Condemns Homophobia and Transphobia
Over the last year, conservatives have been engaging in escalating attacks on the right of queer people to exist publicly.
Whether it is a queer teacher’s ability to live their life outside of the closet or the existence of queer events in general, they have engaged in fearmongering about grooming, about child sexualization, about transgenderism and queerness spreading as a “social contagion.” They have used these fears of the “other” to direct attacks, including violent protests and murder, toward the queer community.
This week that incitement to violence has come to the Rochester area, as two consecutive bomb threats have been made to intimidate Hilton Central School District to exclude This Book Is Gay—a nonfiction book that aims to be a resource for queer students—from its high school library.
That discussing the sexuality of teenagers is accepted in teen films, young adult novels, or comics so long as it is a straight sexuality is beside the point.
That the book has been checked out of the library twice in eight years is beside the point.
That these conservatives are backed by institutions with actual histories of child abuse infinitely more sordid than any a queer person could imagine is beside the point.
These conservatives do not care about children.
They do not care about children dying in mass shootings, dying from easily preventable diseases, being harmed by malnutrition or hunger or environmental damage. Their hypocrisy is beside the point.
The point in these attacks is to destroy the ability of queer people to exist in public, starting with the most oppressed segment of the queer community, trans people.
Attacks on the queer community and trans people in particular serve to rile up reactionary forces and distract from the damage actually being wrought by their billionaire masters; that their incitement hurts or kills queer people is of no concern to them.
Rochester DSA believes in the old labor adage, an injury to one is an injury to all. Trans people, like all of us, are working toward their own actualization, are struggling for the liberty to live a full and meaningful life. This struggle is natural and will always occur, regardless of homophobic scaremongering, regardless of any legislation a transphobic government passes.
The “social contagion” of queerness occurs when someone who feels lacking in their life recognizes what they were missing in a queer person brave enough to be queer in public, and that will always happen, regardless of the petty tyranny of a government, a parent, or a church.
Rochester DSA is proud to stand with the trans community, proud to recognize in the trans struggle a universal struggle for human freedom.