It's time to stop watching and do something

"A loud, public, and often colorful privilege. We walk through neighborhoods where our LGBTQ+ flags fly high. We have businesses that reflect us and city officials who hear our voices. This isn't true everywhere, and we know it. But even here, even now, I see a growing numbness, especially among younger gay men. Myself included. Because being a younger today means being born into the aftermath of a war we didn't fight."

"And yet all around us are generations of queer people who remember fighting just to survive. People who buried partners, watched whole friend groups vanish, and still got up and marched anyway. Fighting through the silence of a government that let their friends die during the AIDS crisis. Fighting against religious zealotry, the criminalization of their love, and the moral panic in classrooms."

"Take a step back from the glitter and look at where we are right now. This year, there are over 500 anti-LBGTQ+ bills introduced across the United States. Transgender people are being banned from sports, bathrooms, and healthcare. Drag shows are criminalized. Books that include queer characters are pulled from school shelves. Children are being told their queer families are unnatural. In some states, simply discussing queer identity is now seen as "indoctrination.""

Gay residents in San Francisco experience visible privilege, public acceptance, and supportive institutions, yet many younger gay men report a growing numbness. Younger generations inherited queer ease and openness absent in previous eras, including workplace visibility, dating apps, community centers, and corporate support. Older queer people endured the AIDS crisis, buried partners, faced criminalization and religious hostility, and still organized and protested. Pride requires active listening to memory and continued vigilance. At the same time, more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills target transgender access, drag performances, queer-inclusive books, classroom discussion, and symbolic erasures of queer history.

Read at Advocate.com