"The Queer Dystopia of the LGB Movement" Transcript

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(This transcript was created from the original script uploaded as closed captioning. Differences where James skipped overdiverged from the script are highlighted.)

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No. 6 is a manga that began in 2011 and concluded in 2016, contained in a neat nine-volume collection. A far cry from some of the sprawling, endless manga that seem to dominate the sales charts.

Despite how condensed the story is, the series has maintained a fanbase to this day, though. Seemingly able to navigate topics that many other franchises take much longer to fully explore, themes and messages are clearly narrated whereas many series find their messaging lost in the curse of ‘taking too damn long to make a point.’ This is a good example of less being more.

Despite the popularity of the manga, fans generally didn’t have kind things to say about the anime adaptation, though. A common complaint being that the already brisk pacing was condensed even further, and many of the nuances were lost. I guess you can’t win them all.

No. 6 tells the story of Shion and his survivalist misadventure to overthrow a tyrannical Orwellian Dystopian government with a refugee-criminal who calls himself ‘Rat.’ Contrary to a number of other stories in the era of early 2010s YA Dystopia (aside from the protagonists being gay) No. 6 stands out by focusing on the social indoctrination side of things, rather than strictly being governed under an iron fist. The ‘soft touch’ approach to depicting a society under the thumb of a ruling state power is more complicated, but it pays off when done well.

Truth be told, I feel like this is less of a matter of taste and more of a matter of American creators being uncomfortable with the idea in general. The more you depict this sweet spot of report-thy-neighbour police state, the closer it looks in proximity to contemporary American realities. And we’re not ready to talk about that just yet, apparently.

America can either confront the grim reality of late-stage McCarthyism its in or raise the bar a little higher and wait until the government starts imposing curfew with walrus-tiger hybrid clones which bear the faces of deceased relatives. And THEN we might start thinking about writing an angry letter to your district overlord.

But as far as statements No.6 makes about society, you really don’t need to read past page 10… beyond that is useful, but essentially boils down to elaborating on how this world sucks, gay stuff, and trauma. But before we get into all that, and a whole lot more and how it relates to the LGB movement, let’s hear a word from this video's sponsor.

The city called ‘No.6’ is presented as an isolated utopia — the english translation uses the phrase ‘holy city.’ The city of No.6, seems largely secular. But the language of being a holy city does establish the way the people revere the city, and the extent to which people approach their loyalty to it. The city itself — including its government and administration — cannot be at fault for anything because the people owe the city an inherent debt of gratitude. (Granted, the minutiae of this is more apparent past the opening 10 pages.)

Suffice to say, the people are generally reluctant or afraid to direct any criticism at the city itself, provided either reverence for the city or fear of what the city can do to those who do not demonstrate the utmost loyalty. This regularly comes as a shock to Americans, but most places in the world do not demand a daily pledge of allegiance — especially not from children in educational facilities. Many nations do not even play the National Anthem to open a school day. Whenever this is depicted in the media OUTSIDE of America, this is often a creator exemplifying, in no uncertain terms, fascist undertones (or at least toxic nationalism).

As the story goes on there are further examples of the way the citizens of No.6 take the city’s protections for granted, further reinforcing the ideas established in the opening sequence. However, where No.6 stands out from many of its contemporaries is the dedication to showing how the population itself has a passive role in its own persecution. Normally, in stories about an oppressive government, a placated population is often taken for granted, and there is not a whole lot of time given to depicting how or why that population is the way it is.

The important part, for this media, is that things are the way they are because the heroes need an oppressive force to fight against. They cannot conduct these battles in the open for fear of prying eyes. OR, (and this is more common in American dystopian fiction) you’ll get the flipside where the government has a much more active role in using martial law to oppress the population. The populace is very aware that it is being oppressed, and is usually depicted as waiting for the first available excuse to spark the revolution.

Americans love to think they’d rise up in revolution against a tin pot dictator, but y'all have been awful quiet about the Supreme Court taking away your rights. Anyway.

In the former instance, however, and I feel this is much closer to reality, the population does not know they are being oppressed, and therefore have no context for freedom. If an oppressed people believe they are already free, they will not pursue freedom. In fact, because a significant portion of the population is comfortable in its own oppression, it will actively resist any change in the status quo. People who can contextualise this idea of freedom are those who can either read patterns objectively, or those who exist outside of social norms and constructs.

