Anti-LGBTQ+ backlash is happening not just somewhere else, but locally. We need to step up.

It took longer than I expected, but the anti-LGBTQ+ backlash I predicted several years ago is undeniably here.

As I write this, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group, has just declared anational state of emergencyfor LGBTQ+ Americans.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state legislatures around the country has increased tenfold in the last five years. A whopping 491 bills have been introduced in just the first half of 2023.

As CNN’s Annette Choi writes, “Education and health care-related bills, in particular, are flooding in at unprecedented levels. Along with a renewed push to ban access to gender-affirming health care for transgender youth, there has been a heavy focus on regulating curriculum in public schools, including discussions around gender identity and sexuality.”

In other words, they are not just going after queer adults, they are going after our rainbow kids. And it’s not just happening in red states. Earlier this month, anti-LGBTQ+ protests turned violent at California schools in Glendale and North Hollywood.

Right here in Monterey County, two teachers had their lives turned upside down when comments that they made at a 2021 California Teachers Association’s annual LGBTQ+ issues conference were secretly recorded, taken out of context, and leaked to a conservative writer.When the story blew up nationally, the LGBTQ+ club they advised was suspended, the teachers were put on administrative leave and the school district was sued by a parent.

A subsequent independent investigation cleared the teachers, the club was reinstated and the case settled. But by then, the damage was done and the teachers are no longer with that district.

When I and other local activists, including now-Monterey Mayor Tyller Williamson, started Monterey Peninsula Pride in 2017, we were in a celebratory mood. Five years later, the social climate for LGBTQ+ people has radically changed.

I personally know of queer community members and allies who will not attend our Pride Celebration at Monterey’s Custom House Plaza this year (scheduled for Saturday, July 15) due to fear of anti-LGBTQ+ disruption. For the first time since 2017, the annual post-pride Rainbow Panel I moderate (on July 16) will not have a streaming component because two of our panelists have endured public character assassination in the media, and even death threats.

What I most want to communicate through this year’s panel – and this column – is a sense of urgency around the need for LGBTQ+ activists and allies to develop an advocacy group to take on the coordinated attacks against our community funded by national campaigns and organizations.

STEVEN GOINGS, also known by their Radical Faerie name, Quazar, is an emeritus founding member of Monterey Peninsula Pride, a trainer with the National Coalition Building Institute, lifetime member of the NAACP and a licensed clinical social worker.