A Modest Proposal to SB 140 in Georgia : This is a Hostage Situation
Not gonna lie, articles like this are what consistently make me have no faith in the bubble outside of Fulton/Dekalb.
"When I was a kid, I thought many things that are entirely different from my current beliefs. Looking back, I am so thankful that no one took my words or actions too seriously and labeled me as anyone other than Jill."
- Jill Holloway, “SB 140 is the best option for Georgia’s children” Thomasville Times-Enterprise
This line is going to haunt me. Thank god no one took my words seriously ...
"How does this relate to transgender minors?
The fact is children are imaginative and change their minds constantly. They may dress up in clothes that aren’t made for them, they may even name themselves something different, but because their brains aren’t fully developed, they may not feel the same way in years to come or even the next week. "
- Jill Holloway, “SB 140 is the best option for Georgia’s children” Thomasville Times-Enterprise
This ... folksy, well shucks and shaw Southern veneer of gentility wears me thin, because its the same type of veneer that gave and continues to give Jim Crow 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, et al.
I'm not mad. I'm livid. And I still feel as helpless when rhetoric surrounding Defense of Traditional Marriage began to swirl, and as a young, queer, black teen I felt the support of the world, those in my life I'd questioned but never had to ask (they were conservative Presbyterian people) and the other question always sitting in the back of a black/brown/beige person in a predominately white institution was answered loud and clear in dog whistles.
I'm gonna keep advocating, but god knows we in the metro area have to get outside of this zone and into the rest of the state.
This bill, and any other bill the state Republican party wants to pass, can and will pass. And its like that throughout every state in the South. My research may need updating, but alhtough there were 3 democratic governors in roughly 12-14 southern states, each legislative body was controlled by Republicans.
Queer people do not stand a chance.
I will be very real, and while publicly I will highlight and stress the importance of hope - the truth is that success in combatting the anti-lgbtq and anti-trans bills here in Georgia requires more than just metro atlanta. I say this as Ava Davis and as the Duchess constantly, but ITP is a bubble. It is in no way reflective of even Metro-Atlanta, never mind Georgia.
Stacey Abrams has understood this. Sen. Jon Ossoff has and continues to understand this. As does Sen. Raphael Warnock.
10,711,908 is the population of georgia
6,144,050 is the population of Metro Atlanta, but lets also be realistic in that there are more counties considered than just Fulton, Gwinnett, Dekalb, and Cobb.
Fulton *, Gwinnett *, Cobb *, DeKalb *, Clayton *, Cherokee *, Forsyth *, Henry *, Paulding *, Coweta*, Douglas *, Fayette *, Carroll, Newton, Bartow *, Walton, Rockdale *, Barrow, Spalding, Pickens, Haralson, Dawson, Butts, Meriwether, Morgan, Pike, Lamar, Jasper, Heard
Those are the minds of Metro Atlanta we have to affect. To humanize ourselves. To attempt to swing the state.
I remember being a young queer person in 2001, when the twin towers were attacked. And how, for a second the country did feel unified. At the time I lived in metro-Atlanta. Gwinnett. Northern Gwinnett, right against Fulton. And right up against Forsyth County as well.
When you’re younger, you just don’t know. One tries to adapt to one's surroundings and assimilate, so I did. Plus, this just comes part and parcel of being a child of the military or a third culture kid - assimilate. Or if you’re any sort of minority living in America - assimilate.
So I did. I was never “too black” and there was no way anyone was going to find out about my sexuality, but I mean it wasn’t that terrible because even though Matthew Shepard was killed for being gay, that couldn’t happen here? Right? And I mean, these people I've assimilated into, they seem nice? Right?
At the time we went to a church in North Atlanta. Perimeter. I’ve no intention of going back, so I’m happy to name names, especially when the lives of children are on the line. And I thought, well, they seem like nice people. Right?
In 2002, George W. Bush began the whole re-election process. And, as a side note, *this is literal history replaying. This is the same damn playbook, nothing has changed whatsoever. 20 years ago, we were living through this before with the Republican party. The rhetoric began in 2002, just as it started picking up last year in 2022 in preparation for the 2024 election. Passive demonization of a marginalized group, damned the human collateral.
