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![Bamberg State Library<\/a>,\u00a0](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bamberg_Apocalypse_Msc.Bibl.140_0070._32v_The_beast_of_the_sea_miniature_cropped.jpg\"){kind=link}
Not to brag, but I was born in 1987. In my lifetime, Seinfeld<\/em> had the \u201cnot that there\u2019s anything wrong with that\u201d episode, there were the Grant Hill\/Jared Dudley \u201cusing \u2018gay\u2019 to mean \u2018dumb or stupid\u2019 is not creative, and you\u2019re better than that\u201d ads<\/a>, the f-slur was prominently featured in two of <\/a>the biggest comedies<\/a> a few short years before getting almost entirely exorcised from everyday speech. Hillary Clinton got on the floor of the senate and said she opposed gay marriage. Barack Obama said \u201cmy views are evolving,\u201d which was an unbelievably obvious lie. As soon as he got his little second term? Dude starts pushing for gay marriage legalization, and the Supreme Court makes one of their few good decisions ever with Obergefell in 2014. As a culture, we have<\/em> made undeniable progress on equality for LGBTQ+ people in my lifetime. That Seinfeld<\/em> episode feels kinda ridiculous now, the then-necessary Grant Hill ads make the recent past seem like ages ago. Now that we’ve had a few decades of people being relatively unafraid to come out, the old “you know someone who is queer, whether you know it or not” adage is really proving true. It’s simply not that unusual to see married gay couples. Pronouns are in email signatures. Trans people are visible enough that Davey Chappel did like five hours of live therapy about it. I recognize that I’m talking about two different things, cultural attitudes and legalities. Both matter, both are always precarious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Backlash and blowback are two concepts that should really be taught to high schoolers. The narrative I was fed my whole life was that things were getting better\u2014civil rights for people of color, the Lily Ledbetter Act for equal pay for women, equality for LGBTQ+ people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In case you haven\u2019t looked around lately, the United States is fascist now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s an open war on trans people, with battlefields in congressional chambers, op-ed pages, social media, the streets, wherever you can think of and probably a few places you never would. It’s all based on bogus misinformation campaigns like \u201cboys playing girls\u2019 sports\u201d and backed by all the billions of the Harry Potter franchise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not trying to fearmonger, but do you believe this Supreme Court will uphold Obergefell if pressed? Personally I\u2019m not optimistic that they\u2019d uphold Loving, so hey, we\u2019re all in this together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s annoying, the fact that bigots don\u2019t suddenly see the light when presented with logical information or a good West Wing-style speech or a new law. You\u2019d think a plurality of people reaching critical mass for something like Obergefell or respectful \u201cwhat\u2019re your pronouns\u201d prompts would mean that the rights are, like, \u201cwon\u201d or whatever. But no, bigots stay bigots. Unless we want to start mass-executing bigots\u2014at minimum, a third of the U.S. population\u2014we can never think of rights as won. We have to think of rights as temporarily granted. Here, at the end of the column, I feel I should play the clip that inspired it. Someone on bluesky posted this and framed it as a real conversation. Turns out, it\u2019s from a show called Tiptoe<\/em>. Doesn\u2019t make the sentiment any less true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-2-1024x633.png\")
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![Laurie Shaull<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s annoying, the fact that bigots don\u2019t suddenly see the light when presented with logical information or a good West Wing-style speech or a new law. You\u2019d think a plurality of people reaching critical mass for something like Obergefell or respectful \u201cwhat\u2019re your pronouns\u201d prompts would mean that the rights are, like, \u201cwon\u201d or whatever. But no, bigots stay bigots. Unless we want to start mass-executing bigots\u2014at minimum, a third of the U.S. population\u2014we can never think of rights as won. We have to think of rights as temporarily granted. Here, at the end of the column, I feel I should play the clip that inspired it. Someone on bluesky posted this and framed it as a real conversation. Turns out, it\u2019s from a show called Tiptoe<\/em>. Doesn\u2019t make the sentiment any less true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Supreme_Court,_Tuesday_morning_(17303560915).jpg\"){kind=link}