I second your motion about finding positive ways to deal with the hurt of homophobia.

I’m a gay man who has suffered a lot of trauma because of my sexual orientation, starting when I was just 11 or 12 years old. I internalized a some really bad shit, and I suffered concrete life consequences too.

One of the least important ones, but one that people pay attention to, is that I lost our modest home in New York City after my partner died, because I could not inherit from him legally. Because of crazy real estate inflation, that apartment is now worth well over 1 million dollars, a sum I sure wouldn’t mind having.

But despite all the trauma and consequences, I have worked almost my entire adult life shoulder to shoulder with other queer people to advance equality, justice, and love.

I mean shoulder to shoulder with transgender people, who have always played key roles in the LGBTQ equality movement. Always.

My trauma was not caused by transgender people. The negative life consequences I suffered were not caused by transgender people. Hell, transgender people are my friends and allies. Some of them qualify as created family. (Hi, Artemis!)

It distresses me enormously to see gay people targeting trans people as if trans people were somehow responsible for their pain.

Wake up, y’all. That’s not how any of this works.