This is the first observation made in George Orwell’s 1984. The state is dependent on intellectuals to research and apply totalitarian principals to the population at large. However, these same intellectuals pose a threat to the stability of the regime, because the mechanical workings of mass manipulation cannot work on someone who can naturally analyse and deconstruct social conventions.

Granted… It's easy to say that. The ‘intellectual class’ is actually much more vulnerable to groupthink than self-proclaimed free-thinkers would have you believe. But they pose a risk to totalitarianism nevertheless — not the GREATEST risk, but we’ll get into that.

In No.6 — Shion represents this. His acknowledged intelligence is a double-edged sword for him. Intellect with loyalty is a good thing. Intellect with critical thinking is a liability. It’s why the modern academic curriculum — especially in America — promotes STEM programs so strongly. You generally do not NEED critical thought to succeed in maths and sciences: challenging social conventions is not a prerequisite for designing a new app.

Meanwhile the humanities are dipping out of popularity and there is almost no worker demand for studies deriving from critical thought. Maths and sciences produce products that are valuable to the state or the economy. They are intellect that the State can control and exploit. Ethics and media literacy generally exist to insist that the state should not control intellect. This is counter-productive to the agenda of an overarching institutional body. It’s made clear to Shion that if the state cannot facilitate complete control of his intellect, then he is a threat.

While this discussion is present in Orwell, it’s actually a more prominent theme in the writings of Vonnegut. But that’s enough name-dropping. For now.

The very opening of No.6 features a display of indoctrinating children into this groupthink of State-Worship. And this was compounded with the first plot arc, of how Shion lost his lofty status in society — by showing compassion to an escaped prisoner (Rat) instead of reporting him. In an instant, he demonstrates that his compassion for another human being was stronger than his loyalty to the state. Again, something we’ll come back to later on.

Already the parallels to 1984 are highlighted by government structure where law enforcement is dependent-(in-part) upon the people to police eachother. Keep in mind there is a difference between policing yourself and policing others. Social indoctrination is when the population is convinced that these things are one in the same.

First, the people are expected to act as eyes and ears for law enforcement — observing and reporting other citizens’ actions. And later it is suggested that law enforcement may monitor individual conversations for indications of what is tantamount to thought-crime. Of course, a system of citizen-policing really only works in instances of the people believing that they owe their allegiance or loyalty to the state. And then trusting the state enough to honestly believe that monitoring the population at large is for the greater good.

The reason why this… OUGHT to be so terrifying to us is because this power structure is the exact antithesis of democracy: where the state owes its loyalty and service to the people. Despite the fact that… there are many democratic nations which seem to flirt with the former. All the time.

And maybe it’s just the fact that I read this at a very specific time, that while I drew these parallels between No.6 and our society — namely within, but not limited to, American politics — a lot of this feels hauntingly familiar. Yes, the American government specifically has been encouraging citizens to report suspected terrorists and undocumented immigrants to the police for… most… most of my life.

But I wouldn’t have expected to see these kinds of State-Loyalist values within the Queer community.

While it was something that I found only annoying, I’m now starting to become actively concerned with the degree that being a queer narc is coming into vogue. Sorry… these people don’t really like being called "queer". I’m perfectly fine with queer people who want to fit into the heteronormative framework of Euro-American hegemony. Like all rights movements, queer rights is about affording people in this group the same choices and opportunities that exist for those of privilege. Choosing to exist in this framework is, and ought to be, as valid as choosing NOT to exist in this framework.

The joint effort for rights affords people the ability to conform. In return, the conformers are expected to uphold the rights of those that choose not to conform, though want to be left unbothered by the system.

And so, I have issues which arise with the way certain factions feel that, while it’s okay to be gay— NOBODY should be ‘queer.’ And that they themselves have absolutely nothing but contempt for being included in any kind of ‘queerness.’ Nevermind that the academic school of thought is called queer theory — and is held alongside other schools of literary and cultural criticism. And has a particular role for analysing the social interplay between those within and those without the hetero-cis-normative hegemony.

However as I would like to be referred to with respect by these people, I will respect their preferences for how they describe themselves, and instead will refer to the LGB alliance’s generally-agreed-upon self-identification. Which is the same thing as we have, but with… less.

