The Atlantic published a piece in 2019, “ The Struggle for Gay Rights Is Over,” that downplayed the threat of violence to LGBTQ+ people and quoted a University of Virginia Law School professor who claimed that Supreme Court decisions protecting LGBTQ+ rights, like marriage equality and participation in consensual sexual relationships, were “secure” from Republican efforts to roll them back.Īn earlier harbinger of the trajectory of LGBTQ+ rights came in 2017 with a procedural win for the owner of a bakery who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. Since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, some have alleged that LGBTQ+ people no longer have legitimate concerns about their safety and civil rights. He felt that it was not safe for two men to hold hands.
And last week, as we were walking to dinner on a well-lit street in Memphis, for the first time ever my partner brushed my hand away when I reached for his. Two weeks ago, at a hotel in Tennessee, several employees were downright rude when they saw that I was sharing a room with my partner of 11 years. Last month, on a bus in Chicago, a man repeatedly screamed “faggot” at me and threatened to bash my head in.