Perhaps my experiences are too immediate, so I am confused by the complacency. In reality, in spite of my 73 years, I have only had my full civil rights for all of 12.

Concerned about the slow loss of rights that had been finally acknowledged after years of fighting to make that happen, I invited people to join me for a 2 hour sit-out action that would consist in standing, or sitting as I bring a lawn chair, at the city’s major downtown intersection where the main North/South streets and a state highway cross to hold signs in order to register our opposition to actions in D.C. regarding the Gay Community that affect us locally. 

In Massachusetts the stripes of the Rainbow Flag have had their protections and rights for decades now, except the Trans people who were thrown under the bus by national organizations in order to gain a victory for the majority of the Community so that they could crow about that and fund raise off of it, leaving the locals to undo that damage and get the Trans People their rights also, through subsequent actions.

In spite of its being in a good spot, the Gay Community should react publicly with some open and public actions, from small to large statements as federal laws could adversely affect Bay Staters here, eventually if not immediately, and federal and various local laws could already have residents here entering confusing territory when travelling to other states with their patchwork of rights recognition.

“We The People” get pretty sliced up based on our locality.

Such an action, besides showing solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the less fortunate states, the types in which I have lived and so know through experience how few rights others have in other places, and also points out that locally, friends and neighbors, even family members will be affected by what the Bay state now recognizes as stereotypes and false tropes if certain ideological agendas gain power or, worse, those who will be most adversely affected throw up their hands and by not voting relinquish their futures over to those who should least control it.

Such an action is needed.

Recently there was a high school walk-out because it was revealed just days before an election that a few years previous a city council candidate had posted some puerile jokes on his social media page which, besides showing a lack of maturity, were totally uninformed. A local social justice group, who had endorsed this candidate’s opponent, had found the offending posts just days before the election, giving it to the parent of an activist-in-waiting Gay student who did as was clearly expected, telling her activist child who then, as was to be hoped, organized the walkout that could very well have influenced to election had it been done more timely, perhaps before as opposed to after the election. The sudden belated “October Surprise” had no real affect except, perhaps, the students were used as a tool for an organization that should be an ally to hopefully influence an election not feel they had found a way to get their candidate into office even after the election an action that was rightly condemned by most people and which left the students looking rather clueless and their issues forced on the public in an attempted political move.

As wrong as this was, at least it showed people do pay attention when the Gay Community speaks, so long as it speaks from an informed position and that this has been noticed even if the attempt was made to improperly use the students’ organizing for its own ends not what was truly best for the students.

Although the walk-out was powerful and adults were smart enough to stay in the background to let the students have their moment, some students may have thought the election should be negated because of those posts, and perhaps their naivete was thought to be potentially useful as they demanded what the organization knew they would not get, and blaming any negative reprecusions on the sins of innocent, exuberant youth while sustaining no scars itself or, perhaps, rile the community up enough to demand a re-vote even though that was a ridiculous idea known as such by adults but not so much the students. The reality, known to the organization, was that the council member had won the popular vote and that if the information was to have been truly effective, it should have been presented long before the election as opposed to coming across as using the Gay students to promote an endorsed candidate by proxy and get that person into office claiming a faulty vote.

The students looked uninformed as those who instigated it all and attempted to use the students, simply went into the shadows like Homer Simpson into the bushes and pointed at the squirrels.

The only way forward was for the students to keep an eye on this council member, noting anytime he showed his original posts were more than just bad jokes but expressions of deeply held erroneous beliefs, beliefs that will affect the whole city unless corrected through education.

School got out for the summer and with it seems to have gone the air in this balloon.

On multiple occasions on social media I have announced and held sit outs. These usually last for two hours when held which has been either once a week for a number of weeks, or five days in a row for one week on more than one occasion. They take place either at the previously mentioned location, called the Octopus because of the many intersecting streets, or further down the main street by the Federal Building and District Court.

Either place has heavy traffic especially during the two hours that cross through lunch hour when mid-day traffic is heavy.

In 2017, a five day sit out was held with papers being handed to anyone who stopped, listing #45’s actions showing his intention to roll back Gay Rights and his assigning someone in his administration to do just that.

