Ananke Ruadh
Formerly known as Ananke Zaresh
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2021
- Messages
- 1,260
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This year as TVN celebrates our stripes; both earned and adopted; we would like to take a look at the history of Pride. Especially now in the US, where it feels like all the progress of the 54 years since Stonewall is rapidly fading. Much has been said about Stonewall and the incredible people who finally stood up against injustice and the laws against homosexual activity including simply dancing with a member of the same sex, required a person to be wearing at least 3 articles of clothing that "matched their gender," and many others that placed our community at risk of arrest. Fewer people know that the first thrown object at the Stonewall Inn that night of June 28, 1969 came after one such person was having their clothing checked against their ID.
"Why don't you guys do something?" is the question of a moment turned legend that started the riots that led to Pride as we know it today.
Our communities stand divided. The question of "who counts" is drowning out our common struggle and the battles we are currently facing together; and it is hard not to see the similarities between where we stand today, and where we were standing some 50 years ago. So, this year for Pride Month, we are going to be taking a bit more of a deep-dive into the History of Pride Month.
We cannot understand where we are headed, until we learn where it is we have been.
Our Team asks that as you read the links provided, and engage with the material in conversation with your fellow Tower Community members this month, you are kind to each other. Accepting of one another. Our differences can be broad and run deep; but we are asking you to understand the humanity of those who have come before, and the humanity of those who are currently fighting for their rights to survive. To simply live, as themselves, in a world that would rather see them perish.
We are now, as we were on the cusp of the AIDs Crisis, and further into our shared past; all the way back to the razing of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (the Institute for Sexual Research) on May 6, 1933 by the Nazis; on the edge of a slow genocide of our Rainbow Family. As we look to the past for answers about where we have been, consider where it is we are standing now. The current legislation barring freedom of transition, of medical care, of simply knowing that others like you are out there in the world. Your Queer and LGBT+ community members are seeing the writing on the wall, and have been for a long time now.
If you care about us, it is time to open your eyes.
It is time, in the words of Stormé DeLarverie, to DO SOMETHING... and we can all start by learning.
=== THE STONEWALL INN: BIRTH OF RESISTANCE ===
When "Gay Marriage" passed in 2015, it left many Nonbinary (NB) people behind, didn't include necessary protections for the disabled, and largely ignored other rights that matter as much or more than marriage, like survivorship benefits, the right of inheritance, and more! In a move that was definitely a landmark case and cause for hope amongst the LGBTQ+ Community, the Supreme Court legalized one more kind of marriage... and left far more still unequal and behind.
Despite our hope and the efforts of lobbyists and outreach groups like the ACLU, there are still more states that do not recognize NB people than do, and they must still be married under male or female genders which due to the current actions of the Supreme Court going after Obergefell v Hodges after overturning Roe V Wade, those marriages in which a NB partner chose the "opposite" gender marker from the one assigned at birth, are now under attack. Imagine, if you will, being able at long last to marry your partner after a legal battle in which you must justify your basic existence to a court and a judge, change your name and gender marker after jumping through all those hoops; hormone replacement therapy, surgical intervention (required in most states to legally change your gender), a letter from a psychiatrist (often only received after YEARS of therapy and being jerked around by the so-called "medical professionals" who are meant to help you-) only to then be told that your rights are once again in question due you being either trans or your gender matching your partner.
That is the world in which we are currently living. That is the world that we are unable to escape and must deal with. The cold reality at the doors of our lives.
Ever since 2015 and that landmark case, our Community has remained under attack. With hate crimes and targeted shootings still ongoing, more states are using X gender markers to target trans people than are focused on keeping them safe from those same hate crimes. Legislators in Florida, Tennessee and Missouri are more concerned with policing the genitalia of children than making sports accessible to people of all ages- due to their assumptions and bigotry due to the current power imbalances in the state Senates and vocal Republicans demanding that we bow to their religious extremism. 530 anti-trans and anti-queer bills have been proposed this year, and meanwhile Florida has made it legal to separate children from families who love and support them if they are suspected of having access to someone undergoing transition and are pursuing charges of child abuse over puberty blockers while making their families political refugees to other states.
This pain and terror for minors for the co-called crime of using puberty blockers which have been helping cisgender children with precocious puberty since their approval in 1993 and do nothing more than stave off the irreversible hormonal affects of puberty while the child undergoes therapy and other interventions to be certain of their choices. All this before undergoing hormone replacement therapy for the correct puberty in accordance with their identity; or because an adult in their life has dared to be themselves and seek medical transition. Which is and has continued to be the current best practice according to scientists, psychologists, and medical professionals, and is supported by years of research, despite the meddling of legislators who do not have a medical license and have never gone to medical school.
Horrific enough before you even get into the broad drag bans that define "drag" so poorly that a trans adult existing in public can be cited by an overzealous officer, thrown out of bathrooms, or worse due to the lies being told about us. More horrific when state governments controlled by Republicans are over-involving themselves in deciding what can and cannot be legally allowable self expression and are actively denying their citizens medical and sexual autonomy with their ever-increasing attacks on our personal rights. Even more horrific when you know that these same states are banning books that even mention being LGBTQ+ or anything approaching a realistic view of history in order to maintain their control.
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. We are asking you to help us avoid repeating it. And, if we are forced back into the closets and behind locked doors, that you stand with us for our safety and our freedom. Do not allow the politics of this country to divide us further. Stand up. Fight back for our individual freedom to choose and to live as ourselves, the same as any other citizen.
Stand with us, or we all fall.
Further Reading:
USA Today: Timeline of Gay Marriage
ACLU : Tracking Attacks on LGBTQ Rights+
Erin In The Morning: May Anti-Trans Legislation Map (The most up-to-date as of 5.19.23)
History.Com: A Timeline of the 1969 Uprising
The Culture Crush: Why Don't You Guys Do Something?
Support Graphics:
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