In this week’s episode, we share our thoughts on the latest school shooting, this time in Uvalde, Texas. As parents, we have lived through this nightmare over and over again since the Columbine murders in 1999. Perhaps it’s the cumulative weight of these mass killings, or the fact that the Uvalde murders occurred so soon after the racist murders of Black shoppers at a grocery store in Buffalo, but this incident haunts us even more than the many, many school shootings that have come before.
After the recent public hearings into the Uvalde massacre, what are we to do with the information we now have about what happened to these kids? And even more, what are we to do with the knowledge that none of this — not the gravity of these killings nor their gruesome details — will move some of our fellow Americans? None of this will affect how they vote or change their views of gun control at all. So, what are we to do with that?
We then turn our attention to Pride month, and, in particular, the ever-increasing attacks on transgender and nonbinary people coming from the right and the left. Given that even so-called allies openly question whether trans and nonbinary people are entitled to the same rights as the rest of the community, we trace the history of the Stonewall uprising and the integral role trans and nonbinary people played and continue to play in the movement, including trans heroes Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. For more information on the history of the movement from Stonewall to the present, check out the documentary Stonewall Forever on YouTube, produced by The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Center in New York.
Please enjoy to this week’s episode, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, and, as always, support the rights of LGBTQ+ people everywhere! And if you’re new here, you can also follow our Twitter account, @itsotetPodcast.
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