🏳️‍🌈 I just posted this on LinkedIn with a link to another article on book banning.

LinkedIn is where my new boss follows me. And my prior director follows me. And the director of the agency that approves who gets hired for any role in the state and who is thick as thrives with the governor follows me.

…I may not leave it up for very long.

Hey, everyone.

I keep seeing articles and hearing news about the unprecedented number of challenges to LGBTQ+ literature, the unprecedented number of anti-trans bills being signed into law, the whole “anti-woke” wave that allows for the free expression of bigotry, Christian supremacy, racism, and homo and transphobia, and I feel like I need to explain something. I need to get something off of my chest.

Here’s the thing. You can’t erase me. You won’t erase me. You can’t because at some point, enough is going to be enough and we won’t let you. You can’t erase gender identity and you can’t erase sexual orientation. You can’t erase us. We’re already here. We are your sons and daughters, your mothers and fathers, your sisters and brothers. We are your employees and your employers, your neighbors and your friends, your ministers and your community leaders. We’re plumbers and doctors and pet owners and gun enthusiasts and gun control advocates. We’re older and younger, richer and poorer, truthful and deceitful. We are the voters and the vote-suppressed, the privileged and the underprivileged, the neurotypical and the neurodiverse.

But we’re all of us here.

We’re here, like we’ve always been. We’re queer, like we’ve always been. And we certainly ain’t going shopping.

So ban and burn books today. Legislate and codify bigotry disguised as religious liberty today, wear your AK-47 lapel pins today, stack the courts today, gerrymander the districts today, lie to the people today, tank the economy today, force unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies and births today, take the bribes today, send your worthless thoughts and prayers tweets today, forget to disclose the lavish gifts today, excuse and normalize the behavior today, defund public education today, cut taxes for the billionaires today, ride the spaceship today, play the martyr today, vilify the educated today, militarize the police today, deregulate today, wreck the environment and pretend like it’s not your fault today, blame socialism for it all today, get your back scratched and your palm greased today.

But tomorrow is coming.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Tomorrow is our day.

And while we absolutely have the capacity to be empathetic and forgiving, we’ve also got one hell of a memory. We remember every June. We remember every day.

You can’t erase people who are different from you.

So you’d better learn to live with us. We aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

M’kay?

Hope that clears up a few things.

Love,

Matthew (whose opinions he is entitled to have and that are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the organizations he works or volunteers for)