Sleep deeply, dream sweetly, Brianna

 

In Manchester, UK today, two teenagers, a male and a female, were sentenced to 20+ year terms in prison for the sadistic murder of a 16-year old trans girl named Brianna Ghey last year. In a text, one of the two murderers said, "I want to see if it will scream like a man or a girl." In court, another of the murderers said "I wanted to see what size of dick it had." Brianna Ghey was stabbed with a hunting knife 28 times in her head, neck, chest and back

My friends on my FB friend list are good people—I rarely accept random friend requests, and I'm generally able to place any name on my list in some sort of context when I see it. That said, my friends have friends, and they have friends, and some of them are not very good people.

To my friends I beg this—the next time you encounter transphobia on this site, either casual or vindictive, please call it out. It's dangerous. It's not just "a personal opinion." Reporting hate seems minimally effective on Facebook in 2024, because the official policy is not to care very much. It's also a growing social policy in countries like Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain.

If Brianna had been a member of some other minority group, including gays and lesbians, and not a trans teenager, this ghastly story would have been on the cover of TIME, accompanied by a prizewinning think-piece about how it was time for a "reckoning," and that a "national dialogue" was needed.

But she wasn't. She was a member of an ultra-vulnerable minority group comprising 1%-2% of the population of Great Britain, and therefore, in the minds of many, utterly disposable, and, in their minds, probably brought it on herself by being herself.

While conservatives in Alberta, Canada spend this weekend gloating about how they've just implemented the most vicious. most un-Canadian anti-transgender legislation in our history, and while pick-me gays and lesbians throw trans people under the bus hoping that it will take some of the heat off themselves, and while self-righteous TERF campaigner in England loudly bray about how Pride flags in a national railway station "are a threat to women's rights," somewhere tonight Brianna Ghey's grieving mother and father will find cold comfort in the fact that their daughter's murderers will spend the next two decades in prison. Their arms will always be empty, and the ache and loss they feel will be with them until the day they die, like every parent of every child lost to monstrous bigotry turned violent that someone, somewhere, thought was their right to indulge.

Monsters don't all wield knives. Some of them wield words and lies, spoken aloud or gleefully share on social media.

We've all heard at least some of the words: "troon," "t*anny," "he-she," "groomer," "pedo," and worse, whether they come from dirtbags on Twitter, right-wing politicians, carefully camouflaged by bestselling children's authors, or brazenly trumpeted by billionaire comedians who validate the exact hate that led to this murder, and call it "comedy," and make it seem somehow righteous. The blood-drenched end result is all too tragically often the same.

She was a teenage girl, full of dreams about the possibilities of her own life. She could have been any of our daughters or granddaughters.

Rest in peace, Brianna. And love and comfort to all parents of murdered children who will be mourning them tonight.

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. 

Caitlyn Jenner Never Fails to Disappoint

 

Last night, Caitlyn Jenner made her debut as a Fox contributor on Sean Hannity. She praised Ron DeSantis, and she praised Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law. She reminded Hannity that she was "trans, but not a trans activist," hinting that there was more anti-LGBT opprobrium from her to come. This morning I double-checked her "inspirational" 2015 ESPY Award speech—for which she receieved a standing ovation—because I could have sworn it was about the vulnerability of LGBT kids, and how they shouldn't have to "take" abuse from adults for who they were. Turns out it was about that, which makes her sickening descent into what she has become even more monstrous. Obviously that was the baggage she carried into her new life from her old life as a rich, bigoted, white Republican ex-jock. The sad thing is, she could have checked that baggage and never picked it back up again. She could have been a leader, and a lioness-protector. As long as I live, I will always harbour the deepest and most profound dislike of bullies, especially adult bullies of queer children. I come by that dislike honestly, and from first-hand experience. And unlike Ms. Jenner, when I say that kids shouldn't have to "take it," I mean it.