On one hand it’s a little bit uncouth to participate in call-out culture and possibly confront anyone watching this who may identify with this LGB Alliance… but on the other hand I’ve spent the last several years being very clear about my political and social support for trans, nonbinary, and any other letter-identities that go past the first three in the acronym. Even ace people who really ought to be the Switzerland of this discussion, though you can’t get far without someone saying that ‘asexualism is invalidating homosexualty’ or whatever.

In fact I’ve been vocal about dismissing the use of acronyms altogether. In part because the modular nature of the jumble of letters can give some people licence to actively dismiss and ignore members of our community who were foundational in our fight for rights.

I can’t help but feel like this… dissonant community would prefer not to find an overarching name because then they would lose a method of excluding people and that seems to be their unifying value.

And also because the 100% plan is to cut the B out whenever they… win? What even is the win condition for the LGB alliance, as an activism group? Facilitating ongoing discrimination against a community of people whose identities revolve around alternative and non-cis gender identities? Because their help was certainly NOT needed to assure ongoing discrimination against trans people in this society. What are they actually fighting for…?

From what I can gather, hating trans people is actually a secondary objective of theirs. Sure, yeah, they hate trans people but what are they trying to accomplish with that hate? When the hegemony discriminates against something outside of itself, the objective is to reinforce an ongoing structure of social supremacy or to limit the number of individuals who can benefit from social privileges. Being able to hate an entire other social group, identity, or ethnicity in itself is a social luxury.

This is why non-queer TERF philosophy reads hollow because it’s trying so desperately to convince you that there is an objective or an end-goal. In practice, though, the end goal seems to be a demonstration of what social authority they already have, by flexing it over a very small, very vulnerable target demographic.

They hide hate by pretending to have a cause: “We don’t HATE these people because we WANT to. We care about THIS issue, and therefore we HAVE to hate these people.” The care is propagated to come first — but they just want an excuse to hate something. Whereas, if hate was the primary objective of the LGB Alliance, they would have a mission statement that would support their hatred. Instead, their hatred supports their actual ideology: “The trans people are being targeted by our new straight friends — in order to maintain what privileges we have, we need to demonstrate that we don’t like them either.” Hatred is a consequence of their objective.

Which results in many queer people feeling that they either have to dictate how trans people should live their lives (spoiler, it’s either detransitioning or gender-conformity) or are perfectly comfortable broadcasting disgust towards trans people and/or nonbinary gender expressions. While it may be easy to say that this is a very queer-boomer mindset, I am seeing an unfortunate rash of queer whipper-snappers who have nothing but contempt for Jeffery Marsh and other vocal genderqueer advocates.

They also seem to be in the same camp as people who want to condemn kink and other visible indicators of a healthy, consensual sex life. Because if the hetero-hegemony wants to keep any trace of non-conformist sex out of everyday life, then people who want heterosexual privileges ALSO want that, too.

There’s a lot being done to demonstrate the “I’m not with they/them” mentality. A hallmark of these fictional dystopian societies is that you demonstrate your loyalty by condemning others. Which, as it so happens, is also how police regimes like to function in real life. There’s no better way to let everyone know that you’re not a communist... than if you accuse all of your friends of secretly being communists.

That being said, I’m not comparing the LGB Alliance to this kind of painfully Orwellian YA dystopian genre. As much as I feel like it’s a Machiavelli-esque manual for identifying totalitarian control, there are many who use 1984 to dog-whistle the horrors of not being able to call people slurs and get away with it anymore. It’s referencing a very specific political process that surely does not begin with the public’s criticisms of stand-up comedians.

At the same time that comedians justify their loose lips as being the first and last lines of defence against totalitarianism, they go around using their comedy to ridicule people who are already targets of political talking points. Though I feel as if tentative rights and privileges are being filtered to some of us in the queer community, I’m beginning to see an unsettling pattern from those of us who feel inclined to… police the whole group.

My large concern comes from the… giddy, enthusiastic willingness to partake in this budding phase of state observationalism. One side of the dualistic truth of human nature really shines through when you have a group of people whose identities were illegal in some capacity and they win a campaign to earn a second class citizen status and immediately turn around and say: “OKAY! Who do we get to torment now that we’re at the grown-up table?”

The other side, the seemingly larger side, believes you can make convincing arguments to talk people out of an irrational power trip. Nothing is so tempting for people who have lived under a thumb to get the chance to flex their own. What better way is there to understand the psychological inner workings of why someone would participate in discriminatory groupthink against you, than to participate in discriminatory groupthink which targets someone else?

