Welcome back to That’s Gay 🌈 A biweekly newsletter for all the folks who're outgrowing "the way things are" – written by a queer kid who knows the feeling.
Candid, current, chaotic, and always tongue-in-cheek.
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“Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it’s a good place to start.”
– Jason Collins, first openly gay NBA player
Happy Friday everyone!
Is it just me, or is it getting a little nippy out there?? I’m not saying I’ve pulled out a jacket yet (I’m much too proud to) but there’s definitely something in the air that wasn’t there last week – Fall is upon us, I’m afraid 🍂
And speaking of spooky season looming on the horizon, today we’re going to talk about something equally terrifying – something that’s already hopped over that horizon and made itself comfy in our good ol’ United States of America.
Today, we’re going to talk about anti-abortion laws.
Now, I could call it a pro-life law, but why would I? “Pro-life” is a marketing scheme – a horrifyingly successful marketing scheme, but a marketing scheme nonetheless.
Guess I’ve already made it clear where I stand on this issue, huh? Not that it should matter, given I never have and never will be pregnant or give birth … but I’m getting ahead of myself here.
So … why are we talking about abortion on That’s Gay?
Well,
1) because we all have women/girls in our life that we love and respect
2) because folks of many different identities need access to safe abortion (it’s not just straight/cis women)
3) because the fight against legalized abortion is so much greater than the act of abortion itself
I know a lot of folks/sources better suited to talk on behalf of the first two points, and so I’ll leave it them.
*Check out this post from trans athlete Schuyler Bailar on how/why abortion affects people of all genders (and more):
So let’s talk about why I say anti-abortion is bigger than abortion itself.
Like Schuyler says in his post, restricting access to safe, legalized abortion is a matter of control. Lawmakers in Texas say it’s all about “personal autonomy” and their right to govern themselves, but exactly who’s autonomy are we talking about here? Not those that need an abortion, surely.
Haven’t we seen this schtick play out before? Why does the plot of “conservative men restricting freedoms in the name of freedom” sound so familiar to me??
Yup, this one’s an oldie folks. A classic, an old-reliable, a real time-tested strategy.
When your ultimate goal is to maintain your control and assert your power over another group of people, you can’t market it that way
– at least not in today’s political climate (gosh dang it, don’t you miss the good old days 🥺). Instead, you have to market yourself as one of the good guys – a Jedi; a freedom fighter only looking to preserve what’s right.
Let’s put it this way: If conservative politics were an ad for a new commercial drug, they’d stuff their desire for control into the last 30-seconds of the fast-talk, “these are all the ways this drug could fuck you up” section. You know, the one that says the drug you’ll be taking for dry mouth might also induce temporary blindness and/or death – that one.
The way anti-abortion conservatives think about a woman’s right to choose is the same way they think about a queer couple’s right to marry and raise children.
Your neighbor choosing to have an abortion or a gay couple getting married down the street does not take a shit in your morning coffee. It has nothing to do with you, and yet you can’t let us have it.
It threatens them; women, the LGBTQ+, and racial minorities asserting their freedom and independence of “the old guard” (conservative, straight/cis white men) threatens them.
And so it should.
The right to choose whether or not to have an abortion is a human right. The right to exist in peace, love, get married, and raise children is too.
As Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character Selina Meyer in Veep so eloquently put it, “If men got pregnant, you could get an abortion at an ATM.”
And you best believe if straight couples’ right to get married and have children was ever challenged, the law would be thrown out faster than a gay couples’ application at a conservative adoption agency.
So let’s just say it like it is: We’re not fighting against people that don’t believe the right to live and choose as you live is a human right, we’re fighting against people that apply that word – “human” – under the law selectively.
And that’s something we just can’t stand for.
Find me on Instagram: @till_kaeslin
Check out the newsletter’s home on Instagram to see this post there, and more like it: @thatsgaynewsletter
See you in Volume 64, folks!
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“If men got pregnant, you could get an abortion at an ATM.” True.
It just dawned on me reading what you said that, as a man (with no prospect of being transgender), it's a bit daunting realizing I will never ever experience how it feels, from a bodily perspective, to bring a human being to life (beyond procreation of course).