This Pride, let’s defiantly celebrate our LGBTQ community

Another year, another Philly Pride festival, and another chance to remind everyone of the state of LGBTQ rights in our country.

Let’s start with the good: A year ago, as Pride season kicked off, I bemoaned how an eventual end to the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion — the overturning of Roe v. Wade — meant that same-sex marriage would be the likely next target for a rollback by the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court. But that scenario was stopped in its tracks when President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law last December, mandating federal recognition for same-sex marriages. This landmark piece of legislation, passed by a bipartisan coalition in Congress, repealed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Moreover, states would be prohibited from denying the validity of same-sex or interracial out-of-state marriages.

Last month, the Pennsylvania House passed a bill sponsored by State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta — the first openly gay person of color in the General Assembly — that prevents discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender identity. (It now sits with the GOP-controlled Senate.)

Despite this progress, a Category 5 hurricane of attacks against civil rights continues to intensify, with its eye still squarely directed at the entire LGBTQ community.

Between all the wholesale battles playing out in school boards, courts, capitals, and councils — not to mention the retail attacks on Target and its employees for carrying LGBTQ-affirming apparel (prompting Target to pull its Pride merch from stores) and the boycott against Bud Light for partnering with a transgender influencer — it’s enough for the community to seek a case of ostrich syndrome, blissfully ignoring the seeming insanity of it all.

But now is not the time to be complacent. Nor to be silent.

Now is not the time to be complacent. Nor to be silent.

This year, it’s even more important to celebrate everything we are and have accomplished, in defiance of all the attacks against our community.

We can call 2023 Pride the year of defiant celebration.

Here’s what we’re defying: A record number of anti-LGBTQ legislation bills have been introduced in state legislatures (400-plus), already more than double the total number from all of 2022. And it’s only June. More than two-thirds of the health-care-related bills introduced in 2023 are aimed at blocking trans youth from getting gender-affirming care. Some of these are “forced outing” bills, which require teachers to report any change in a student’s name, pronouns, or presentation to their parents.

It all makes last year’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida — restricting in-school discussion on sexual orientation or gender identity — seem like a distant memory.

Even drag queens are being, er, dragged into the fray, with Tennessee leading the way with bills that would ban or censor their performances. Although the bill was temporarily blocked by a federal judge citing the First Amendment, there is no sashaying away from the reality that organized forces are at play to marginalize those who are different and vulnerable.

The tentacles of these bills are reaching into more and more aspects of how we live and work, bursting up like weeds through concrete cracks, and in much need of a good spraying of Roundup.

Perhaps the bill that hits closest to home is the “Parents Bill of Rights,” which allows parents to weigh in on the curriculum, books, and reading materials in school libraries. Yes, this results in book banning.

In recent weeks, the Central Bucks School District has reviewed and banned multiple books with “sexualized content,” including Gender Queer and This Book is Gay. At the moment, over 60 titles have been challenged.

This topic is deeply personal for me. This spring, my book Boy Wander: A Coming of Age Memoir was published. It’s about my upbringing across Asia and an honest narrative on a challenging sexual awakening, showing LGBTQ youth that they are not alone and, despite all that conspires against them, they are strong. Things do get better. While I am pleased that public libraries across the country are adding it to their collections, I am also fully prepared for Boy Wander to be banned by certain districts, including our neighbors.

And so, in the midst of all this heartbreak and attacks on our community, I’m asking us to celebrate what cannot be taken away from us: joy, love, and our determination to fight for what we deserve.

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This is a call for all of us in the LGBTQ community to be louder and prouder than ever. It’s a call for our allies to join us. Attend local Pride events. Read banned books. Write to your state senators in support of the antidiscrimination bill. Wear messages of love, diversity, and inclusion. Give and volunteer to LGBTQ nonprofits, especially to those supporting youth like the Rainbow Room in Doylestown and many others throughout Greater Philadelphia. Ask others to do the same.

Stand up for the oppressed and our lawfully given rights. Let our voices be heard.

Love and be loved. And, yes, happy Pride.

Jobert E. Abueva is the author of “Boy Wander: A Coming of Age Memoir” (Rattling Good Yarns Press) and is a resident of New Hope. www.jobertabueva.net