Don't let the bigots rebrand LGBTQ history

 I ran into this ball of bullshyte today online:

Who is this woman? In the grand scheme of things, a huge nobody. She is simply one of many on Twitter attempting to monetize themselves or grab social media clout for their "substack" or "podcast." Since buying Twitter, Elon Musk has been breeding that type like the xenemorph queen in the Aliens franchise.

What she represents though, is an attempt by conservatives on the far right to remake LGBTQ history to make their transphobia more palpable to the masses. The narrative is that gays and lesbians were pretty much accepted but are now facing a backlash because the community has been "hijacked" by transgender and queer activists. In the case above, the tweet blames Joe Biden for it all.

It is a ludicrous narrative but it is also fairly popular amongst some on Twitter including, I hate to say, some gays and lesbians. It's a woeful mixture of young gays and lesbian ignorant of their history, older gays and lesbians who can't deal with how more other voices in the community (bisexuals, transgender people, and LGBTQ people of color) are demanding to be heard, and far-right outsiders looking to divide and conquer.

 Any idea that gays and lesbians were accepted before trans and queer people came along is a lie. And so many of us know it too well. We have the physical and psychological marks to prove it. We remember how the right denigrated us in the past with the same audacity they use to openly denigrate trans people. The false narratives about unhealthy lives, despotic desires for control, and sexualizing kids were hallmarks of anti-gay propaganda:

Gays are sick people:

 Their [gay] minds are perverted, they’re frankly sick people psychologically, mentally, and emotionally.” – Bishop EW Jackson 

 Yet almost all gays make lots of money:

 “You know, I saw yesterday how much -- how much money the homosexual community has. I mean, good gracious, the average homosexual makes four times more than I do . . . I mean, they're not -- these people are not in poverty or hurting or denied or anything else.” – Donald Wildmon, American Family Association 

Gays are only a small part of the population: 

“Relying on three large data sets: the General Social Survey, the National Health and Social Life Survey, and the U.S. census, a recent study in Demography estimates the number of exclusive male homosexuals in the general population at 2.5 percent and exclusive lesbians at 1.4 percent.” – Family Research Council in its inaccurate brief “Homosexuality and Child Abuse” 

 Yet gays “control” the culture: 

“Homosexual activists in many ways, drive our culture, they decide what’s going to be in a movie, we see all the portrayals, homosexuals are the most positively portrayed in the movies and on television.” – Peter LaBarbera, Americans for Truth 

 Gays “bully” all of those who oppose them: 

“Instead, what we have is the gay Gestapo who go out and try to intimidate morally, economically, professionally, and personally anyone who speaks out against the homosexual agenda.” – Jeffrey Kuhner, The Washington Times 

Gays “Recruit” children:

 “. . . Folks who cannot reproduce want to recruit your children. What we are facing is a radical force of people who want to change what America looks for the next twenty years . . .” – Bishop Harry Jackson 

And are plotting to either destroy or change America and “silence” Christians:

 “Those special gay rights would require Christians not to speak against –would require us Christians not to speak against homosexual rights . . . because if we did, we could be charged with bullying or censored for it.” – Buster Wilson, American Family Association 

“Through a carefully crafted, decades-old propaganda campaign, homosexuals have successful cast homosexuals - many of whom enjoy positions of influence and affluence - as a disadvantage minority” – Matt Barber, Unmasking the “Gay” Agenda 

And while generating all of this mayhem, gays still manage to find time to have all sorts of mind-boggling wild sex with multiple partners:

“One study determined that homosexual males have from between 20 to 106 sexual partners per year. It’s no wonder that homosexual men account for over 50% of all hepatitis cases, and still account for over 50% of all AIDS cases despite the fact that they only make up 1-3% of the population.” – Matt Barber, The Gay Agenda vs. Family Values, December 12, 2004 

“Homosexual activists claim their lifestyle, which in some cases includes thousands of sexual partners, should be sanctioned, protected, and granted special rights by society. Would you critique this stance?“ – a question on Dr. James Dobson's web page. Dobson is the former head of Focus on the Family.

What happening now is that trans people are the new target because, like gays in the past, people are ignorant about what their lives entail. And with ignorance comes the power to exploit fears of the unknown.

But that will change. Until then, the lies won't change. They never change. 

Only the scapegoats change. The new unknowns.