Awesomesauce.
Whelp, I didn't think I could panic anymore than Tuesday, but here we are. Hi Sailor Sam - any advice for the young and terrified queer population from a military perspective? Is it time to make a bug out bag and flee for Canada?
Hello young dwarf, welcome to the fight! Please pick up your badge, shield, and official Ankh-Morpork truncheon from Sgt Detritus.
Here's the first lesson, it's hugely important, so please remember it. You never give up the ship, and
you damn sure never give up on your fucking country. Bug out bags are good common sense, but not so you can flee to Canada.
Stonewall rioted, for you. Harvey Milk died, for you. Leslie Feinberg wrote
Stone Butch Blues for you. Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard, and 49 people in a night club were martyred for you. Thousands of service members were court martieled for you. Tens of thousands fought an endless grassroots battle for your rights starting before either of us were born, refusing to give up though all the setbacks and prejudice, with no presciences to tell them victory waited for them in 2011 and 2013.
My advice is to never forget the ocean of grit and determination that backs your current freedoms. Never forget the ocean of blood. Never decide it's too hard, or too scary, or just too much to keep fighting to preserve those freedoms. But certainly, you must be smart. Let's add your name to the living resistance, and not the honourable dead.
1. Please take a self-defense class, to keep your corpus safe
2. Make friends you can talk to, to keep your mind safe
3. Make friends with people who don't have any gay friends. Show them your ordinariness, and gently change one mind at a time
4. Volunteer in your gay community, to keep our youngest safe and stable
6. Volunteer for other worthy causes, to build strong communities that don't sink into hate
7. Remember that some people are orcs, and simply cannot be saved. Don't let them pull you down into hatred. God will sort them out.
7. Build situational awareness, so you know when to be visible, and when to be incognito
8. Read
How Long Has This Been Going On, and
The Band Played On, so you deeply understand your own history. For that matter, read
Stone Butch Blues 9. Never. Give. Up.
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