**Also as a side note - at that time in my life I was really into politics, and even though I detested 43 and his policies he’d unleashed, my parents were invited to heear him speak in Atlanta. It fell on my birthday celebrations, and unbeknownst to me, my parents and my best friends parents had rented us a stretch hummer to ride around the metro area and go to dinner.
I spent the entire hummer ride mad I didn’t go see history. But I digress.
But , in 2002, the rhetoric began. And Perimeter began speaking out against gay marriage.
I stopped going not too long after. I had tried to make my blackness small enough so that I could be palatable. My gay self was non existent but the mental effects were beginning to take toll.
To be honest, it wasn’t hard to walk away. The place caused me more stress and mental anguish, and certainly brought little joy, if anything more than a passing distraction.
Last year, I went back up to the area to attend my first PFLAG meeting. A friend had mentioned she was volunteering, and I wanted to give back in some way. So, I drove up my old personal autobahn of Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. Literally driving down memory lane. And in seeing how much the area had changed, how much … there was no way a queer black child ever stood a chance in an area like this and it is a wonder how anyone makes it out alive. For starters, the Republican political signs are everywhere. The sentiment, behind gated communities and manicured lawns that almost scream gentility if it weren’t for the blood of the politics on their hands.
As another aside, one anecdote that haunts me from this past week in hearing from people about being present for the debates on senate bill 140; one attendee asked a Republican member if there was any way to change their mind, and the member responded, (and I paraphrase), “Sorry, it’s a party line vote.”
This fight was over before it began. Which, most people know before bringing a bill to vote. The ideals of democracy and hearing debates on laws and bills versus the reality, the expediency, the certainty in energy expenditure by an organization.
As I took that drive, first by subdivisions, the political signs, as I approached the Atlanta Athletic Club, and then Perimeter, I began to panic. Not for anything from the present but in realizing … I grew up here. Here doesn’t feel like home. Here was never home. This place was never meant for someone like me. I started crying at the redlight, Medlock Bridge and State Bridge Rd. How many times had I sat at this same red light growing up. I didn’t really stop crying until I pulled into the parking lot of another megachurch. The PFLAG location.
It still brings me great sadness to think about that place, and that time in my life. And to see the now.
When I finally made it to the PFLAG location - of all places at another megachurch literally right down the street from the State Farm building where my mom worked for all of our time in Duluth, I had a breakdown of sorts. Of finally grieving and acknowledging I am a person without a homebase so to speak.
Except, the state of Georgia has and will always be my homebase. It is where I came, my first contact in America, when I was six months old after being born overseas. We spent my first three years in Georgia, in Columbus. When we moved back from California, so my father could go to Korea, it was back to Georgia. My summers while in California were spent between Macon/central Georgia, and the Southwest corner of Georgia around Albany, where my mother’s family was from. My memories at both of my grandmother’s homes. The feel of the Georgia summer sun and heat and humidity. The stains of red Georgia clay. The climbing of live oak trees in that deep corner of Georgia with my cousins, and waiting for the summer rain to end so we could continue. Adventures and a life of wonder and amazement while racial history lingered and sang to us through the winds and the songs of the birds. After graduating high school, I went to the University of Georgia in Athens. Also let me call out that I’ve never forgotten the phrase that ended a friendship, “well you got in because you were black.” had never stung so hard. But again, that pocket of North Metro Atlanta was never really for people like me, was it?.
From 2003 til 2010 I lived in Athens.
And afterwards, actually moving into Atlanta proper, and never leaving. Finally exploring the North Georgia mountains and the coast of Georgia, and the plains of east Georgia right beyond Athens into Elberton. I have driven countless miles through the back roads of Georgia, sometimes just on a ride to clear my mind, sometimes commuting from Athens to Forsyth or Athens to Atlanta, or Athens to Macon, and quite possibly one of the most beautiful drives no matter the time of year.
