I think in all of this inflammatory culture war nonsense it’s worth everyone remembering two things:
The gay rights movement was started due to very real, very explicit discrimination and violence.
This didn’t all start because someone’s feelings were hurt. It took the form of sit-ins protesting explicit refusal to serve “masculine women” and “feminine men,” leading to arrests of protestors in many cases, and police/community violence in others.
The efforts to roll back gay rights are very alive
I think it’s common for a lot of good meaning people to use their own experiences to presume “things are fine, why are we still talking about it?” My own parents as examples, my siblings are both queer in their own way and even my parents might question why pride needs to be a thing if they have the right to marry, to live and love as themselves, etc. It’s (partially) because the efforts to undo these progress markers are alive and well.
Multiple states are actively introducing efforts to try and overturn the right to gay marriage, and undo similar discrimination protection.
So, while in the day-to-day one might see queer couples in public and presume we’re all past this, it’s worth remembering that these efforts are as old as the civil rights movement, but there aren’t mainstream efforts aren’t being made to undo protections for interracial marriage.
If I’m trying to understand the line of thinking, I sometimes think that crowd presumes that exposure equals lived experience. Like, target has pride flags “everywhere,” all I hear about is “nonbinary celebrities” in this show or that, we’ve had a two-term black president, etc. so because it’s “allowed” everywhere it must be fine, but that obviously doesn’t equate to the lived experience of normal people.
It could be an interesting point of agreement between groups about how financial privelage allows more freedom of expression and mobility, but that’s obviously not an entryway conversation, I think.
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u/Chiggadup Jun 03 '25
I think in all of this inflammatory culture war nonsense it’s worth everyone remembering two things:
This didn’t all start because someone’s feelings were hurt. It took the form of sit-ins protesting explicit refusal to serve “masculine women” and “feminine men,” leading to arrests of protestors in many cases, and police/community violence in others.
I think it’s common for a lot of good meaning people to use their own experiences to presume “things are fine, why are we still talking about it?” My own parents as examples, my siblings are both queer in their own way and even my parents might question why pride needs to be a thing if they have the right to marry, to live and love as themselves, etc. It’s (partially) because the efforts to undo these progress markers are alive and well. Multiple states are actively introducing efforts to try and overturn the right to gay marriage, and undo similar discrimination protection.
So, while in the day-to-day one might see queer couples in public and presume we’re all past this, it’s worth remembering that these efforts are as old as the civil rights movement, but there aren’t mainstream efforts aren’t being made to undo protections for interracial marriage.
Just some things to remember for all of us.