So Earlier today in a chat with my friends, I was made aware of a journal in which has used some homophobic rhetoric to belittle people who are legitimately upset with this recent American Election. I couldn't sit back and let him use this language during this time, so I penned this in his journal. I have removed names to protect the guilty.

"Hello there *Blank*. I a actually a bit surprised by your reaction. Let me be perfectly clear about a couple of things, and the reason why people are pissed about the election.

Firstly, let's discuss the taxes. Tariffs work by charging the IMPORTER a tax on goods they IMPORT. Which means companies are going to have to foot the bill. How is this going to be payed? Are they going to cut into the CEO's yacht fund? Hell no, they are just gonna jack up the prices on the consumer end. In the end, it will make numerous things way more expensive than they already are. On top of that, we don't have the infrastructure to make most of the consumer goods we use. It's also going to be expensive to build these facilities. Not only that, but if we try and cut out trade with other countries, other countries won't trade with us. Which would mean things we can't produce ourselves, like coffee, tropical fruits, most fresh fruit in the winter, would become scarce to non-existant. Not only that, but we are seeing the repercussions of reduced oversight from food manufacturers. The sheer amount of food recalls for things like Listeria and e. coli are only going to get worse if the Trump administration rolls back even more health and safety measures.

But that isn't a concern for you, as it seems in your journal. What IS a concern, is this conceived notion you have that gayness is being shoved down peoples throats.

As you quoted "As for this LGBTQ activist crap. It needs to be reduced." I assume this is coming from a place of internalized Homophobia and simply misunderstanding that for the LGBTQ community, simply existing and having representation is a hot button topic. Having characters that represent us in movies/games/media is not "shoving it down peoples throats" any more than the character's hair color/skin tone is trying to make people that way. Having POC and Female characters in a game is not gonna make a little white boy black and a girl. But having a gay character just might have little Timmy see himself in the media he consumes. THAT is what representation is about. Not about "turning people gay" or "Shoving it down people's throats" but seeing ourselves and giving the younger queer community that opportunity and joy we didn't have growing up. Gay people exist, and for some people, being reminded of that is tantamount to being shoved down their throat.

As for your "there is nothing to be proud of," I will have to say, my dear sweet summer *baby animal here*, that you are not aware of how far we have actually come, nor the activism that runs in your gay little veins.

Back before Stonewall, it was illegal to be LGBTQ. It was seen as a mental disease. it was punishable by jail time, and conversion therapy which often involved torture and chemical castration, among other horrible things. It was legal for you to be fired and kicked out of your home should your boss find out you were gay. We had our signs, our symbols, and our mafia ran places to just EXIST!

But we also had our activist groups. The first of all was the Matacine Society who would march every Forth of July to try and remind the US that the rights of being an American applied to all. These protests were the "quiet, sensible" gays. These marches had no PDAs, no dressing out of the norm. And while they brought awareness, it did very little in way of pushing for the rights to simply BE.

In the 60s, American was awash in activism, and the LGBTQ community was there. Lines blurred between Civil Rights, Anti-Vietnam marches, Women's Liberation, and Queer liberation. We had community and worked together, and this came to a head late in June of 1969.

The Stonewall riots were the result of the raiding and resisting of a gay bar in NYC. One of the first people to resist was a black, trans sister. We had had enough being nice and we resisted, which triggered riots that lasted for days after the arrest. A year later, the Christopher Street liberation March and Gay IN was one of the first recognizable PRIDE parades. The point of the march was not to quietly be the good little uwu gay, but to shout and sing "SAY IT LOUD, WE'RE GAY AND PROUD!" We marched and protested to simply EXIST.

When Homosexuality was decriminalized in the 70s, we still had a long way to go. We had to fight for protections against having our jobs, and our homes taken away. One of the key people behind this was Harvey Milk, who was the first elected official to be openly gay. He worked with his community, not just the gays. He pushed for the movement to be out and visible. to fight back against the oppressive likes of Anita Briant, and entertainer who was the actual person shoving her agenda down peoples throats and deserved that pie in the face for being such a clown.

Then there was the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, and the lack of action from the Reagan administration meant many of the Baby Boomer and Gen X gays were dying or losing their friends and family. This spurred another push of marches, die ins, and a wave of coming out of the closet and being visibly gay. Being out was a protection. It demystified and humanized the LGBTQ community in the public eye. We were no longer someone in another city, another state, we were their brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, the local grocer, the teacher in the class room, the coworker. And us being loud and visible pushed back, and the government began to take the AIDS crisis seriously. Now, it's not a death sentence, but something one can live with thanks to those who came before us.

While I was growing up, I was told the stigma of being Gay. In school it was something to be mocked, something you used in lieu of "stupid". In health class I was taught about same sex attraction and LGBTQ, but was promptly told that if I thought I was, I wasn't but was simply just horny. It took me till my twenties to realize not only that I was gay, but that it was okay, and that the years of being told it was wrong were lies.

I saw the legalization of gay marriage when I was at a fur con. the ENERGY of that moment when we found out that our legal rights and protections were getting on par with someone who's accident of birth made them hetero was amazing. I've seen gay characters become part of media. Not as a butt of a joke, but as heroes, people to exist in their own right and deserve their own happiness. I have seen places where Furs have slow danced, same sex, Hetero, and everything in between and just the peace and happiness of that moment was just magical.

That being said, I have also seen a resurgence in the old demons from the past. "You're shoving it down our throats" by simply existing. "YOUR CORRUPTING OUR CHILDREN" for simply saying there isn't anything wrong with being LGBTQ. The accusations of pedophilia is an old demon dating back to the 1920s. We are not shoving anything down anyone's throats.

But you know who is? Those behind these demons, Evangelical Christians who want to force their religious views INTO schools and force their interpretation of biblical morals onto everyone else, who want to be protected to bully and persecute while crying persecution for being told to respect people for being different.

We are upset because we have a political movement and government who has championed on othering, who has courted the ideas of racism, sexism, Christian Nationalism, homophobia, and transphobia and has weaponized it against AMERICANS. Not in secret hush hush sort of ways. But in a 200+ page FUCKING BOOK! A FUCKING BOOK on how they plan on suppressing everyone who doesn't fit into their agenda. The gay agenda... JUST FUCKING EXISTING!

As a gay person, you should look into yourself and see your point for what it is. Internalized homophobia.

People are going to be pissed, people are going to be upset. But what we aren't going to do, is give up, crawl back in the closet, and pretend like we aren't gay little critters. That is our agenda, to simply be ourselves in what ever weird and wonderful shapes we are in. and to let people know that it's okay to be you. "

Now, a Yote needs his coffee. BUT GOD DAMN IT, We need to learn our Queer History.