Safety At Pride in 2022

The last few years has been a beast for LGBTQ+ Americans. Not only are laws being passed around the country targeting trans youth, and "Don't Say Gay" bills are up for vote in numerous states, as well, but now our physical safety is being targeted again. On Saturday, June 11th, one day before the 6th anniversary of the Pulse Massacre in Orlando, 31 members of the white nationalism group Patriot Front were arrested in Idaho near a Pride event. The sorry excuses for men were found packed in the back of a U-Haul and armed with riot gear, shin guards, a smoke grenade, and an operations plan of attack that was, as Coeur D'Alene Police Chief Lee White put it, “similar to an operations plan that a police or military group would put together for an event." Thanks to a concerned local who reported the men when she saw them loading up into the back of the U-Haul, the attack was thwarted and all 31 men were arrested, but the question begs: how safe are we this Pride Month?

These legislative and physical threats are nothing new to the Queer community. Laws have been proposed and enacted against us for decades, and hate crimes are ultimately as American as Apple Pie, if we're being honest with ourselves. But the last few months feel as though things have been doubling down at an unprecedented rate. White supremacists and neo-nazis are emboldened by the Drumpf presidency to come out of the shadows they've been lurking in, and they are using their voices to impact politicians and to scare marginalized communities.

Patti's Thoughts on Drumpf

In August of 2017, neo-nazis took to the streets of Charlottesville, VA carrying torches and chanting "Jews will not replace us!", a group then President Drumpf called "good people." Now a few years later, Patriot Front was planning to riot at an Idaho Pride event, claiming that the group who was there to celebrate their love and their existence was really there to recruit kids. Jared Boyce was one of the white supremacists arrested from the back of the U-Haul truck. When his mother pressed him on why he was there, and asked if he had come to realize the group was a hate-filled group of shitbags, Boyce doubled down, telling her, "We were there to prevent them from grooming children."

The idea that Queer adults are trying to recruit the youth of America of course ignores the fact that the youth of America is already substantially Queer. As reported in TeenVogue 2017 study of 1,000 Americans and Brits aged 16-26 found that 57% of participants do not identify as traditionally heterosexual. On an even larger scale, a 2022 Gallup poll found that 7.1% of Americans identify as LGBTQ+, a number that is up from 5.1% just two years ago, and is nearly double the number from when Gallup first did the poll in 2012.

So where do we turn? Homophobes across the country, having gained steam from four years of Drumpf in office, are threatening our physical safety, our legislators are targeting us legally, and our police force has historically opposed us, which has resulted in them no longer being welcomed at many Queer marches. Who can we turn to to protect us, particularly this Pride Month when we should be taking to the streets celebrating our Love, our joy, and our existences? As always, the answer is simple: ourselves. We certainly need to keep pushing our elected officials to fight back against hate-filled legislations and to remember the fundamental sense of the separation of Church and State. But we also need to be vigilant and ready to protect our Queer fam! See something suspicious? Be like the local Idahoan and report it. See someone Queer who's being threatened physically? Get in there and get ready to kick some ass. The hate we're seeing around the world is gambling on their impression that they think we'll be scared off from existing. Not only is that just not how things work, but they obviously haven't read history books.

Finally, there is one thing we decidedly have in our favor: numbers. Although the voices of those filled with hate are often the loudest, there are decidedly far more of us who support love than there are homophobes and neo-nazis. This Pride Month, go out and enjoy yourselves. The more of us who take to the streets to celebrate our existence, the more of us there will be to shut them the fuck up, and to shut them the fuck down.

Happy Pride, Queers. Don't be silenced.

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