Pride Power! by Adam Parkhomenko
A Pride Month declaration from the cussing newsletter guys Read on Substack
It’s a safe bet this White House won’t be flying the rainbow flag this June.
But you can bet your hot asses we will.
June is Pride Month, a celebration of our LGBTQIA+ friends and a good damn reminder that for a free country to truly be free, people must be allowed to be themselves. It’s also a helluva party.
But this year’s Pride comes as the federal government has declared war on trans folks, banned books dealing with LGBTQIA+ issues and authors and made bigotry great again. Like with all things Trump, there ain’t much to celebrate. And that’s why we’re gonna be louder and prouder than we’ve ever been before.
If the president of the United States won’t stand up for our gay, lesbian and trans friends, then we sure as shit will. We’re proud of you, we’re happy to stand next to you and we love you. And like a lot of people who want to be allies, we can be clumsy as hell about it, so please don’t hesitate to tell us how we can do better.
So many Americans have seen their rights and protections either diminished or destroyed under Trump. It’s why so many people in this country are so scared right now. And sad. And angry.
Trump and the GOP have made trans people their personal punching bags. This week, Trump even threatened California over a 16-year-old trans athlete. That’s the president of the United States bullying a child simply because they are different from other kids. If you want to debate trans folks in sports, fine, but surely we can agree that the president shouldn’t be attacking teenagers who are just trying to be teenagers.
Whether it’s erasing the trans heroes from the memorial plaque at Stonewall or denying them the chance to serve in the military, Trump has made clear he will use our government to bully, harass and demean trans people. It’s cruel. It’s wrong. It’s un-American.
And we know it won’t stop there. Because it never does.
We’re already seeing Trump administration efforts to eliminate suicide hotlines and other resources for LGBTQIA+ youth. They’re salivating at the idea of bringing back cruel conversion therapy. And we’ve all heard the rumblings from people like Clarence Thomas about going after gay marriage.
Even as we write this, a gay barber sits in an El Salvadoran prison, sent there by Trump and abandoned by a country that hypocritically proclaims to the world that all men are created equal.
We should be welcoming Andry Hernandez Romero to our country, a land of freedom and opportunity where he can be himself without threats of anti-gay violence. Alas, we are not that America right now. The truth is we rarely have been.
So this will be a different kind of Pride Month. We might party a little less and march a little more. We will spend this June being tragically reminded that the voices of hate and bigotry are still very much alive and they have a pretty big microphone these days.
And that’s why we will spend this month shouting how much we love and support the LGBTQIA+ community. Because fuck the haters, and fuck their hate.
Let’s show the world how we do Pride Month in this country. And let’s remind the bigots what real freedom looks like.
To our LGBTQIA+ friends, we love you, we’re proud of you and we promise you are not alone. Happy Pride, everybody!
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(And if you click through to the Substack, you can see the new “apology” video from Sen. Ernst, just after Pete’s Heat. Alt Media is an extremely worthy click. Sen. Ernst’s apology is not. -A.)
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