Or the same drive, on the backroads between Columbus and Blakely, Georgia. The scenery of Georgia passing right by, as it has and as I’ve seen it for the past 33 years of my life I’ve been watching it and can remember. That trail, engrained in my memory I don’t need no GPS.
I have traveled and explored so much of this state. And it is a strained relationship. This is my home, though it’s not just one city, one place. It is the entire state. It is my homebase for the world I love to explore. I am Georgia. Je suis Georgie. Yo soy Georgia. I have my memories, which brings me joy.
And I have met its citizens. I have met Georgia. I have grown up with Georgians.
I’m not here to grant any absolution. And there is southern hospitality and charm. But right under that veneer, something is there and it’s not entirely kind. Civil rights in this state, in this country, have had to be fought for. And continue. And there are politicians that are put into power by local representatives. Voted for by these same Georgians I’ve met before. Who can be incredibly kind. Will take time to help a stranger. Again, the veneer of gentility and respectability. It’s easy to deny the pain one’s caused when one’s convictions in faith seem sound.
The actions at the ballot never reflect this. The rhetoric taken on, under the veneer of respectability, posits the decision on the ballot as one that seems moral and just - Defense against Traditional Marriage. Now we have what seems like the Defense against Traditional Gender. Let’s not ask who’s traditions; that answer we already know. I mean, go look at the sponsors of SB 140 and SB 88, and the images of those men is what tradition supposedly looks like.
I apologize, I’m rambling. I’m not entirely hopeful because I know this state. I’ve grown up in this state for the majority of my life, save for a brief sojourn in California. I should be able to say I’m from Georgia, yet I will be honest this state has never quite made me feel at home.
Prismatic Queerdom, we’ve been playing defense long enough. And it’s on their home field advantage. And I don't even know what sports terminology I’m using or if it makes any sense because I don’t follow sports. But I do love strategy.
We have probably lost those bills. So, what is our next move? How do we regain the home field advantage? I think, for starters, one discussion is the expansion of federal districts to create city-states like Washington DC already models. Most of the MSAs (NYC, Chicago, LA, Phoenix, Atlanta, Miami, etc) are in leagues of their own when one thinks about economies, its citizens, and the separateness from the rest of the state.
But more importantly, it is one step closer for marginalized communities to approach autonomy. The intersectional life of a queer black woman, trans or cis, is predicated on laws that impose restrictions around her body. Laws that seek to control, and not offer “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” but instead a constant vigilance. If one is a queer black woman, or hetero latina woman, or bisexual trans asian male, or indigenous aromantic nonbinary person in one of the Southeastern states that make up the Prismatic queerdom, it is to live in constant vigilance about laws that govern our bodies, our right to make a life with whom we love and to raise our families. It’s absolute Kafka levels of absurdity.
So, my modest proposal to change the game and the playing field is the creation of more federal districts. There are many who say smaller government, and god bless you all. It is why you all ive outside of the metro areas, and smaller government seems to work for you. But for those of us who value cooperation and working together, and see value in what the government can provide to its citizens, we deserve a level of autonomy. We deserve more federal districts, which I suspect will prove to be havens of safety for marginalized groups and people who don’t necessarily feel welcomed in what’s typically called and revered as small town America.
Give us federal districts, along with a representative in the House, and a Senator in the Senate. Perhaps then we can begin to make laws that respect the differences between each respective denizen.
Because whatever this is is not working.
The humanity of 48,000 Georgians are at the whim of the majority. 8,500 trans youth between the ages of 13 to 17 have had their access to life-saving, gender affirming care cut off. And the chilling fear as always is when do they stop? What is their endgame. Except, in recent CPAC speeches - their endgame is quite apparent.
Now, more than ever, queer people need a place of refuge. Of equal representation before the Georgia government and before the government of the United States of America. Of protection, because history already tells me as a person of color protection is not granted equally, if at all.
All of these truths have become self-evident.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--”
United States of America, Declaration of Independence
Such has been the patient sufferance of queer citizens, women, people of color; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present state government of Georgia and the federal government of the United States of America is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these people.
Let’s discuss how to work this out. Because whatever this is, it isn’t working.