So enough beating around the bush — what is going on here? There is a large contingent of LGBT, etc people who participate in the ongoing persecution of various queer identities. The fact that it’s happening so broadly is more concerning than the fact that a bunch of TERFs and has-been theatre queens are organising online. The purpose to this vocal protest of other queer people is less about making any difference or making any social change. These people have what they want, they may not want more, maybe they do — but their objective is to protect what they have already gottenalready have. And in a misguided way, they feel that uniting with the intolerant hegemony in hatred will allow them to escape further discrimination.

As I don't join the hate myself, I can’t really speak to the mechanics of it. Is it more appropriate to say that these cis Gs, Ls, and Bs see a friend in the enemy of an enemy? Or is it more about what they say about escaping from bears? That you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your friends. Because there’s a difference between running away, and tripping your trans friend when she starts to get into the clear.

Now really, there are enough of us running from this bear that we can probably turn around and scream really loud until the bear decides we’re way more trouble than it’s worth. God forbid anyone takes advice from a metaphor though. The vocalised mindset from anti-trans queer folk is that things were going GREAT for the L’s and G’s and B’s — that they had everything they wanted.

Or at least there was forward momentum towards progress (for them, of course) — it was a delicate balance of accruing political and social currency, and then trading it in for strategically-decided rights and privileges. The straights had gone to sleep about GAY and LESBIAN issues… but they think that trans people going for their rights is like poking a sleeping tiger. The straight hegemony being both tigers and bears in these scenarios because EVERYBODY’S a fucking furry these days.

The thing that I think is so spineless about LGB ideology is that it’s not made out of any stance on belief, but a desperate attempt to save face and GROVEL. “We’re actually DIFFERENT from them, so we don’t care what happens to them, just please please don’t take away theour sorry excuse for straight privilege that we’ve already gotten.” The only instance of grovelling that I can ever respect is when it involves a safe word.

This doesn’t really manifest in contacting a secret police to have people taken away for being trans (yet) but it does betray a mentality that people in the overarching queer community are more than willing to throw each other under the bus for the purpose of maintaining what privilege has already been gotten.

Of course, the real problem is the fact that there is a hungry lion, or tiger, or bear —

[Meme cutaway]: Dorthy in Oz: "Oh my!"

— your friends are not the enemy. Instead of doing something about the beast, we’d rather just feed our friends to it. How does the thought cross your mind that the wild animal will never eat you? What? As long as you keep feeding your friends to it? Keep it full so it thinks you're an ally? What happens when you have no more friends to feed to it? Can you really say it’s a good idea to stake your public acceptance on your ability to offer up victims to a bully?

This is less about… reasoning with this mindset because I don’t actually think that reasoning with them accomplishes anything. “Oh SNAP. John Stewart OWNED a conservative on gun regulation laws!” Sure, Him, yes, butyeah, and also hundreds of other pundits, commenters, politicians, celebrities, and socialother theorists. If ‘owning’ anybody in an argument was really going to result in a tangible effect on a social landscape, it would have happened by now.

Gone are the days of Fred Rogers appealing to congress for ongoing government funding for PBS, holding congresspeople enwrapped with a detailed argument of why public television is so significant. Arguably, the last time anybody in a position of power actually listened to a testimonial was Frank Zappa’s testimonial about the slippery slope of censoring song lyrics in the 1980s.

Nobody LISTENS to arguments anymore, and that extends now to people on social media. I’m afraid that very few people have the views they do because they’ve actually thought about them, weighed the arguments internally, and decided upon a set of values. If I’m being cynical, many people seem to propagate their views because they were either conditioned into them by family values, or because they want to emulate a public figure that they like. And that can include people who lean into thea collection of values which we label with the abstract concept of ‘the left.’

That said, people who have reasoned through their values tend to lean towards the left anyway. Who would have thought that members of a species that owes its survival and global dominance to cooperation and cohabitation would rationalise their way into political compassion? It’s almost like primates thrive because of social cohesion and liberal omnisexualuty.

The point of arguing a side of the false dichotomy that is political left versus political right is less to actually convince people of values one way or the otheranother. The reason people commit to these bombastic displays of tweet threads or tic-toc^{[sic: TikTok]} call-out videos is to signal what side of the debate you are on. And even if arguments are made to be directed at the other side, the bulk of what they accomplish is just reinforcing the values of people who already agree with them.

