Divisive rhetoric’s fatal outcome
Over the weekend, a gunman walked into an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs and opened fire, killing five people and injuring at least 17 others. This shooting is not only the logical conclusion of the surging ANTI-LGBTQ backlash in North America, but a grisly reminder of why civility and empathy is necessary in politics.
The attack occurred the night before the Transgender Day of Remembrance and would’ve had a higher death toll had it not been for the fact that a drag queen and Iraq veteran stopped the shooter by disarming him and stomping on him in high heels.
The last time something like this happened was in 2016, when a gunman massacred 49 patrons of an Orlando gay club — a brutal and shocking event.
Much has changed since then. Growing resentment against the LGBTQ community has cumulated into a backlash that has been particularly strident over the past year. Slurs like “groomer,” which equate being gay or trans with pedophilia, have become popular.
This backlash has been fuelled by contentious aspects of LGBTQ inclusion. What do we do about trans inclusion in women’s sports and prisons? What kind of medical support should be given to children who identify as trans?
These questions involve competing interest groups with clashing, legitimate needs. There is a moral obligation to be cautious and empathetic when untangling these riddles. Yet, too often, loud voices abandon that obligation and demonize the LGBTQ community to everyone’s detriment.
Allegedly, a phalanx of LGBTQ people is marching upon society. Trans athletes will monopolize all trophies! Rapists will maraud through women’s prisons! Doctors and drag queens will sterilize and pervert children! What evil!
But that fear mongering doesn’t match reality.
Take women’s prisons, for example. Yes, some men falsely self-identify as women and sexually prey upon other prisoners, but they’re a minority of cases. Meanwhile, a 2007 study from the University of California also found that trans women in men’s prisons are 13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted.
It’s possible to empathize with both trans and biological women here — neither wants to be sexually assaulted. But rather than treat this issue with the sensitivity it deserves, some voices have portrayed the entire trans community as rapists.
The discourse around youth gender identity services has been similarly poisoned. LGBTQ people who support radical medical interventions for trans-identifying youth do so because they genuinely believe that these youth will harm, possibly kill, themselves if left alone.
Their anxious concern about these youth, combined with their rigid ideology, blinds some of them to the emerging evidence which shows that, in many cases, gender identity services have been irresponsibly provided and harmed children. It’s fair to criticize them for their blindness to these harms, but wrong to say that these people are evil and intentionally want to harm or “groom” children.
Even the Cass Review, which excoriated gender identity services in the United Kingdom and led to regulatory reforms in that country, found no evidence of “grooming” or other ill-intent.
What about drag queens? Yes, some drag queens act inappropriately and shouldn’t be around youth. Yet, as I’ve written about before, the uproar over them is mostly a moral panic.
Drag queens are people, not monsters, and most exercise common sense when doing all-ages events. The ones I know in real life cherish the opportunity to use their entertainment skills in a more socially-conscious way (i.e. encouraging kids to read). They build a firewall between their adult work and all-ages work.
Some drag queens don’t build that firewall and should be barred from doing all-ages events — as with any entertainer who fails to sanitize their work for youth. Yet those drag queens are the exception, not the rule. However, some voices have cherry-picked, misrepresented and exaggerated these outliers to manufacture outrage.
These are just a few examples of morally grey LGBTQ issues that have been exploited as gasoline for political arson.
There’s no need to pretend that aspects of LGBTQ activism aren’t contentious — but you can address these issues in a level-headed and productive way that avoids demonizing LGBTQ people and recognizes their legitimate concerns and interests in these debates. This should be done even if some LGBTQ activists don’t always know how to effectively communicate their stances.
Unfortunately, in the United States the Republican Party has forgone decency and has fear-mongered about these issues in a failed attempt to win votes. Their most radical voices chant, “Groomers! Groomers! Groomers!”
Now we see the cost of their rhetoric. Across the west, ANTI-LGBTQ hate crimes have spiked by 50 per cent. The hate has spilled into Canada, where libraries were inundated with violent threats this summer for allowing drag queens to read books to children. The Colorado Springs bloodbath just followed this trend.
Republican Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who built her political career on demonizing LGBTQ people, expressed sympathy toward the Colorado Springs shooting victims while skipping any reference to the LGBTQ community.
She was rightfully criticized. You can’t spend years fomenting hate against a minority group and then feign sympathy when that hate spurs a mass shooting.
Meanwhile, conservative megastars such as Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens have misrepresented people’s post-shooting anguish and accused the LGBTQ community of “playing politics” and “exploiting” this tragedy. But asking people to stop slandering us as pedophiles is not exploitative — it’s an appeal for basic decency.