Fallen HERO

[Content Note: Transphobia.]

Yesterday was Election Day in many parts of the US, and one of the biggest losses was the failure of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), which would have established nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people.

The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance was rejected after a nearly 18-month battle that spawned rallies, legal fights and accusations of both religious intolerance and demonization of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

With nearly 95 percent of precincts reporting, Houston residents had rejected the ordinance by a vote of 61 percent to 39 percent.

Opponents of the ordinance ran a deeply cynical "bathroom panic" campaign, which Houston Mayor Annise Parker rightly blamed for HERO's defeat:

Democratic Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who is gay, blamed the rejection by voters on opponents' "bathroom ordinance" campaign, which she called "fear mongering" and part of an effort to demonize the LGBT community.

"This was a calculated campaign by a small, very determined group of right-wing ideologues and the religious right, and they only know how to destroy and not how to build up," Parker told a crowd of more than 100 people at an election night watch party in downtown Houston.

And, naturally, there are legions of Blue Enclave Progressives who are keen to pour salt in the wound by hectoring LGBT and/or progressive Texans with the usual trash: Telling them that they deserve it, or had no right to expect more, because they live in Texas; telling them to move.

This, without a trace of irony that even New York state still has not passed GENDA, and without a trace of decency, as if telling someone in the wake of a crushing electoral defeat that they should leave their homes isn't cruelly insensitive, and without a trace of fucking awareness that they're saying "MOVE!" to people who might not be safer anywhere else in the country, either.

Helpful as always, Blue Enclave Progressives!

As I have said, once or twice or a million times, it is some demoralizing shit when progressives in blue(r) states tell progressive activists in red(der) states that they should just move. Fuck that. And fuck off anyone whose instinct in the wake of devastating codified bigotry is victim-blaming, rather than compassion.

To my friends in Houston: I am sorry. And I will take up space in solidarity with you as you continue this fight.