleagues, or random people in the street, are always reporting things we’ve seen or heard, or read. So many of our conversations start with disbelief and disappointment. Then we add the weight of whatever fresh hell appears each day.
I’ve just had to close all my social media this morning because five minute’s reading over my coffee overwhelmed me. The brief update took me from feeling tired, to genuinely feeling sick to the pit of my stomach. Intellectually I know it’s a relatively small proportion of society being very loud and spiteful. The problem is that its very effective. I find it frankly terrifying to be feeling the way I did back in the 80s.
Pride is a protest. Pride is essential. Pride shows each of us that we’re not actually alone. It shows us we are not as vulnerable and hated as people would have us believe. Like every community, we’re stronger together, and uplift each other, and can help provide perspective. In this moment, I really feel that Pride is more important than ever – and its why I can’t just slip away into the shadows. I will keep speaking up. I will keep being kind. I can’t wipe away the venom, but I can at least make my corner of the world a better place than I found it.
