Reclaiming ‘woke’ from the right: An LGBTQ perspective
By KEVIN BERRILL Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has stepped up his war on “woke-ism,” most recently with an alarming video post on Twitter bragging about his “most extreme slate of anti-trans laws in modern history.” With the stroke of a pen he has already erased LGBTQ visibility in school classrooms, dismantled diversity programs, and banned the teaching of critical race theory.
Who or what is next on the list is anyone’s guess, but we know from history that intolerance is like a raging forest fire that consumes everything in its path.
For the LGBTQ community, this is all part of a familiar and ongoing story of progress and backlash. The same visibility that allowed LGBTQ people to create community, educate, and organize for equality has also made us a target of those who hate and want to harm us.
As an organizer at the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (1982-93), I documented thousands of episodes of anti-gay violence, much of it encouraged by a religious right alarmed by our growing visibility and strength as a movement.
