02/06/2023
I love pride month. It's history is undeniably American. Some of the details about what exactly happened all those years ago in 1969 in the upper east side of New York are fuzzy. But this much is known: The q***r community had been targeted and harassed by police and unjust discriminatory laws for years. As had happened many times before, around midnight on June 28th, police raided the Stonewall and began to brutalize and arrest the transgender and non-conforming Americans that were gathered there. But this time the oppressed fought back. A riot began that would last for five days, bricks were thrown, police squad cars set ablaze, bullies were beaten with their own bloody batons, and a dialog began that would end with oppressive laws being overturned and freedom won for the q***r community (at least for a little while).
All because once again brave Americans had stood and fought against unfair oppression by their peers. Unwilling any longer to accept the abuse and unfair targeting of their community, they fought until they won the right to exist.
I am something of a gender abolitionist. I believe people should be free to live as they see fit - to love who they will, to dress and to express themselves without worry that it breaks traditional expectations based on their appearance or their s*x organs. I used to think of myself as a man. I mostly fit the part. I was big and strong, bearded, balding, enthusiastically religious, married to a petite, invincible firebrand, with sweet, precocious children. I was told I was a man and what was expected of men.
Aside from having left the cult, much of that is still true. But I now wholeheartedly reject the idea that we must conform to rigid gender roles in order to have happiness or to appease gods. I reject narrow interpretations of marriage as a construct for perpetuating patriarchy and male supremacy, ownership, entitlement or authority over other people.
I am proud of what I have become. I am a gender non-conforming, polyamorous parent. I love and am committed to my sweetheart, but I do not own her. I stand with my fellow q***r Americans and wish you all a happy pride month.
