Hate is Hate

The worst part is none of this was a surprise. When one political party demonizes a group of people just trying to live their lives over and over and over again, this is the inevitable outcome. Five people died and another 18 were injured while out trying to have a fun Saturday night at their local gay bar. This is on the GOP and far-right terrorists who have decided that making trans people the enemy is the best way for them to get votes and therefore power.

But you know the fuck what? Fuck your guns. And fuck your hate.

This is the deliberate outcome of years of antagonizing the easily scared with made-up stories of imaginary threats caused by trans people trying to use the restroom or play youth sports or just exist in public. According to the Humans Campaign, more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills are pending across state legislatures already this year. Three 300. That’s almost one a damn day. That’s the cause, the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs in the intended effect.

The only queer space in an otherwise conservative community (which has five, yes five, military bases nearby) was not a random attack. The attacker was known, and made violent threats before, yet still somehow about to obtain the mass shooter’s favorite assault weapon and then some because freedom or whatever.

When you have politicians and right-wing bigots targeting trans and other LGBTQ+ people in coordinated and despicable bad-faith attacks on drag shows, there’s no need to connect any dots. It’s a straight damn line.

Club Q was hosting a drag night and planned a drag brunch the next mornings. Right-wing hatemongers have been calling people at drag shows “groomers.” Someone kills trans and queer people. Cause and intended effect.

The truth is the Lauren Boeberts and Ron DeSantises of the world are grooming a new crop of mass shooters. We said they’d get people killed with their irresponsible, reprehensible lies about trans and queer people. Keep your thoughts and prayers, and stop using us to score cheap political points.

But here’s the thing about us queers. We’re fucking resilient. We shouldn’t have to be. But we have learned how to survive, because it was the only option in a hostile world.

And the thing about gay bars is that even if we don’t go to bars, as a queer person you go to gay bars. Maybe not as a regular, but you’ve gone. And it’s always safe and it’s always welcome. For some of us, it’s the only place where we feel that. That’s the thing about having to always find your family – some places become sacred. So fuck your hate. Fuck your christofascist morality crusades. We’re still going to our places. Because they’re ours.

You can’t scare us away. You can’t terrorize us back into the closet. You can’t harass us out of existence. We’re here, we’re queer. We belong. Your hate doesn’t.