3 minute read
The state of hate
by TasCAHRD
The recent mass shooting at an LGBTQ night club in Colorado Springs didn't just happen out of thin air. This awful event was built upon years of intensifying anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, acts of violence, intimidation, and discriminatory legislation from far-right individuals, groups, and politicians in the US. And while Australia is a very different country with far fewer guns, the internet has been connecting anti-LGBTQ influencers and channeling their hate to our shores for years.
Earlier that same month, an Australian senator accused respected TV presenter and drag artist Courtney Act, of ‘grooming’ children, after she read a picture book on ABC Kids’ Play School Story Time. While obviously these instances are not directly connected, together the timing is a powerful representation of the evolution of LGBTQ phobia that has been cut from the same filthy cloth since the 1950’s.
We still have a long way to go. Nonetheless, since the 50’s, significant progress has been made for LGBTQ equality. Same-sex marriage is recognized in 33 countries. In the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, homosexuality is pretty much normalised. In this respect, conservative, anti-LGBTQ, Christian organisations, activists, and far-right groups have lost their ignorant battle on human love and the ability to control peoples sex lives’. They have shifted their ignorance to focus to drag queens, transgender and gender non-conforming folk.
For many, the mainstream emergence of transgender people and gender pronoun diversity has come to represent the fluidity of the digital age, and the changing social order that no longer prioritises manly males and feminine females as the be all and end all of human excellence. Let me be clear, these people are desperately trying to make sense of a world that feels disorganised and out of control. They see themselves as the forgotten ‘ordinary’ citizens who liked it better when their ideal model of two sexes and the basic two genders could be assumed to be normal for the population. It’s much easier to fall back on what makes sense to you, than to evolve your thinking.
The internet has supercharged their crusade of ignorance and hatred that is fairly evenly spread, but drag queens, and in particular the childhood literacy program of Drag Queen Story Time, has become a focal point of outrage and melting pot for a wide variety of haters. Trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) with a male hate complex are teaming up with inherently anti-woman right-wing extremists to dump a sea of utter lies about the intention of drag queens and transgender folk more broadly. This is part of a wider rage from the losing anti-LGBTQ groupies, who are against social and legal reforms that are moving to define gender, including legally, as a social, rather than a biological, phenomenon.
The use of ‘grooming’ or ‘groomer’ as an accusation and a gross slur is just re-branded homophobia from the 70’s. But what makes this situation even more disturbing, is that the term is taking on a conspiracy-theory tone as these people use it to imply that the LGBTQ community, their allies, and progressives more generally are pedophiles or pedophileenablers. They live in victimhood while advocating the right to discriminate, while their bitching is expressed through simplistic language of ‘tactical speech’ that seeks to communicate directly and convincingly to a broader audience. Simply, they're trying to divide us by making drag queens and trans folk look sick or predatory. They make a point of calling anyone or thing that is new, progressive, or giving a fuck about other people as ‘Woke’, ‘Political Correct BS’, Socialist or…. Groomers. I remind you that this rubbish is what inspired an Australian senator to accuse Courtney Act of ‘grooming’ children.
