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After unparalleled June in CT, LGBTQ+ advocates and scholars reflect on Pride, hate and hope

By Alison Cross

July 2, 2023

For many members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies, June 2023 was a Pride Month unlike any other in recent memory.

In Connecticut, the month of celebration and liberation was met with an unparalleled level of attacks on the state’s LGBTQ+ population, from calls for book bans in Newtown and Old Lyme, to vandalism in Middletown, to parental outrage over Pride videos in Southington and Granby, to the tarnishing of a Pride display at an Essex library, to “groomer” signs posted in Greenwich, and a Sunday sermon interrupted with hate speech in Enfield.

As Pride Month comes to a close, LGBTQ+ advocates and scholars reflect on the forces behind the hate, the meaning of Pride and what their hopes are for the future.

What’s driving hate?

As a political science professor at the University of Connecticut, Thomas Hayes specializes in American politics and political behavior. In his research, Hayes presents an alternative explanation to describe the forces behind the anti-LGBTQ+ backlash — elite-led mobilization.

“Oftentimes what people view as this bottom up, mass, public-driven response is actually this elite-led phenomenon,” Hayes said. “What you’re seeing with these described events as backlash is generally efforts by these organizations to mobilize supporters. It makes it appear as if it’s more than a small minority, but in actuality, it is a small minority of people that are already opposed to the equality of LGBTQ people. These aren’t people that are on the fence, these are people that are already opposed. They’re not changing any minds.”

With an identity rooted in anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs, these groups proactively find avenues to advance their agendas, and reactively to challenge events that threaten the status quo, Hayes said. While the focus changes, the tactics and motives remain constant.

“We see these every year and (they) take different forms, whether this year it’s book bans and other years it’s bathroom bans,” Hayes said. “I see this as something that’s unfortunately going to continue — again as a way for these elites to provide justification for their organizations.”

Hayes said that these elite groups tend to be led by religious conservatives, mostly white, evangelical Christians, who promote anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric to raise money, gain political power or maintain relevance. A prime example, Hayes said, is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in his attempt to galvanize support for his presidential campaign.

Kimberly Dugan, a sociology professor at Eastern Connecticut State University who specializes in the LGBTQ+ movement and opposing anti-LGBTQ+ forces, said that the upcoming presidential primary and general election is key to understanding the current wave of vitriol.

“I hate to make it just partisan politics, but the Republican party has allowed an extreme element to dominate and drive their social agenda,” Dugan said. “There’s all kinds of variables that figure in, but the short soundbite version is, we’re really ramping up toward another election and they’re trying to solidify the base.”

Dugan said she doubts that religious motivations drive the anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs, rather she believes it’s an attempt to tap into the religious base to gain support for other policies.

While some mainstream Republicans buy into the fear-mongering, Dugan said she does not think mainstream Connecticut will do the same.

“I think people in Connecticut understand what’s happening, that they support their neighbors who are LGBTQ+ and will continue to do so and recognize that this is an extreme element just trying to distract people from what’s really happening,” Dugan said.

Although the people espousing anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs currently make up a minority, Tony Ferraiolo, who works with trans youth as the director of Healthcare Advocate International’s Youth and Family Program, said that these anti-trans and anti-gay voices are getting louder.

“I find that a common thread here is that there’s a few parents that don’t like what’s happening and everything’s shut down because of it,” Ferraiolo said. “They’re starting to vocalize because they see what’s happening in this country and they’re getting braver.”

The meaning of Pride

In Ferraiolo’s community, the rhetoric has real consequences.

“Forty-two percent of LGBTQ youth in Connecticut seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including 53% of transgender nonbinary youth. The sad statistic is 11% of LGBTQ youth in Connecticut actually attempted suicide,” Ferraiolo said, pulling data from the Trevor Project’s 2022 Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health. “They’re not ending their lives because they’re trans or nonbinary. They’re ending their lives because they see a world out there where they’re afraid that they’re never gonna be able to be the person they know they are.”

For Ferraiolo, Pride is a celebration of survival.

“Everybody’s like, ‘Why do you guys get a parade?’ Why? Well, we get a parade because we’re celebrating that we have survived discrimination, that we have survived hate, that we have survived lives that we couldn’t live fully. And for me, Pride isn’t just in June, for me, Pride is honoring every single person that has paved the path for me. And I grieve the ones who lost their lives doing it,’ Ferraiolo said. “We forget about that. We forget that there was a time when it wasn’t legal to be LGBTQ+.”

“I do my call to action every day of my life, right? So when I’m out at Pride, I just want to celebrate and be happy,” Ferraiolo added.

Amidst the backlash, Ferraiolo said he focuses on moments of unity, inclusion and support, like the small-town Pride events that drew crowds in the hundreds and thousands this June.

