Miss Flo NoMo’ (left), Victor VonVicious and Penny Cost greet patrons at the front gate at River City Pride Fest last month on the Riverfront.
PHOTO BY KANDAS MERRRIAM
Sometimes stepping back can help movements make monumental steps forward.
But the political landscape surrounding the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer communities seems to have stumbled back quite a bit. The transgender population has been particularly tripped up by some scary stuff from local legislatures and national politicians.
“A million steps back,” someone said at the second River City Pride Fest, which was held July 15 on the Riverfront. “Stepping back … to the 1950s,” said someone else.
Peoria Proud doubled the size of this year’s event so people could spread their wings on a beautiful day as they enjoyed a safe space welcome to all. A time to forget about accusations of “woke agendas” and “transgender ideologies” and “sexual grooming” and all the other misinformation out there.
“Terrible steps back,” said Deric Kimler, who is executive director of Central Illinois Friends, which had a stand at Pride Fest and brought its mobile unit that provides testing and health care, free of charge. “Safety is a topic of conversation all the time.”
It’s impossible to fathom that in the year 2023 one can of beer sent to one trans woman in one marketing deal could trigger so much nationwide hate toward one percent of the population. Or is it?
Florida enacted an infamous law that prohibits school teachers from teaching a “gay agenda” that would “sexualize” youngsters and “groom” them into becoming gay, so they say. But that’s not how it works. Why do presidential candidates think that a picture of a same-sex partner in the classroom is advertising “perversions” of homosexuality? Is a picture of a heterosexual husband or wife screaming sex life? No, they do not.
Polly Anna politics
Luckily, an anti-drag law in Tennessee was declared unconstitutional (obviously). Dressing in drag does not steer someone to be queer. But drag shows and story hours can be comforting and help make someone feel safe to be who they are meant to be.
States are looking to ban gender-affirming care even though such care is prescribed to trans people by a doctor and approved by the American Medical Association. Does that include erectile disfunction drugs? Hair plugs? Nose jobs? Breast implants? Hmmm.
Such public ignorance has permeated up to politicians, who don’t realize that the vast majority of drag queens are fully clothed. The “parental rights” crowd ignores the fact that no child is participating in drag story hours without their parents’ consent.
The anti-gay brigade is pulling books off library shelves — and from schools — if they merely acknowledge the fact that there are LGBTQ+ people in this world. Athletes are accused of “turning trans” so they can dominate women’s sports. Preposterous.
Safety and fear
So what’s it like living in central Illinois for LGBTQ+ people? “It’s terrifying, a dystopian reality,” said Debra on the Riverfront. “To be scared to be what we believe in — even our allies, straight White guys, I fear for them.”
CEFCU Center Stage on the Riverfront was packed for the entertainment at River City Pride Fest.
PHOTO BY KANDAS MERRIAM
Many of those people interviewed at Pride Fest did not feel comfortable revealing their names for fear of consequences.
How did we get here, just eight years after the Supreme Court upheld gay marriage? Well, a much more conservative Supreme Court has cleared the way to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people with one of its latest decisions. “Two steps forward and three steps back,” sing The Strokes.
Ignorance and arrogance is a terrible combo. Indeed, many of the anti-LGBTQ+ viewpoints are simply misinformed. “It’s fear driven,” said someone sitting at the American Civil Liberties Union tent at Pride Fest. “People project their fears. They suspect an agenda. There’s a lot of religious opposition.”
Recognizing gay marriage was supposed to take the religious excuse away from people discriminating against people who happen to be gay … Evidently certain “religious” people have forgotten the Golden Rule. And the only grooming going on is when they say they can pray the gay away.
“With more freedom, people are feeling safe to say things,” Kimler said. “Free to express hatred.”
People are afraid of what they don’t know so they shield themselves behind their antiquated views. It’s easier to push things away than to figure out those fears. They may feel excluded. It can be confusing, what with all the letters and the pronouns.
And — as with any movement — extreme positions can interfere with real progress. But flippantly referring to the transgender community as “genital mutilators” or “chemical castrators” is downright evil. Those things are not happening.
“It’s disheartening,” said Debra’s partner, Molly. “As Professor Xavier said in X-Men: ‘People are scared of what’s different.’ ”
Disinformation
What exactly is the “anti-woke” message some of these people in power are preaching? What is a child with two gay parents supposed to think? What is a young boy curious about being fabulous to do if dressing in drag is treated so taboo? Is the young girl who doesn’t feel right in a dress supposed to suppress?
What can be done? How do we move forward? Luckily local libraries are providing information, holding seminars. Librarians highlight banned or challenged books by putting them on display, confirmed Peoria Heights Library Director Shawn Edwards.
And the folks at the Democratic Party tent confirmed there have been no real local efforts to take books off shelves.
“Let people be,” said Kimler of Central Illinois Friends.
What’s great about a Pride Fest is the happiness that surrounds the event — the smiles. That comforting sense of security that most straight people feel day in and day out.
Edwards promotes the progress the movement has made and doesn’t think the hate is really that great. “The problem is exposure — seeing it magnified on Fox News and other media,” he said.
Media bias is a huge complaint among the community — not only for its hateful nature, but how it can facilitate all theses misguided views.
Most Friends of Dorothy probably do not listen to the right-wing talk radio shows in central Illinois, but what are the queer folk supposed to think if they hear the young radio host say that “the non-binary thing is made up. Everybody knows it,” as his partner affirms? “This is just people who can’t commit to actually being trans, but they still want the adulation. … Essentially it’s a bunch of non-pretty women who want to stand out among their prettier friends.” Huh? Wha?
