A queer life

Blaming LGBTQ+ people for the backlash they are experiencing is now all the rage.

Growing up in France in the 1990s, I was surrounded by a quiet, insidious form of antisemitism. It wasn’t the overt vitriol of the Dreyfus Affair era, but something much more subdued — and perhaps more insidious for being so casual. Many “Français de souche” carried disdain for Jewish people, often expressed not in slurs or slogans, but in whispers, offhand comments, coded language, and subtle exclusionary practices.

I remember routinely hearing remarks like, “Il est juif, mais il ne s’en vante pas.” The implication was clear: being Jewish was something to be ashamed of, and concealing it was both deceitful and the right thing to do.

What was most striking was that the very behaviors for which Jewish people were criticized were survival strategies — living in the same neighborhoods, supporting each other through strong community networks, and preserving a resilient subculture. These were responses to centuries of exclusion and persecution. Yet somehow, they were reframed as evidence of self-segregation, mistrust, or even conspiracy by the very society that had pushed them to the margins in the first place.

Hatred towards those who are different ebbs and flows. It morphs and reappears in new, unexpected forms.

I have now lived long enough to see these exact mechanisms play out against LGBTQ+ people. Lately, it’s made me a bit sad but mostly angry.

This week, for example, Rep. Nancy Mace tweeted, “I want our kids to learn about A-E-I-O-U instead of L-G-B-T-Q”.

There is so much violence in this comment—so much ignorance. It’s so disrespectful to the legitimate efforts of our educators to teach the existence of LGBTQ+ people to kids and prevent unnecessary suffering.

Mace also echoes the “don’t say gay” era accusation that the LGBTQ+ movement has a nefarious agenda to colonize the minds of small children… maybe even turn them gay or trans.

When in fact, our fight to be represented in the curriculum is entirely just. LGBTQ+ marginalization always started in classrooms that, at best, denied we existed, and at worst, cast us as deviant. The bare minimum is a handful of books for LGBTQ+ children to see themselves in. Without it, we can’t begin to imagine a generation of LGBTQ+ youth growing up without irreversible psychological damage.

Many of our core struggles - similarly ridiculed and undermined in the past few months - are legitimate. The U.S. should support the decriminalization of same-sex relationships in the 66 countries where homosexuality is still a crime abroad - something which was used to justify the dismantlement of USAID. Gathering data on our socio-economic realities is urgent, so we are no longer invisible in policymaking, something this administration is actively fighting. And of course, ensuring that every LGBTQ+ person can work, learn, and live without facing discrimination, harassment, or violence has become the DEI scarecrow.

Mace’s contemptuous comments echo the same tired tropes I heard growing up — the myth of a “Jewish lobby” pulling hidden strings, now repackaged as the “LGBTQ+ lobby” busy undermining America by promoting “gender ideology”. The names change. The targets shift. But the script is the same.

We are told it is our fault. We should have stopped after marriage equality, military service, and workplace protections—that we were given enough—but we kept going. We asked for safety in schools, dignity for trans lives, space in the public square, fair political representation, and the economy.

And that’s the insidious part—I have heard this demand to keep quiet, be patient, and grateful all my life. And because it’s repetitive, relentless, self-righteous, and warped, it works. It seeps in. It ends up feeling true. It makes us second-guess ourselves.

Suddenly, I’m the one who talks too much about my sexuality, when in truth, I’ve navigated a world obsessed with who I am. All my life, I’ve been told I talk too much about being gay, and I’ve wanted to scream, “You’re the ones who not only made it a topic but THE topic.” As far as I can remember, my identity has never been private—it’s been public property. Scrutinized. Judged. Legislated. It was never me who turned this into an issue. Society did that, long before I had the vocabulary to respond.

At 47, I can see how being gay shaped everything—which country I lived in, where I worked, what I dared to dream. It became the defining force in my life, though never by choice.

For most LGBTQ+ people, a “queer life” is a life which overcame unecessary obtacles, counted avoidable heartbreaks and was derailed by prejudice.

Yet the moment we begin to speak openly about who we are and seek justice, we’re suddenly obsessed. These days, I’m often reminded by well-meaning people of the 'good gays'—the ones who don’t make a fuss, the ones who say it’s their “private life”, the Scott Bessents of the world. The “normal gay guys,” in the words of JD Vance. The ones who are comfortably 'post-gay.' A not-so-subtle attempt at dividing us.

These days, every effort we make to live with dignity is met with ridicule. Pride is framed as shamelessness. Visibility in the media is dismissed as “woke.” Workplace equality is illegal. Our culture is labeled vulgar—a threat to tradition, to family, even to the nation itself. We’re portrayed as fragile, overly sensitive, or demanding—traits that American culture tends to scorn, especially when seen in those historically kept in shackles.

This does not feel like a “culture war” — as much as a strategic way to rebrand homophobia and transphobia and stop our progress in its tracks. It’s designed to push us back into silence. To convince us, we asked for too much, moved too fast, and became too visible. It’s also meant to send us back to a familiar and comfortable shame. It starts with scorn for Pride flags in classrooms and ends with attacks on the tax-exempt status of LGBTQ+ nonprofits. Already, there are calls to paint our advocacy as political extremism “à la Putin”. The writing is on the wall.

The conditions of “tolerance” are being rewritten: be quiet, blend in, give up the language and spaces that have sustained us. We are being told—once again—that acceptance comes only at the cost of invisibility, that we’re welcome, but only if we stop being LGBTQ+.

We’ve heard this all before, though. From whispered antisemitism in 1990s France to today’s anti-DEI crusades, hatred never disappears—it just reinvents itself with a new vocabulary. We need new strategies to confront it, but first, we must make sure not to internalize our opponents' rhetoric. Our demands are not excessive, and our visibility is not a threat. The truth is simple: our journey is far from over, and our struggle remains profoundly just.