Last week has been a clarifying week for the LGBTQ movement. We are under direct attack, and an unwanted war has viciously been declared against us.
The Trump administration is rapidly consolidating power and exercising it to roll back LGBTQ rights at a rapid pace. It is working hand-in-glove with its Project 2025 allies and its lackeys at the state level. Project 2025, of course, is the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s nefarious plot to disfigure American democracy and reshape it in their theocratic image.
Our aggressive foes are mostly authoritarian religious extremists who want us expunged from the public square and unceremoniously forced back into the closet. The LGBTQ movement must immediately wake up from its long slumber to pivot forcefully and unapologetically into a weapon of outright defiance. In the spirit of Stonewall, we must rise to counter the mounting threat, or we will suffer enormous setbacks and face a bleak future.
In Orlando, under the direction of Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis painted over a rainbow crosswalk commemorating the Pulse nightclub massacre in 2016, where 49 people were killed and 53 wounded by a gunman.
“They did this in the middle of the night because they were scared of the resistance because they know what they did was wrong,” said Democratic State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith.
Only a year ago, it would have been unthinkable that the state would tyrannically intrude upon a city to remove a local monument honoring murder victims. But now we are living in a Project 2025 world, where it’s apparently acceptable to brazenly spit in the face of the LGBTQ community and use raw governmental power to erase the memory of hate crime victims. Are we ready to spit back?
In the same way the Boston Tea Party was more than about tea, the pitched battle over symbols is much larger than rainbow crosswalks. Accepting taxed tea was seen as accepting Parliament’s authority over colonial legislatures. If we succumb to this purge of visibility without a feral fight, we will unilaterally be ceding our LGBTQ power. Cities would also be surrendering their local control to meddling, heavy-handed authoritarians who will keep returning with ever greater demands.
On Aug. 21, the White House published a list of Smithsonian exhibits it considered offensive. It ordered a 120-day deadline to replace “divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate and constructive descriptions.”
In its despicable effort to erase LGBTQ visibility, the Trump administration claimed that the Museum of American History promoted homosexuality by hanging a pride flag. It is not we who are “promoting” anything — but MAGA that is imposing its archaic values on the nation and waging war on the LGBTQ community.
The situation is poised to worsen considerably with a comprehensive purge. Museums were ordered by the White House to submit their current wall text and future exhibition plans for review and approval. This new Orwellian censorship committee is tasked with whitewashing exhibits, blacklisting artists and erasing the existence of LGBTQ people from the American experience. Are we going to let them?
Trump offered a clue on how our national museums will be refashioned into MAGA ideological showcases when he said last week that the Smithsonian was “out of control” and focused too much on “how bad slavery was.”
Earlier last week, the administration quietly offered a new directive issued by the Department of Homeland Security. It orders U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) to consider “Good Moral Character” when approving migrants for citizenship. While not specifically mentioning LGBTQ people, it creates an arbitrary and capricious system that mirrors immigration proposals for Project 2025.
It gives immigration officers far too much unchecked power to impose their personal biases. For LGBTQ people, who have historically been demonized by the extreme right as immoral, this regulation is a flashing warning sign that we will be singled out for discrimination and potentially denied citizenship for who we are.
The Supreme Court announced it will hear arguments in Chiles v. Salazar on Oct. 7, 2025. This is a Project 2025 lawsuit against Colorado that seeks to overturn conversion therapy bans in 22 states. The plaintiffs preposterously claim that not allowing the debunked, life-destroying practice is a violation of free speech. With this right-wing Supreme Court, it’s more likely than not that “ex-gay” conversion therapy will be allowed, if not encouraged, across America by the Trump administration.
In the most outrageous and unconscionable act of war against the LGBTQ population, as well as Africans with HIV, the Trump administration is playing games with life-saving HIV medication. Congress allocated $6 billion this fiscal year for PEPFAR, the H.I.V. prevention and treatment program, but Project 2025 extremist and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russell Vought unilaterally defied Congress by only releasing half of the funds.
“O.M.B. is blocking funding for PEPFAR,” said Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Russ Vought has choked off a huge chunk of funding provided by Congress for PEPFAR. And he’s managed to hide this cut from lawmakers and the public until now because he took down a key spending transparency website.”
Additionally, the New York Times pointed to other destructive HIV policies that will end lives:
As part of the administration’s effort to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs, it has terminated H.I.V. care for gay and transgender people. H.I.V. prevention programs for high-risk groups — such as sex workers and injecting drug users — have been cut and only pregnant and breastfeeding women can now receive U.S.-funded prevention drugs or condoms.