The danger comes when that partner, who’s made a career out of “rocking with the best” in central Illinois, explains that books geared toward gay students are “part of grooming because you’re desensitizing kids to sex, which opens the doors for groomers. That’s part of how you get a kid … to desensitize them to these things of a place where they will be very much accepted for older people to take advantage of them. That’s one of the signs of grooming.”
You wish he was talking tongue-in-cheek. You plead for parody. You wish this veteran, respected voice of central Illinois radio was lampooning this absurd subject of “grooming.”
But he’s not.
Who exactly are these “groomers”? School teachers? Parents? Politicians? Librarians? Are you kidding?
The show posted a video ridiculing gender-affirming care. These guys are a huge part of the problem because they have a huge voice with massive reach as they perpetuate these myths — and people eat up this garbage.
Non-binary couple Debra and Molly worked their tent at River City Pride Fest.
PHOTO MY KANDAS MERRIAM
Hope springs
These arcane beliefs are dying off. And there’s hope for the future. “Children don’t care at all” whether someone is LGBTQ+ or not, Edwards continued.
Live and let live. That’s the United States, right? What’s more American than football players dressing up as cheerleaders and the cheerleaders dressing up like the football players for a high school stunt show? Have fun. Be understanding. Don’t be a jerk.
You do you. They’ll do them.
“I just want to live my life,” Molly said. “Life is like art in a museum. Everybody won’t get it. That’s ok. If you don’t like it, move on.”
— Brian Ludwig is Managing Editor
of The Community Word
2 comments for “Check your Trans mission: River City Pride Fest safe space for LGBTQ+ today”
Recent Comments
This is heartbreaking, and I must submit that this article is irresponsibly one-sided and perversely neglectful of the damaging aspects of the trans issue, aspects we cannot and should not ignore or flippantly dismiss.
“Preposterous”? How is it fair for female athletes to compete against a biological man in women’s sports? Women’s sports belongs to women, not to men pretending to be women. A man is not a woman; it is physically impossible, and sports only proves this as the historic obvious once did and in truth still does.
If you care about protecting and empowering women, please listen to athlete Riley Gaines, who “directly experienced competing against a man in women’s sports” and “became one of the first female college athletes to speak out against the injustice, challenging the rules of the NCAA, USA Swimming, International Olympic Committee (IOC), and other governing bodies. Riley has traveled the country speaking out about the need to protect women’s spaces. She has encouraged other female athletes to come forward and highlight why the issue is blatantly unfair and harmful to females” (Independent Women’s Voice).
Sadly, it appears that much of the trans mission has used a victimhood or minority status in order to aggressively appease their dissatisfaction with an outside world that is predominately heterosexual. This article goes out of its way to sweep legitimate concerns under the rug. What exactly is comforting about grown men bombarding children by imitating a ridiculous stereotype of women?
If you care about children, listen to the heartrending testimony of Chloe Cole, “a biological female who suffered from a perceived psychological issue ‘gender dysphoria’ beginning at 9-years-old,” eventually undergoing “harmful transgender treatment, specifically, off-label puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatment, and a double mastectomy” (Dhillon Law Group). Chloe has stated that she deeply regrets the trans procedures she endured, robbing her of girlhood normalcy and the natural process of outgrowing one’s adolescent insecurities about one’s body. “Throughout Chloe’s medical experience in California, the facilities and institutions actively promoted, encouraged, and advertised the availability of these treatments. Chloe and her parents were not informed of the option for psychiatric treatment or an approach that attempted to treat the underlying psychological conditions to bring about a mental state congruent with Chloe’s biological sex. Defendants also falsely informed Chloe and her parents that Chloe was at a high risk for suicide, unless she socially and medically transitioned to appear more like a male. Chloe has been informed by her parents that Defendants even gave them the ultimatum: ‘would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son?’ Chloe will be seeking punitive damages based on the evidence of malice, oppression and fraud” (Dhillon Law Group).
Like it or not, there is an “agenda,” and the trans community should not impose a view of life onto society that rejects the basic human reality of the sexes, that fundamental differences between biological men and women are real, have always been real, and must be respected and preserved. Sadly, it appears that much of transgenderism is motivated by an underlying resentment of a heterosexual world.
We cannot be enablers of those that would wish to deny reality to the rest of us, even encouraging children to question or hate their own bodies that they were born in. It is wrong, immeasurably destructive, and anti-human. Hopefully, the Community Word will acknowledge the destructive side of transgenderism or at least allow this comment to be seen or considered.
This is irresponsibly one-sided and perversely neglectful of the damaging aspects of the gender issue, aspects we cannot afford to ignore or flippantly dismiss.
Female athletes should never be forced to compete against a biological man in women’s sports. Women’s sports belongs to women. Women’s sports does not belong to men pretending to be women. A man is not a woman and a man can never be a woman. It is physically impossible and insulting beyond measure to claim that anyone other than a woman can be a woman. Women are women and only women can be women. Sports only proves this as the historic obvious once did and still does.
Additionally, there is nothing “comforting” about grown men bombarding children by imitating a ridiculous stereotype of women. If this local paper cares at all about women or children, it will acknowledge the voices of female athletes like Riley Gaines and victims of medical malpractice like Chloe Cole instead of blatantly and bizarrely claiming that their testimonies do not exist. Peoria is better than this.
Fundamental differences between biological men and women are real, have always been real, and must be respected and preserved. We cannot enable those that would wish to spitefully deny reality, even encouraging children to question or hate their own bodies that they were born in. This is happening, and it is wrong, immeasurably destructive, and anti-human.