Pride in the face of fear – Georgia Voice – Gay & LGBT Atlanta News

Working in LGBTQ media makes you keenly aware of every bad news story for the LGBTQ community. Homophobia and transphobia never died; In my six years working in LGBTQ media, it has never escaped me that there is always more negative news to report than good news, with the ratio becoming more and more negative as the over the years. This year, this knowledge is particularly difficult to manage. More than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in the United States this year, and 34 have been passed. Target not only pulled Pride products from shelves, but some of the queer artists commissioned for these products reportedly received no compensation for their work. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security just released a public service announcement warning Pride organizers about terrorist attacks abroad, and domestic terrorism and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric are on the rise. Zionist conservatives and liberals alike are using the LGBTQ community as an excuse for genocide, and more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed. An Atlanta police officer murdered Lyft driver Reginald Folks because he believed Folks was a member of a gay fraternity trying to recruit him.

As Pride Month begins, a question comes to mind: how to celebrate? What does Pride look like when the world turns its back on us? Fear weighs heavy on my heart, less for me, an honest cis person in Atlanta, and more for my trans brothers and sisters, LGBTQ Palestinians, my black queer friends, and those who live in cities and towns where security against sectarian violence is less. easy to find than in Atlanta. If I’m consumed with fear, how must they feel?

As John Lennon said: “When we are afraid, we withdraw from life. » When we operate from fear, we close ourselves off to love, to acceptance, to openness, to the life we ​​know we want to live. This fear is intentionally created by those who are afraid of us, who wish to find companionship in misery by trying to cut us off from the freedom of fearlessness, security, and comfort. They want us to be afraid. We can’t give them what they want.

As fear tries to find a permanent home in my body, I remember Stonewall. I return to a time when being gay was a crime, putting you at risk of state-sanctioned violence at any time simply for being who you are, and the ensuing revolt against it. I think of Michael Hardwick, the gay man caught having sex with his partner after police raided his home and he was arrested for sodomy – and who ultimately stood up to the law in court .

How scary must this existence have been? And yet LGBTQ people persisted. They lived openly when they could and fought back when they had to. Pride then was what it always was: an insistence of our humanity. We are here, we are going to live the way we want and we are not going to let it scare us. This Pride Month, the same message rings true. No matter how many fanatics mobilize against us, we will always fight harder and we will always prevail.