Paraphrasing Noam Chomsky, he once said that anyone who asks you to explain something quickly is asking you to explain something they already agree with.

Any number of minute long tic-toc^{[sic: TikTok]} videos is not going to convince someone to abandon a lifetime of social and intellectual conditioning. In the same way, a tic-toc^{[sic: TikTok]} trying to explain why the Hunger Games is actually about a socialist dictatorship is just going to piss me off.

We may say: “Well that’s because the concept is completely irrational and indicative of poor media literacy skills.” Which may be true. But it’s not ABOUT “rational.” In this instance, the Hunger Games is about a collectivist society that chooses compassion and freedom instead of tyranny.

Of course anyone who feels like their social values are not being represented are going to identify with this story. They will start with the conclusion, and selectively draw parallels where it suits their argument, and ignore anything that does not support their views.

Honestly, the capitol is indicative of many things the right accuses the left of propagating. Queer-coded, sensitive, sexual predators who force others to be furries to befit fetishization. Granted, that is a kind of a satire all in itself — escalating a perceived world state to the point of parody. Confronting the audience to look at how absurd what you are saying is — and also look at how that’s absolutely NOT happening in real life.

Granted in this genre of Dystopia, the objective is to caution the audience about what COULD be, provided we do not course-correct our society. It’s also just not how you’re supposed to read the Hunger Games. It’s about rich people going out of control — which is a hallmark of… Reganistic de-regulated corporatism.

You gotta think: which political institution is actively advocating for people to get THIS kind of rich? Is it the AOCs of the world, who wanna tax rich people? No. No It is not.

Still though, we are allowed to be upset at the perhaps intentional conflation of oppressive opulence with queer aesthetics. The wealthy haven’t had aesthetics that strong since France circa 1700. Which was likely where the aesthetic direction was drawn from.

But the antagonistic elements of the Hunger Games and No.6 are not the specific power figures enforcing these values — the revolting part of these stories (regardless ofregarding how they are interpreted) is a comfortable class of people who exist in tandem with an underclass who, in spite of their suffering, are entirely ignored.

The weird thing that you can only RARELY get out of fiction (insofar as this parallel applies to queerdom) is that after the whole bunch of us spent centuries under the boot, we have an internal social structure that is DESPERATELY trying to participate in this persecution dynamic now. While at the SAME TIME this self-perceived upper-crust of LGBs insist upon their ongoing persecution under the hetero-hegemony.

Thing is, it would be incredibly easy for me to make an argument that would ‘own’ the LGB Alliance. I wouldn’t be the only one, for sure. And it is tempting, because who doesn’t love to win an argument? The argument against them is so easy because these beliefs are irrational, but the thing is… they want you to point out how irrational it is. Because THEN they can take that debate, and run to the straight people they’re begging for validity from and say: “Look at how MEAN those trans supporters are! Cancel culture pipeline!”

This discrimination of trans people within the gay and lesbian and bisexual communities is not rational: bigotry in general rarely is. Failing any reasoning, the self needs to preserve its expected lifestyle and level of comfort. They resort to emotional argumentation because that’s more effective to accrue social currency as a victim.

The process of discriminating against others in the hopes of going unnoticed by persecution is an act of self-diminishment. It’s acknowledging that persecution exists, but that the better thing to do is to go unnoticed, let it pass by, and target others. Nobody who does that is standing for anything. At best it’s negligent and ignorant; at worst it’s malicious and cowardly.

Turning away from the suffering of others with the express intent of preserving your own privilege is the exact foundation of literally every dystopian future that fiction provides. Even ‘robots taking over the world’ futures normally begin with humanity taking to violence against artificial intelligence.

The society that exists in No.6 is one which depends on affording a certain amount of privileges to a select amount of people. In a real-world application, the state only needs to afford privileges to a bare minimum of citizens to control the narrative. If enough people buy into the State’s mandate, the people themselves will silence all those who disagree. Because who doesn’t like a little privilege?

And then the narrative switches from the people justifying their own rights, to the narrative that privileges were bestowed upon them by a benevolent authority. Not enough people participating in privilege will simply result in the authority losing control in a game of numbers. Too many people participating in privilege will decrease the political control that authority can have — which is good for the comfortable chaos of a people’s democracy. Bad for an oligarchy who wants to pilot a nation for the benefit of a select few in the higher echelons of society.

