First published on Slate on 6/23/23. Illustration by Anjali Kamat
Perhaps you have noticed, of late, that society is “collapsing.” That the incoherent babbling of the vicious and insane now dominates prime-time news and every corner of the internet. That both queer acceptance and anti-queer backlash seem to be proliferating in ways that should be impossible, or at the very least should cancel each other out, but are instead turning America into a patchwork quilt of homophobic hellholes and sanctuary jurisdictions, like a thin rainbow sheen floating on a dirty puddle. And that rainbow? It has colors you’ve never noticed before, representing identities you’ve never heard of. Look closely; you might even see yourself reflected in it—at least until some jackbooted mouth-breather stomps through it on his way to protest Disney, or drag queens, or his own children, who have long since disowned him.
I sound flip, I know—a touch indifferent to all that unpleasantness. Forgive me: I came of age on a steady diet of bar queens quoting Joan Crawford while they took their triple-drug cocktails. They showed me that indifference has long been a kind of queer armor. The only defense when you can’t stop them from hitting you is to never let them see it hurt (then kick ’em in the balls when they get winded). These days, however, my indifference is of a different kind: less aesthetic, more practical. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not at all indifferent to the terrible suffering the right is causing for queer people, especially trans people and young people and queer people of color, and those who are all of the above. Quite the contrary. It’s just that I know, in my heart of hearts, that our enemies are stupid, and they will fail.
Let me explain…