Why Pride Matters to All of Us

Civil rights are not like pie, giving rights to one group doesn’t take them away from anyone else

I live/grew up on Long Island, which I always considered to be a conservative but (relatively) sane place. Then, after being away for a very long time, I moved back and realized the place has lost its f’ing mind.

The homophobia/transphobia I have seen here is off the charts. In February, Nassau County Executive Bruce Bateman issued an order that any girls’/women’s sports group that included trans athletes would be barred from using county facilities. The order was tossed by the court system but he’s back at it with a bill to achieve the same goal.

Never mind that Nassau County has host of other issues from traffic to the cost of living. Never mind that there have been zero cases of issues with trans girls or women. Never mind that the science backs up allowing trans girls and women to participate in sports with cis girls and women. Trans people are the boogeymen du jour so the right needs to do as much as possible to hurt them. PS. Long Island is not even close to being alone when it comes to anti-trans bigotry. At least 24 states have statutes or laws banning trans girls and women from sports.

The right-wing is great at this. They either manufacture an issue such as “wokeness,” gin up a lot of outrage, deal with the…