And what it really comes down to is a group of people who desperately think they can make the cut when it comes to dolling out privilege. Even more so for people who already got a taste.

But really… Does the thought process really work like that? Do we really think that upon the vanquishing of trans rights, the hetero-hegemony will join hands with their gay, lesbian, and bisexual brethren and let them raise children together in neatly divided suburbs?

I could talk about why queers policing other queers is clownish and cowardly on the merits of a once-persecuted class carrying out an agenda of persecution in the hopes that they will be spared the rod. But if you already feel that way, I can’t foresee any moral argument swaying your opinion. There is a face to step on if there are people beneath you. I guess stepping on people is more important than not getting stepped on, yourself.

But if the objective IS making the world a better place — what kind of world are these values and sentiments contributing to.

The problem with a massive amount of ‘overthrow the government’ literature is that there is extreme, and perhaps deliberate vaguary when it comes to what this governmental platform is. And the problem with US, as an audience, is that we are obsessed with the misguided notion that our politics exist as a binary between two political parties on a spectrum. We’re too busy trying to search for clues about whether Panem is a political left or political right so that we can act as party-affiliated watchdogs to accuse other political affiliations of resembling a fictional character… or Hitler.

Which, unfortunately, we have to leave Godwin’s law behind in the bin now because. American Nazis.

Meanwhile, we ignore the fact that these warning signs are RIGHT IN FRONT OF US, and waste our time trying to JUSTIFY our political ideology by claiming that the opposition resembles comic book villains. Because we are that married to the use of fiction to justify real-world feelings. Regardless of the fact that in our attempt to prevent ‘the other guys’ from doing totalitarianism, we’re ignoring the pattern that this just seems to be what any unregulated government will do. Especially when we’re too busy with macro-political party lines to pay attention to the minutiae of governance.

The government is like a dead frog. Unless we, the people, poke it to make it do things, it will just lay there, bloating, and doing everything it can to justify its own existence. Though unlike the frog, a runaway government is alive enough to fight for its survival.

The purpose of democracy is to shift political decision making away from the elite, to be ininto the hands of the people. Ideally, we shouldn’t ‘depend’ on the government to take any action about anything because the power to act lies with the people.

Granted that’s… a hell of a rose-tinted idea of democracy. But it’s concerning to me that I see more and more people in America expecting executive actions, when American Democracy is also alleged to be one of the greatest examples of democracy in the world. And as a person who does not live in America, I’m seeing a lot of people expecting their government to work the same way, where the head of the federal government is expected to be able to ‘do things’ on a whim.

In reality, the political ideologies of these fictional dystopian governments is irrelevant. Boiling it down to ‘this happens in extreme CAPITALIST governments’ or ‘that happens in extreme COMMUNIST governments’ is missing the point. The point is that the people of this nation have allowed their government to consolidate power to the point where it is almost entirely removed from the people.

For those who can keep their head down and toe the line, this is fine. But there’s never going to be a situation where everyone in a culture can exist as the archetype of the government’s model citizen.

Luckily, the state has a solution for dissidents. Everyone who can’t toe the line also has a role to serve to the State: as an example of what happens to those who do not conform. It saddens me to say that in the queer community, after winning a cultural war justifying that queer love is not a choice, some of us are trying to label others’ identities as choices.

I do want to be clear that I’m using an Orwellian comparison a little flippantly. These days you get any assortment of people who, at the first sign of any kind of social decency, willthey'll resort to a 1984 comparison. It also doesn’t help that Orwell rooted his story in a totalitarian Communist regime. Kind of.

The key factor about 1984 is that the people are kept ignorant of how their government actually workeds. Details about distant or recent history are also kept obscure — and these obfuscating factors increased with each generation.

Huh… Texas and Florida are doing away with a lot of school history books.

1984 was scary because, so I am told, there is nothing in that novel that was strictly fictitious. But then again, the combination of all these real-world political suppression tactics benefits a very specific kind of sensibility. If it’s not indicative of this kind of totalitarian dystopia, then it shoulddoes signal to you that if (or when) this DOES happen, a line is drawn between those who will beg to be welcomed into it, and those who cannot or will not conform.