“The message of hate, we have to override that with the message of love. … We can’t focus on the negative people in this country or in the state. We have to focus on the ones that are positive and supportive,” Ferraiolo said. “I choose to focus on the organizations and the individuals who are hanging those Pride flags, who’re saying, ‘Yeah, you know what? I want to be a part of Pride. I’m not in the community, but I want to be a part of Pride.’”

As Pride events become a fixture of small towns, Kamora Herrington, a queer youth advocate and founder of Kamora’s Cultural Corner in Hartford, said she is concerned that these localized celebrations strip the LGBTQ+ community of funds and steer the conversation away from key issues like youth homelessness, bullying and sports access.

“I am seeing Pride as virtue signals and that makes me so sad,” Herrington said. “All these towns create these Pride Committees that are getting donations so that they can put on these amazing Pride programs. Where is the shelter for the homeless queer teen? Where are the services for our elderly here in Hartford? Where is our gathering space for us to meet 364 days out of the year? These Pride celebrations are now robbing our community of necessary resources so that in June straight people can show up and say how much they support us, and our children don’t have anywhere to live for the other 364 days out of the year. … I’m very concerned about our priorities.”

Herrington said that towns should acknowledge Pride Month by “celebrating all the wonderful ways that they support their queer communities July through May.”

Within the same vein, Herrington said that she believes the quest for mainstream acceptance has birthed a sanitization and erosion of key elements of LGBTQ+ culture from Pride events.

“In the last few years, and definitely since 2020, the larger heterosexual community has decided to jump into allyship before doing the work that’s necessary to actually be an ally,” Herrington said. “I feel that one of the things that we got wrong was in this beautiful place of looking for acceptance and then feeling acceptance, we missed the fact that we were not welcoming people into our community, we were just kind of opening up the doors and saying, ‘You do with us what you may.’”

Herrington said that part of this self-censorship is driven by the idea that Pride events should be family friendly, particularly for heterosexual families who want to show their kids that “Gay is OK.”

As a result, Herrington said she does not see leathermen pulling up to Pride in chaps and harnesses and other overt celebrations of sexuality among LGBTQ+ subcultures like in years past.

“If I am at a queer Pride celebration and all of us sexual minorities are invited to come in and celebrate who we are, there’s going to be some overtly sexual (stuff) there,” Herrington said. “I think that it’s a wonderful thing for (heterosexual) folks to acknowledge that there are people who are different than themselves and that they’re very happy that those people are in their communities. And I think there also needs to be a place where the queer community can once again get together and find the strength in our numbers and use Pride as a chance to teach our folks who we are, and what we are, and to celebrate with our folks as our folks.”

In this period of backlash, these unapologetically queer spaces are more important than ever for members of the LGBTQ+ community, she said.

Looking ahead

Herrington said that what we’re seeing now is indicative of a generational shift.

“The last big march that we had, (was) the Millennium March in DC. That was heralding, bringing in all the changes that we had created, setting the stage for the world to come. A lot of what we said that we were going to do with that Millennium March we did. And now we’re at a different place,” Herrington said. “If we step back and look back collectively, (what) we did wrong, as a national movement, was we believed that we weren’t going to go back. We missed places in history where groups of people who gained rights ended up losing their rights, and we did not prepare ourselves or our young people for the backlash that we’re dealing with right now.”

Barry Walters, the co-chair of West Hartford Pride said that after the LGBTQ+ community won marriage equality, Connecticut “got a little complacent.”

“We sort of settled down. We had a core group of individuals that were fighting hard for certain laws, a lot of them around transgender care and legal acknowledgements. And I think we sort of slacked off a little bit,” Walters said. “I really think we need — and we’re starting to see — a more organized movement.”

Walters said that he’s confident that the pendulum will swing back in favor of LGBTQ+ acceptance. While he said the rhetoric is “intimidating,” and “scary,” Walters said “it’s motivation as well.”

Walters said that he sees strength in the LGBTQ+ community’s diversity and broad range of lived experiences and perspectives.

“That, if we work together, is going to be a huge strength for us as we go on. It’s worked for us in the past, and it can work for us again,” Walters said. “We are a determined and resilient lot, and I think that’s to be celebrated.”

Looking back on Pride 2023, Walters said he will remember the attacks, but also the moments of resilience that followed.

“I’m going to remember Enfield. I’m going to remember the book bans. I’m going to remember the silly 45-second video that was so alarming to folks, and after watching it thinking ‘this couldn’t be more innocuous.’ Those things I’ll remember,” Walters said. “But most of all, I’ll remember the people that I’ve been working with and standing side by side with, because they’re the ones that have helped build things up, and they’re the ones that will be standing together to fight the good fight going forward.”

Article By Alison Cross on Hartford Courant.com