It was good to be in a room full of young and old, strident and demur, optimistic and grieving people being authentically themselves. It was soothing to know I didn’t have to explain or defend myself. It was empowering to be in a room full of strangers, knowing I had a pre-existing bond with each one of them. So, all in all, the experience was great, and I highly recommend you find a way to commune with your people. Even if it is just standing next to them. Even if you never say a word.

Because the meeting started Friday at 5pm, no-one was dressed for a party or looking for a good time—in fact the room looked like it could be a meeting of any other kind of group. I realized that the last time I had been in a large group of LBGTQ+’s was a pride parade in Santa Fe and it was raucous and over-the-top joyous. This group was was not.

One of the most interesting presenters was a man with the ACLU. He defined the Republican goal for America as a return to a society of White, Christian Nationalists. He didn’t equivocate. He was sure this was the end game. Because he is watching this happen step by step, state by state through the legal system, I believed him. The LGBTQ+ community is the low hanging fruit so the first and easiest to be attacked. 

It gets worse. Because the LGBTQ+ community is big and well-supported in the larger society, the first step is to divide the community. And then hope we turn on ourselves. Trans people are the least understood and the easiest to wrap in child abuse and gender hysteria. And no voter wants child abuse. No LGBQ person wants claims of hysteria.

Arizona has passed all the usual laws needed to help the T disappear from LGBTQ. Shockingly, they have done it with the accent of a Phoenix-based LGBTQ political group under the promise that their queer rights won’t be attacked if they let trans rights fall by the wayside. So, the standard strategy of offering protection to the larger group if the larger group disavows a few of its most objectionable members.

But of course it doesn’t stop there. Currently, there is a bill before the Arizona state congress that makes it illegal to display the pride flag on government property. No employee can wear pride symbols while at work. Democrats are on board and our democratic governor will sign it. Why? Because they sheepishly claim they only want to make the T disappear. Not all the letters, just the T.

The rest of the evening was spent discussing why each letter still needs protection and why so many of the existing legal protections are now up for repeal or redefinition. It was not an uplifting evening. There wasn’t much hope that things weren’t going to get much worse. And there weren’t a lot of creative solutions except to stick together, not to let them divide the community, and to support local non-profits who explicitly reach the LGBTQ communities—their funding has been mostly government money, and it is disappearing fast.

On our way home after the meeting, ML and Pen were silent. I tried to be optimistic. I tried to explore things we could do, but before long I was silent too. I’m afraid that is the point of all this. 

Here is an ACLU link that lists attacks on LGBTQ rights by state. 

https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2025