Hi there. Hope you don’t mind an interruption to the memes for a message from the heart.
I’m the default player character in America: middle-aged, white, cis, hetero dude. I’ve always been on the left side of the American political spectrum, and have tried my best to lead a life of openness, kindness, acceptance, and respect for all ways of life.
Throughout high school and college, I knew a fair number of non-hetero people, and was delighted as the fight for gay rights and acceptance finally swung in their direction (at a national level, in America, at least – I’m not pretending the work is done or things are perfect). I’ll admit I didn’t know or hadn’t thought much about trans people or other parts of the TQ+ parts of the human experience until the last five years ago as they became more visible to us boring people.
How did that happen? Things like pronouns in bios and email signatures. Seeing visible trans people in media and politics. Wondering what that blue and pink flag meant. And even sitting on the sidelines of silly meme communities that seem to have a strong representation of people who live different lives than I do.
All of these little things had a real impact, for me at least. I’ve now had the pleasure of working with at least 4 trans people over the past 5 years, and one of my friends came out recently as non-binary. It makes me so happy to see people living their lives as their true selves.
I say all of this because our current political reality sucks. And what I say here isn’t going to negate the real harm and fear that many people will face. But I want you all to know, no matter what the people in charge say and do: I see you, I love you, and no one can take that away from me or from you. I am not going back to a world where you don’t exist.
The past two companies I’ve worked for have had DEI committees that were started by low-level employees, not by some weird political government mandate. They included a mix of people who might be considered “diverse” as well as many “regular” people like me. These efforts were broadly supported by majorities of the company. People want DEI.
The government can ban DEI efforts within the government itself, it can bully spineless tech companies to do the same, but it can’t remove this thirst for inclusion from my heart or anyone else’s. It can and will try to deny you healthcare, deny you opportunity, make you invisible, rewind progress. But progress is hard to take out of people’s hearts and minds and put back in a box. In 4 years (hopefully), we’ll have someone else in charge, and I am going to be right here, ready to pick up where things left off.
And in the meantime, I got your back, as much as I can. I’m one person and I can’t change or control a lot. But I can and will stand up for the people in my life, where I work and live. And I am not alone. You have allies out there.
That’s all I wanted to say. You’re welcome to share this with anyone who needs it. Keep being yourselves out there. Keep the memes coming. We’ll get through this.
I am not a parent, and can only imagine how challenging and heart-breaking it is to deal with all of this from that angle as well. Thank you for that perspective. I still have plenty of room to continue broadening my understanding.
And I’m really sorry to hear about the harassment you experience. I can’t imagine walking up to a stranger on the street to say much of anything, let alone demean them. I guess, as you said via your quote, some people are just cruel, and now they are emboldened.
I feel like you’re extremely well aware and compassionate towards, well, basically any minority based on how you’ve spoke here. My ex and I had a chat with our kids about what to do if you’re lost, alone, and need help. In my day, we were told to find a firefighter, or usually a cop. Obviously that doesn’t work now, so what we taught them was to ‘find the rainbows’ IE. the Pride flags, pins, etc. One of my kids is deeply into vexillology, so we showed them a wide variety of flags from the ‘queer’ space, and in counter-point, the ‘thin blue line’/punisher/etc flags. Unfortunately, we’ve had to add the Canadian flag as a ‘caution’, as people who are pretending to be patriots camouflage themselves with it.
As ‘the default’, your presence and support creates an outsize effect. So, as to what you can do to show your support:
Plaster this over all your stuff
Use pronouns in all your stuff; emails, forum stuff, everywhere you can.
Go to rallys, protests, strikes, anywhere that queer people are demonstrating.
Now, you’re going to have to gauge your comfort/safety doing each of those things, and if your work means you rely on others for your safety, and they’re bigots, there’s a non-zero chance your ‘pride flag’ means they’re a little slow if you’re hurt, or check your gear a little less. So be careful.
Which leads me to the other stuff you can do, that frankly is far more valuable, effective, and supportive. It also also much more dangerous.
When you hear people making bigoted comments, even if they’re just passing by, call them out. If they’re friends/acquaintances of yours, this is even more important. Keep in mind there is a very real chance you can be physically harmed here, and as someone who has done this from age 6 to, well, now in my 40’s, I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to do in the US. I’ve been attacked numerous times for it, yet the vast, vast majority of the time bullies are abject cowards and will talk a big game and run. As I said though, it’s dangerous.
Help escort people from LGBT clubs/bars/etc to their vehicles/ubers/etc. As with above, there’s a non-zero chance you’ll be assaulted doing this. I know this must sound like 80’s action movie stuff to my cishet friends out there, but even here in polite Canada it’s dangerous. The Vancouver Police Department would grab women coming out of lesbian bars and rape them on one our beaches well into the 1970’s/early '80’s. While that isn’t done systemically (as much) now, it still happens, even to female cops. If you’re protecting these people, as a ‘SJW’, you’re also a target. Again if you’re in the US, this is even more dangerous.
Mostly though, being an open ally (those flag patches/stickers/whatever) is a lot. It’s another body, it’s someone who we can reasonably rely on to back us up.