Obviously, the Trump administration, in its efforts to enact Project 2025, is trying to erase and in some cases even kill us. To fully comprehend how pathological and sociopathic these policies are, consider that the PEPFAR program, in which Vought is slow walking funds, is credited with saving an estimated 26 million lives.
While the self-righteous Vought fancies himself a devout man of God who believes in traditional values, his actions suggest he’s an ideological death merchant who likes to play God and doesn’t value human life. If people don’t share his archaic beliefs, he sees them as useless and expendable. It seems Vought asks, “what would Jesus do,” so he can do the opposite.
In normal times, we could fight by using the democratic process. That avenue, however, is swiftly narrowing. Under the direction of Trump, Texas has gerrymandered seats to steal the midterm election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is fighting back, but red states have a numerical advantage in an all-out gerrymander war.
Trump is pulling out the stops to cheat, with the most alarming example in Colorado, where the administration is deploying lackeys to demand election officials “give a third-party access to their election equipment.”
In preparation for backlash against his scheme to “win” the midterms, Trump has turned to militarizing cities with the flimsiest of excuses. He started by deploying troops in Los Angeles, and now he is using military might and police powers to invade Washington, DC. His message: I can do whatever the hell I want in the most liberal bastions, and you can’t stop me.
But we can, if we choose to.
Last week, under specious charges, the vindictive and despotic Trump administration raided the home of Republican critic and former national security advisor John Bolton. This follows Trump threatening to investigate former president Barack Obama. If these bullies can come for Bolton and Obama — what do you think they will do to you and your family?
Are we going to allow such unpatriotic treachery to go unchallenged?
We are increasingly faced with the tough decision to exist quietly in a dystopian, Putin-type of autocracy or to desperately fight for our lives. The rules have changed, and if we want to survive, no less thrive, our paralysis must end now.
It is time to boldly stand up to reclaim our country before it’s too late. The writing is on the wall, and we can no longer pretend that authoritarianism is coming. Draconian actions taken last week show that we have passed that stage and autocracy is already here.
If you don’t believe me, check out the insane McCarthy-like government purges carried out for Trump by lunatic conspiracist Laura Loomer. Watch the unhinged, fascist rant by Trump advisor Stephen Miller, defending the DC takeover:
“We are not going to let the communists destroy a great American city, let alone the nation’s capital,” Miller told the crowd near Shake Shack inside Union Station. “And let’s just also address another thing. All these demonstrators you’ve seen out here in recent days, all these elderly white hippies, they’re not part of the city and never have been. And by the way, most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C., are Black.”
“So, we’re going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old,” he added. “And we’re going to get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington, D.C.”
You might not consider our country at war, but they certainly do. The noose is tightening and nothing good is on the horizon. The LGBTQ community has an enormous incentive to play a key role in this fight, because we will suffer the brunt of violence and discrimination if the Project 2025 zealots are to prevail. Just look at what they’ve done to us last week alone. So, don’t dare tell me things are okay, and we can go on with business as usual.
There are millions of LGBTQ people—far larger than the U.S. armed forces and police forces combined. We have power in numbers, strength in coalitions and the moral imperative to beat back this vile, un-American invasive species that is a noxious weed in democracy’s garden.
I would particularly urge the younger LGBTQ generation to find their voice and discover their power. They had the luxury of growing up in a peaceful time of relative acceptance, where they could be openly gay and thrive.
For those of us who fought to create this kinder world, with a web of legal protections, we can unequivocally say that LGBTQ millennials and Gen Z don’t want to find out what it’s like to live in a world of mass hostility, ubiquitous discrimination, religious intolerance and near-total invisibility. I study Project 2025 for a living, and this is the dark and depressing world that may be coming unless you not only fight, but do so in a way where you win decisively.
What does this battlefield look like? In March, Hungary’s autocratic Prime Minister rushed through legislation that “banned” Pride. Hungarians responded in June by flooding Pride with attendance skyrocketing from a few thousand people to estimates as high as a half million participants. This is a vivid demonstration of exercising the power of saying “No”, and the appropriate way to defy authoritarian commands.
We’ve been here before, and we rose to the occasion. Against all odds, we somehow created what we thought was a better world for the next generation. Now we stand on the precipice of losing our hard-fought gains. It’s imperative that we reinvent our movement as one that makes Act-Up look like a warm-up. If not, we may soon be forced by the government and its militant thugs to permanently shut up — as our movement and people enter a long, brutal winter of setbacks and oppression.