The ease with which many gay men and women come to discriminate against so many others should be a red flag because it clearly outlines a willingness to participate in this KIND of totalitarian regime.

As with the Twinks for Trump kind of movements, there’s a mindset that if we adapt the mentality of the bigoted oppressors that the oppressors will recognize us as ‘worthy.’ You, of the LGB Alliance, may throw out some defences saying ‘I don’t want trans people to be eradicated’ ‘something something — ‘difference ofdifferent opinions’ — something — ‘i’m just uncomfortable’ — Something.’

However, the language you are projecting to the world is literally “they/them are not with us.” And by perpetuating that you deserve your own rights and privileges because of your separation from trans people and others, you are ALSO saying: “I’m cool if you do whatever you want with them.”

You are acknowledging that hate and bigotry exist within the system but doing nothing to challenge it. And rather than change the system, you are not only siding with it, but being willing to sacrifice your freedoms to do it. Yes, freedom. You are pressuring a government to have the power to decide who is or is not a person. Almost… immediately after the government decided that you were a person, so back up a little bit. How can a government which decides who is orwho or who is not a person possibly have any kind of role in freedom?

The stupid idea isn’t this roundabout argument that trans people fighting for trans rights will somehow put a crosshair on cis gay men and women. Because, quite frankly, that’s probably true. And we need to confront that, and acknowledge that putting ourselves at risk to close ranks and advocate for what the whole of us needs — is more important than hiding in a fantasy world where everything is coming up roses for the gays.

Because we do need to confront this uncomfortable truth that standing together as a community comes with a possible threat. But that threat isn’t coming from people who love you, it's coming from people who tolerate you.

They wish you and your gay ass weren’t around, weren’t on their favourite TV shows, but they’ll TOLERATE it. And this community, every letter in the goddamn alphabet, has been through too much to simply be tolerated.

Let’s face it — if some people being who they truly are without hurting anyone is all that it takes for the freedom-brokers of the world to revoke your legal status as a person — chances are that your rights aren’t as secure as you think.

And that shouldn’t make you feel defeated — that should inspire you to work to finish the job. And certainly… examine the philosophical conflicts of interest in fighting for your own rights by preventing others from getting theirs. We either all deserve rights, or we open the door to a debate on who is or isn’tis not a person.

If more people seeking rights is going to jeopardise your own rights — why does that direct your anger at the people seeking rights, and not at the people who give the rights out like a gold stars for good behaviour? He who giveth can taketh away.

And this fantasy world of everything being awesome for the gays is at odds with the awareness that rights could and CAN vanish. It’s this fear that’s fuelling the hatred: hatred is learned behaviour. And it’s the desperate need to cling on to this rose-tinted world of mimosas and post VH1 drag-race — this world where the gays have won everything they could ever want — that is generating this fear of losing it all. We’re so desperate to not return to our darkest days that some of us are trying to keep others in them. We take the side of the hatemongers who, within even my living memory, were responsible for our bleakest moments.

It’s easy to channel fear into hate. If you fear losing what you have, you will hate those who (you perceive) may take it from you. Though the characters in works like 1984 are tragic, a solution to totalitarian control is offered. Big brother’s control is predicated on the ability to restrict love and sex, and redirect it into feverish devotion for the party. In light of everyone obsessing over everything else in 1984, I am most concerned that this detail in particular is going unspoken.

However, while Orwell’s focus was on sex and romance, and while his protagonists themselves are flawed and single-minded, I feel there is a rather glaring extension to the kind of love that is needed to push back against control and regime. Why just romantic love? Why not the love for a community? A culture? A nation? The love of a stranger who is doing what they love — what they were never told to do, but they do anyway. A love for recognizing someone living their best life, for knowing that even if you are in hard times, you can rest assured that your best life is still out there.

Love in the literal sense of appreciating another human being because you recognize that the humanity in them is the very same as the humanity in you. Love in the abstract sense of appreciating a world for which any explanation for our existence is a spectacle. And that there is no way to appreciate the people in this world — for all the ways that they are the same through hate and fear.

Love is a shift in your energy and loyalty to the subject of your attention. The state cannot control what you love, because you have no control over what you love either.

So the hallmark of control is being told what to fear — and what to hate. Who is your enemy. Not who is your friend. But whose the real enemy? The person threatening to take your rights away? Or the person simply asking to be treated with respect. I know who my enemy is. Do you?