Guest: As Oklahoma trans kids are bullied, lawmakers celebrate actions that lead to suffering

As I sat on my pickup tailgate, soaking in the sunshine within the safety of the Oklahoma City Gay District, I spoke with numerous friends who were walking by. We discussed in detail the outrage we feel regarding the onslaught of anti-2SLGBTQIA+ legislation that has been levied against us by lawmakers. I sensed no despair nor surrender. Instead, I felt their exasperation and the indisputable will to fight back.

I expressly recalled gay history and the events that triggered the Gay Rights Revolution 54 years ago. Laws against the queer community provoked protests and riots that spanned nearly two years. A once peaceful community came together as one united front. I can’t help but wonder if the numerous anti-gay state governments will push our people to a breaking point once more.

Oklahoma lawmakers, for example, introduced scores of anti-LGBTQ+ bills and related bills in 2023. One must ask, what crimes against humanity has our peaceful community committed? What would warrant a group of suit-wearing officials to tie us to their political whipping posts, laughing and ridiculing us, while they do their best to beat us into submission?

In a country where one would reasonably expect that elected officials would care about all children, transgender children watched in horror as one state bill after another was signed into law, slowly stripping away their rights to medical care. As transgender children are bullied and made fun of in their schools, lawmakers, who pretend to wear lab coats and stethoscopes as they play doctor with trans children’s lives, clink their glasses of Champagne together and celebrate actions that will lead to the suffering of innocent children.

Reminiscent of bullies in a school yard, handfuls of Republican state representatives scattered throughout our nation, continue their assault with anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. They demand that we symbolically kneel before them as the lawmakers preach, telling an estimated more than 22 million queer Americans that their lives are worthless and they are ridden with mental illness and must be punished. Their actions recklessly invite their constituents to insult and degrade the LGBTQ+ community, as if to say we are less than human and not worthy to live among them. Their LGBTQ+ constituents are dismayed and don’t understand why lawmakers are being so cruel and vindictive. Many of their family and friends are victims of the lawmakers' actions, and they plead for mercy, but the lawmakers are unwilling to listen.