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Love, that many-splendored thing that fuels social movements like the LGBTQ+ rights campaign, is a little bit like American freedom: It isn’t free. It must be cultivated and protected from threats.
The haters have put in the hours since last year’s Pride Issue to make life more difficult for queer and transgender people in and outside of Oregon, and I suspect their corrosive tactics might be having an effect on the community. Kicking off the local season with the announcement of CC Slaughters’ closure on June 1 made it hard to celebrate, and the cancellation of the Latin LGBTQ+ Pride party on June 11 amid ramped-up immigration arrests doesn’t help anything.
Maybe people have you questioning what love’s got to do with it.
Everything. If you can’t love yourself, as RuPaul correctly observes, how in the hell are you going to love anyone else? At a time when we all need love, outward messages of hate have an insidious power to infect and distort the energy we put out into the world. We can easily fall into traps of self-hatred laid by people outside the community, and inside it too.
I don’t have anything for the haters, so rather than focus on them, I want to use this Pride Issue to remind us how many people are not only working to make the world a kinder and better place, but succeeding at it.
In this issue, we asked prominent Portlanders from the worlds of sports, politics and entertainment to share the words they think the LGBTQ+ community needs to hear the most. We examine the efforts behind the Equal Rights for All campaign to enshrine gender-affirming health care and same-sex marriage rights in the state constitution. We profile the baddest butch queen in Portland, Kourtni Capree Duv, to learn about her decades-spanning history in Portland’s drag scene. We found organizers uniting the queer and trans community through social outings and rounded up an introductory calendar to the scores of events and parties happening in July.
My love letter to you? It goes a little something like this:
Sometimes my younger queer friends say that behind every great LGBTQ+ person is someone gayer and more evil (said as a compliment) who first showed them the way. A smaller number count me as the evil gay backing them up, but they could never have said that if a cast of characters didn’t light my way first and help me survive self-hatred. Some day, sooner than you think, you will inspire someone to live more freely and happily than they did before they knew you, and that is one of the greatest acts of love we can do for each other. Live free and love hard. —Andrew Jankowski, Assistant Arts & Culture Editor