When Clarence Thomas suggested that all un-enumerated rights be re-litigated, threatening same-sex and his own interracial marriage, there was a second sit out protesting this.

On two separate occasions, after Trans people and Drag Queens became the threat du jour, there was a sit out at the two buildings and one at the intersection.

The purpose of these was to inform not to discuss or argue, so on most occasions along with answering simple questions, if someone began the false equivalencies and making unrelated comparisons, they got a piece of paper with my reasons for my  being there, and that was all I would discuss especially if the person cannot define simple terms correctly.

I may choose to sit there, but I do not choose to engage with those who are uninformed and resist the offered information.

On the five occasions of my weekly or daily sit-out, most people had nothing to say while others asked questions that showed they wanted to learn and not protect preconceptions. Some told me about members of their families to whom these repressive actions applied, with one man telling me that in spite of his not getting it fully, his nephew is now his niece and to him is the same kid she always was just dressed differently now. She even still does the guy things they used to do together like fishing and watching sports.

A clerk at a local store came stomping out during one sit out because a customer had told her there was a man outside promoting ant-Gay propaganda, and, as the butch Lesbian she was, the clerk was determined to make things right. She came around me from behind and, having been in her position a few times, that of someone who had had it up to here with bigotry, I recognized her intensity which soften as she read the sign and then laughingly told me her original intention then going back to inform the customer, who had good intentions, that not all Gay related protests are anti, some are pro.

Once, and only once, in the now 6 years I have had these protest, while I was being interviewed by the local press about my “issues”, a pick up truck (it always is) slowed down just enough to yell, “Fucking Faggot.” before speeding off. The reporter asked if that bothered me so I explained that as I spend my time sitting in a folding lawn chair holding a sign while reading a book on my Kindle and sipping laced ice coffee, the weaker person would appear to be the one in the pick up who yells and speeds off while I would have had to get out of my chair, put my sign, coffee, and book down, and chase him down 6th Street on foot. Things would be different if he had pulled over, gotten, out, and then assaulted me, but in close to 50 years as an activist for either for labor or Gay rights, the most vocal people were those who made sure that once they yelled something and felt good, they had the advantage of a fast escape.

And, I have been called much worse.

Another reporter at a later event was present when, again, a pick up truck slowed down and this time the driver yelled “Queer” with the usual, follow-up acceleration and I gave the same explanation to his question I had given the previous reporter.

All in all people have been receptive to my presence and most, if they engage, converse on the topic and learn that some of what they have been led to believe is political propaganda.

As symbolic as it may seem, there is a practical reason for choosing my spots. 

At the major intersection, the mayor’s response to those turning signs at the intersection was the placement of Belgian stones at odd angles to make standing at the better spots next to impossible in order to reduce panhandling rather than addressing that which creates the need for it. People gather with their signs and each seems to have a specific location to which they regularly report when they are present. They have their problems and I mine, and they have seniority so I make sure I do not set up my chair in an established territory, but set up on a corner bad for collecting coins but good when it comes to the most visibility and length of time to read signs.

All told, I have been out there over 30 times and each time I have invited people on social media to join me. It would appear, however, and this is a good thing, that locally every stripe on the Rainbow flag is gainfully employed and does not eat lunch as no one has joined me other than a homeless man, new to town, who just needed someone to talk to and asks a lot of questions about his new location, and will do that anytime his wanderings bring him my way.

If one is easily dazzled by statistics and might be too lazy to identify the variables etc., my sit outs very often meet the ideal complement of Gay to Straight in a situation calling for allies.

To date, the sit outs have been attended by equal numbers of Gays and Straights at a 50/50 ratio.

My requests on social media for people to join me are met with a lot of “likes”, but what good is that? If they are there to make me feel good, people’s presence would be a much better approach as I have come to that point in my life I am happy with me so far and “likes” mean nothing if there is no back up action.

Perhaps it is shock, perhaps it is lack of direction, but either way it is terrible that people seem all right with the loss of rights.

Sinking ships get to the point where they cannot be saved.

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