A Response To PRIDE Backlash

Because clearly this is still a thing. Sigh.

As those of you who follow my social media pages know, my author page got pretty quiet for some time while the creative bug hit me in a more visual form. After launching my book and creating a series of videos both reading my poems and discussing Buddhism, I spent most of this last summer brainstorming and crafting digital designs. After some research on various printing options, I picked a production company that had an agreeable ethical policy concerning labor, shipping, and material sourcing, and put my designs on a variety of clothes (t-shirts, hoodies, hats, scarves, dresses), mugs, journals, posters, tech gear, meditation/yoga supplies, totes, and bags. I added my products to dedicated merch pages on my website (organized separately by product type or collection showcase, as well as a more comprehensive sort page for customers to wander on their own), set up customer privacy and return policies, continued to use my same site security measures for customer purchase safety, started to market my physical products alongside my books, gave out free promotional bookmarks at public events (such as Dragon Con, Pride, and local poetry slams), and transformed ZCW from my author/book/freelance writer site to a full-out branded endeavor.

While the build up of actual customers buying my stuff out of people who have said they think my stuff is cool has been (excruciatingly) slow, I am thankful to say that, at least, the in-person reactions from people I have spoken about my brand to have been ultimately positive and encouraging. I wish I could say the same for the responses on social media—most especially in connection to my Pride Collection.

I promoted this collection in October in celebration of Atlanta’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month, to a lot more animosity than expected. I intended this first handful of designs to be empowering for those who also live out queer identities. While I have long-since been openly a member of the queer community, having come out at 12 years old and fluidly found myself somewhere on the non-straight spectrum across a lifetime (perhaps the subject of another post, another day, if I feel safe enough to share), it is just now, at about-38 years old, in response to these designs, that I have seen the most negative, hateful, gay-bashing bigotry thrown at my expressiveness. I went through to delete and block the most heinous of them—of which there were *so* many—but suffice it to say, the people commenting were saying some of the nastiest things you can think of (from homophobic / transphobic / misogynist slurs to comments about AIDs and the harming of children.)

When the post first went up, it seemed more mild—just someone asking (as if they lived in a bubble), 'What rights exactly are we demanding?' This was in response to a shirt/hoodie/tote design I’ve put up stating, “Yes, I have a gay agenda. Step One: Be fabulous. Step Two: Demand rights.” I am someone who tends to think the protection of free speech usually is a good thing—a free flow of ideas and exchange on knowledge is how we grow as people, and advance as a society—so I didn’t immediately jump to block this. My first instinct was to just answer—dumbly, as a former philosophy major and an empath/teacher who spends way too much time expelling my energy to educate others (who really, probably, are not there to learn, I've realized with time.) I went with this first instinct and posted a reply—a link to the ACLU’s page on LGBTQ rights, and a list of some of the rights on this list (starting with, cough cough, the right to free expression of identity without being subject to harassment.)

Despite my setting my target audience for the promotion to people having interests like “Lady Gaga” and “Science”, the comments went from somewhat abrupt inquiry to things that were just gross and unanswerable. I had some (straight) friends suggest that no press was bad press—at least all the comments meant my post was more likely to keep getting views, via the algorithm. I thought about this for a day or so, but I ultimately deemed this as not the type of attention I wanted on my page. These jackass keyboard-warriors clearly aren’t my target demographic for people who would like, feel inspired by, or buy my products. (I think on my list of thirty interests on the target list, putting down “Current Events” might have been the wrong turn, in hindsight.)

More than that, I don’t want my website or social promotion sites to be a platform for bigotry, or an unsafe space for people in my community. It makes me shudder and cry a bit to know that such hateful, misinformed, ignorant, and angry people have nothing better to do with their lives than to find distasteful and mean memes and commentary to put on a stranger’s page in direct response to a post on pride, love, connection, and positive social change.

Before I deleted and blocked the worst of the comments, I did process my feelings in writing. I crafted a response that addressed the unfortunate one-sided dialogue that these people had engaged in, then backed off posting it, realizing that if I started the argument, it might not end / it could just feed into their twisted bullshit.

