Nice of him to stipulate that we shouldn’t be “cruel to those who don’t fit the norm.” But I hate to tell him — being cruel to anyone who didn’t perfectly fit was the norm until recently when humans finally decided that allowing people to celebrate their communities and identities should be the new norm. That’s called modern civilization and these throwbacks can’t stand to see it.
Any of you who are older than 40 or so (and probably a few who are younger as well) are very well aware of the the “norm” among kids and adults alike to discriminate, isolate, degrade, insult and batter LGBTQ people. Among some, it still is. These people who are threatening store clerks at Target over Pride merch are not so subtly signalling that they plan to bring back that “norm.”
Don’t kid yourself, they aren’t just trying to “protect” trans kids. Going after Pride proves that. They want all LGBTQ people back in the closet with the door nailed shut. They always have.
And there are a whole lot of Republicans who have gay relatives. Quite a few are gay themselves. Maybe they can disgracefully delude themselves at the moment that this is just about transgender children but they’d better open their eyes. The bigots are coming for them too.