Editor,
John Horgan’s column this week, sadly, uses a technique familiar to anyone who has watched culture-war rhetoric evolve over the past decade: exhaustive, wide-eyed documentation of LGBTQ+ library materials — the titles, the locations, the placement near the children’s section — without ever quite saying what he’s implying. He doesn’t have to. The implication lands. That is, of course, the point.
The implication is recruitment. That LGBTQ+ people and the institutions that acknowledge their existence are deliberately targeting children. It is one of the oldest and most destructive slurs in the history of antigay prejudice, and Mr. Horgan deploys it here with carefully crafted plausible deniability, never quite crossing the line he is clearly approaching.
His phrase “non-straight lifestyle alternatives” does the same work. That framing — being gay or transgender as a choice, a preference, something one drifts into — has been rejected by every credible medical and psychological authority for decades. It persists precisely because it supports the recruitment narrative: If sexual orientation is a choice, children can be steered toward one.
His breezy comparison of Pride Month to Candy Month is its own kind of statement — a suggestion that addressing the harassment, bullying and cruelty LGBTQ+ young people face daily, in schools, in politics, online and at home, is no more urgent than celebrating sweets. In a world where that cruelty is increasingly normalized, children deserve to know that who they are is not wrong. Libraries understand this. Sadly, it appears Mr. Horgan does not.
Kevin Simpson
San Mateo
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(4) comments
Thanks for your letter, Mr. Simpson, but if we use your logic, shouldn’t we have months for everyone else, such as straight folks, all children, adults, employees, employers? After all, harassment, bullying and cruelty are faced by others daily, in schools, in politics, online and at home and at work. Doesn’t everyone else deserve to know who they are is not wrong?
I think Horgan's column was factual and informative. So was Simpson's, but the latter revealed the technique used to change the meaning of "gay." I wonder about this every time I watch Ginger and Fred dance in the Gay Divorcee.
This tired argument really hangs around, doesn't it? There are months, days, and celebrations for just about everything else.
But with regard to "straight month", you know as well as I do that the reality is that straight people for millennia have been told in no uncertain terms that they are "normal" and "proper", and in our particular society, that narrows even further to straight white people, with a bias toward men which even extended to voting up until just over 100 years ago.
That assumption of belonging was broadly not extended to people of color, people of religions other than Protestant Christian, women, non-straight people, immigrants whether legal or non-legal, people whose first language was something other than English, and on and on.
I am sure that in your heart you would acknowledge that straight people are not singled out for abuse, bullying, bashing, murder, lynching the way LGBTQ+ people have. You know darn well that Pride celebrations exist to continue to communicate that all deserve their fair and equal place in society and their fair and equal treatment under our laws and customs.
It is only through movements, action, and demand that women, racial and ethnic and religious minorities, and yes gay people, have won something closer to equality, and that process is gonna have to continue. I'd love it if we got a day where there was not even a question of having to continue to fight, but as long as people keep trying to undermine with sour pushback, we're gonna keep fighting.
The sad fact is that even though society has largely started to say "it's ok to be gay" on the broad scale, suicide among LGBTQ+ teens and children is still far higher than the norm; bullying and brutalization is still rampant, and in our current social media pervasive culture, even more insidious and rampant; and gay kids are still suffering particularly. And so are fully adult people in the workplace, housing market, and on and on. It's clear that if the current administration and Congressional majority could have their way, ALL the equal rights under the law and under our customs we've won over the past decade would be wiped out in a moment.
So yeah, we need a month. You can sit at home and glower about it you want, and continue to traffic this lame argument.
The rest of us are not going back.
kevin - let me tell you, the over the top Pride parades and the associated, borderline vulgarity are not helping your cause. The rest of you can go back, and has always been welcomed as long as you forego the blatant and exaggerated propaganda that is foisted on us. Why in the world would a Belmont citizen like me get exited about raising the LGBTQ+ flag? Who exactly is longing for this recognition? Yet is was announced several time in the DJ as if we have nothing better to spend our money and time on. You should appreciate that out-of-bounds heterosexual display is not acceptable either. Why would your community selectively insist on offending decency? That is the impression many in the heterosexual community have of your life style. And, buddy, all kids and adults are subject to bullying and harassment, why would you need the special protection that they don't get or even ask for. You are mired in self-pity. Sorry.
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