OPINION: We’re tired of our rights being trampled on constantly
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by Jessica L. Folk (she/her)
Photo credit: Sam Mallon
We are tired.
We’re tired of hearing about how our students’ rights, our friends’ rights, our neighbors’ rights, our partner’s rights, our rights are being endlessly trampled on. As lawmaker after lawmaker rubs their hands together in one marble-lined hallway or another, plotting how to use the words from a book that is meant to bring comfort, not pain, as lethal weapons in a war that most of us didn’t decide to wage.
We are so very tired.
That’s what they hope for, isn’t it? Those lawmakers in those marble-lined hallways who choose to ignore the cries of the transgender teenager, kicked out of her home for living her truth, who’s just trying her best to make it day to day, hoping she won’t have to turn to the sex work she’s heard so much about.
And the queer parents who just want to adopt, but who meet roadblock after roadblock because they’re not Christian enough or straight enough to “earn the right” to raise a child. Never mind the fact that they have all the love to give – more than they ever received from this world.
And the young gay boy, dressed in drag for the first time, his tuck just right, his drag name on point – part of a new kind of family – who can’t help but check himself in the mirror three times before he leaves to make sure he got all the makeup off his beautiful Black skin before his walk home late at night. Because it’s not safe out there – he knows that much – so he does what he can to survive to the next day.
And the small girl, playing with her Barbie dolls, wondering why she has to link Barbie up with Ken when Barbie seems so much more suited to Summer or Midge. What kind of Dreamhouse is she allowed to build?
And the college athlete who just wants to speak his truth, but the truth is too hard to bear in a world that might push him away, so instead he swallows it down and asks his teammates to pass him another beer as he nods along to their locker room talk.
And the queer professor who sees one hateful bill proposed after another, who has student after student asking her, “What do we do? How do we get through this?” She says, with tears in her eyes, “We just do.” As she imagines a world where she must decide whether to be brave and fight alongside these students or leave this place behind. For now, she stays. This isn’t Gilead yet. There’s still time.
And one student says, with eyes clearer than hers, that they wouldn’t be fighting back this hard with hate if they didn’t recognize that we were gaining the upper hand.
Then there are the few bright lights in the capital – those who sit beside the ignorant and the hateful. Those who speak up and fight, feet planted firmly in those same hallways, carefully crafted words heard in those same hearings. Those who rally and march. Those who write their own bills and attempt to fight legislation that makes them lose sleep at night
over that transgender teen…
and those queer parents…
and the gay boy in drag…
and the girl with the lesbian Barbies…
and the closeted college athlete…
and the queer professor who is exhausted beyond belief…
and everyone that the world forgot.
They fight.
We salute them. We need more of them. We can’t keep doing this with so few.
We are so very tired.
Aren’t you?
