Editorial: LGBTQ Americans need public support against efforts to erase them
Groomers, they shout. Freaks. Pedophiles.
The names and slurs are familiar. Their intent? To demean and belittle, to intimidate and threaten.
The implications are unmistakable: People who identify as LGBTQ aren’t entitled to share the same spaces as other Americans. They don’t deserve the same legal protections. They shouldn’t exist.
Far from being at the margins of our national political discourse, these sorts of insults and attacks are now at the center of fierce arguments. You can hear them everywhere from the halls of Congress to the school board meeting rooms here in Hampton Roads.
Those delivering such hateful and dangerous drivel are people who believe that LGBTQ people have no right to be part of society — and they have no reservations about saying so, often loudly. They are committed to stripping away legal protections for these Americans, restricting them to fewer spaces in our communities and, ultimately, chasing them from public life.
That’s evident, for example, in attempts to scrub public schools of any reference to non-conforming sexual and gender lifestyles. It’s clear in organized efforts to disrupt programming involving LGBTQ people or professionals who care for them, such as doctors and hospitals that have the gall to treat LGBTQ youth as human beings.
But it’s more than acts of intimidation or smear campaigns. Some of the most prominent political voices in the country are voicing and amplifying these disgusting slurs and baseless attacks. They are advancing legislation that would limit LGBTQ access to health care, education, athletics and even public spaces. They want to remove legal protections that ensure LGBTQ Americans aren’t targeted for harm because of their identity. And in a concurring opinion to Dobbs ruling earlier this year, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas even questioned the 2015 Obergefell precedent that affirmed the right to marry, making same-sex unions the law of the land.
The commonwealth isn’t immune to this sickness infecting the country. Earlier this year, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration proposed rules that would harm and possibly endanger transgender youth in public schools.
Not content to merely have the title removed from public schools, Del. Tim Anderson, R-Virginia Beach, unsuccessfully filed suit to stop private bookstores from selling “Gender Queer,” a memoir about the author’s personal journey of identity.
And another Virginia Beach Republican, Del. Karen Greenhalgh, recently introduced legislation that would limit participation in sports programs based on a person’s biological sex, taking direct aim at transgender kids.
These are far from the only examples but they offer the type of exhausting and relentless opposition that LGBTQ Americans face daily. And those who stand up to this onslaught, who dare to defend these Americans or who rightly believe communities should be welcoming for all? They are subjected to similar attacks in an attempt to discourage them from speaking out.
Groomers, they shout. Freaks. Pedophiles.
What happened last weekend in Colorado Springs is the predictably tragic outgrowth of this philosophy. Even as authorities continue their investigation, it’s likely that the shooter, who killed five people and wounded at least 18 others, deliberately choose to attack a gay nightclub because of the patrons who frequent it. Victims and survivors alike told media outlets how Club Q provided them protection and comfort from a hostile world.
The places where LGBTQ Americans can feel safe and be themselves gets smaller by the day. This is a deliberate, coordinated campaign of hate, and nobody should be surprised when those so inclined use it as justification for violence.
They will continue to shout, these spiteful, shameless voices who want LGBTQ Americans erased from public life. It’s vital they do not succeed. And therefore it is essential that more people stand up for the acceptance, tolerance and compassion — the right to exist — that everyone deserves.