I did however save my response, and I feel like sharing it here might be just as cathartic to others who may have seen the comments on my post, or received similar ones in life. I’d like to hope this might also cut-out / eliminate some of the ignorance and hatred in those indoctrinated with such negative, wrong, and hurtful ideas about the gay community—but I am, admittedly, an idealist, always holding my breath until I’m blue for something that might never happen. Regardless, for whatever it’s worth and whoever it might help, here is my drafted response to those truly screwed-up comments:

To everyone commenting negatively here:

The whole point of the first shirt shown is simple— the gay agenda is just to live well and to ensure people aren't denied human rights (given freely to others) based on sexuality or gender. There's nothing nefarious or more to it than that. It's not like our agenda is to harass, oppress, or harm others. We're gay, not assholes. I know which one I'd rather see in the mirror. HBU?

To those telling me to "get this off their page", I'm deleting and blocking you. I don't want you on my page either. Consensual love between adults being celebrated is clearly not your jam over in the camp of hate, and I wouldn't want to detract from your daily dosage of putting others down to make yourself feel superior.

That being said, if you want to go ahead and click the three little dots and put 'hide this,' Facebook will show you less content that resembles this. This small act takes considerably less time than digging for a nasty, terrible, judgemental and ignorant thing to say to a fellow human being. This also helps my store stop reaching people not interested in it's products. What a time saver! Honestly, I’m not sure how this is even reaching so many offended folks, since my target audience is people who like things like Lady Gaga and Science. Not saying someone's in the closet, but, thou dost protest a lot.

Next: To those associating being gay with harming children: I’m genuinely sorry you’ve been so deeply misinformed. None of us want to hurt kids—ever. We want to build a world where everyone can be included and appreciated. Love between consenting adults doesn’t belong in the same sentence as what you’re implying. I hope one day you realize how wrong—and how harmful—that belief is.

Further, to all those selectively quoting the Bible, you should probably know that:

a) the main homophobic passage you all love to cite is a mistranslation. (Signed, someone who majored in Religious Studies.) Older translations of the bible do not indicate that "Man shall not lay with man", but that "Man shall not lay with young boys." It's a significant difference, and the latter we all agree on (see the last misinformed claim I have addressed here.) Also, it is worth noting that the terms for associating identify with sexuality (homosexual, heterosexual, etc.) are relatively new in modern lexicons. Before that, language only identified sexual behavior. )

b) you are not exactly living the tenets of the Bible by being a dick to others.

c) As much as we admire the kindness of the Jesus presented in the gospels, Zen Chaos is a brand connected to Secular Zen Buddhism, not Christianity. Zen is about self-transformation to reduce suffering: shifting our understanding, intention, thought, speech, action, livelihood, presence, and focus to endeavors that reduce suffering and bring more peace into the world. We use our energies to make ourselves and the world around us better, and that's the work: no need for a threat of a 'loving' god bringing us hell for denial of who we care for, nor promises of heaven for being obedient.

Finally, to those claiming LGBTQ+ people “already have rights” and are not actually denied anything in our society, the negative comments on this post show otherwise. At the base level, we're denied the experience of free expression without being harassed for it. Pretending the problem (homophobia) doesn't exist while participating in it, is next-level blindness. You're demonstrating why pride and visibility still matter. Thanks for caring so little that you take the time to write paragraphs on how you supposedly don't care if we're gay, and being so unaffected you can't just scroll past what's not for you.

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In conclusion, I hoped to never have to write something like this, to censor anyone on my page, or banish anyone from any published writings or designs, but hate speech has no place in my world of love. I'm glad I made the designs, and in a weird way, to have seen the work that's left to do, and to know that people saying that "No one cares if you're gay, shut up", unfortunately are very wrong (and also contributing to the meanness of the world.) I have more designs on the backburner, and no intention of putting out my rainbow flames until respect, equity, and equality are no longer threatened by hateful people. #sorrynotsorry

In peace,

A. H.

PS: If you would like to purchase something from to support ZCW and show your own pride, you can find the initial designs we have included in our launch here:  Pride Collection. Thank you truly to everyone living boldly, loving fully, and supporting the one-woman, queer, disabled (dynamic-illness)-owned business that is Zen Chaos Writing. <3

There will be more to come over the next year :)