Hate has no home here

I got up early this morning to join the "No Space For Hate" protest at Queen's Park, the counter-protest response to the one-day anti-trans gatherings that are occurring all over the country today. I have a lot of feelings that I'll probably need to sit with for awhile, but a few do come readily to mind.

First off, it feels surreal, as a 61-year old gay man, to still be protesting against these shitty people who hate us so much. This is a sentiment I've heard time and time again from women and POC my age, who likewise wish that folks had learned a bit more over the past half-decade or so.

We're still here, but they've raised a new generation of hate mongers who are as cruel as their parents, in their sentiments.

Likewise, it's amazing to see how well so any of our old protest slogans have been repurposed, and that silence still equals death, just a different kind of death at this point

I was also struck by the naked cynicism of the conservatives who organized this hate jamboree, exploiting every fissure and crack in Canadian society, uniting them in hate and ignorance.

Perched high on a statue in the middle of the park, a very young woman in an abaya and a hijab waved a sign that read "I BELONG TO MY PARENTS." Next to her, a twenty something white man brandished his own sign, "VACCINES ARE POISON." On the ground below them, others screamed obscenities and wielded "FUCK TRUDEAU!" placards, and signs with Bible verses, and even the tedious "GOD MADE ADAM AND EVE, NOT ADAM AND STEVE."

It was cold comfort that the messages on our side were messages of support for trans kids and trans youth, messages about freedom to me ourselves, and the right to dignity and self-determination of our lives and bodies.

I asked the permission of every single person whose photograph I too, and towards the end of the march, I asked a very young person if I might take a picture of their sign. They hesitated to a moment, then said, in a trembling voice, "Only the sign, OK?"

As a recent queer elder, it broke my heart to see that our youth can still, even in a modern city like Toronto, even in 2023, be that frightened by the possibility of being photographed carrying a very benign, very loving protest sign.

And the most prevalent, lingering feeling was this one: not since our AIDS marches and protests in the 80s and 90s have I felt I was in the presence of people who would be just as happy to send queer people, especially trans people, to camps.

Or to simply have us...disappear.

For gay men and lesbians of my generation, who'd like to wash their hands of the virulent anti-trans movement, I urge them to pay attention: the language being used against trans people is exactly the same language used against us in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, and we have only ever been as strong as our most fragile link.

They are determined to keep their hate alive at any cost, and they know they can't do it without telling lies.

All these words—"groomer," "pedo," "after our kids," "recruiters"—were used against gay men and lesbians in the last half of the 20th century. They know we are no threat to "the family," so they need a scare-narrative to sell their bigotry to the ignorant, degenerate, fearful masses who desperately need an "other" against which to wish violence and direct their hate.

And if they ever did away with "the trans problem," as they call it, you already know exactly who they'd come after next. It is truly well past time for us to all come together.

Even if some of us don't think we belong in the same community, the people who hate us absolutely believe that we do.