It's Pride Month Eve, I'm Scared, and That's OK

Being scared is a normal reaction to our circumstances, but we shouldn't let it stop us.

Hey y’all, apologies for my absence the past couple of weeks. I’ve been going through a personal crisis, but I’m back with your regularly scheduled content!

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Well folks, Memorial Day has come and gone, the Indy 500 (and perhaps more importantly, the Weenie 500) has once again graced the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and while we don’t quite have consistent summer weather here in Madison yet, I think it’s safe to say that we are firmly in those transitional weeks that some would consider to be the start of summer.

There are only two days left until Pride Month, something that I should be, and to be fair am, excited about! I love Pride Month. I love going to events with my friends, and enjoying the beginning of summer by celebrating our authentic selves. Even more so I love the energy that picks up in a lot of my community spaces. Plans start going into motion on how to make our communities better and safer. People remember that even though there’s still plenty of work to be done, we’ve also come incredibly far, and latch onto that sense of hope. Behind all the corporate Pride merchandising and parade floats sponsored by mega-corporations, there is still a sense of momentum. A sense of “we might not yet be where we want, but hey, we’re getting there.”

But this year, on Pride Month Eve, it feels different. I hate to say it, but I think I’m feeling more anxious than anything else. 

Now of course, there’s always anxiety that comes around Pride Month. Frankly not even Pride Month, but just day to day life. I’m an American born in the strange grey area between Millennials and Gen-Z – I learned how to handle active shooters at the same time I learned how to deal with fires and tornadoes and earthquakes. Large crowds put me on edge, and I know that I am far from the only person that keeps their head on a swivel in a crowd. But Pride Month definitely heightens those emotions, maybe in part because it is the time of year that you’re most likely to find me in a crowd, but also because of how angry certain types of people get when these gatherings happen at all. Every year different factions of LGBTQIA+ people get up in arms over the question of cops at Pride, because while cops statistically pose a greater threat to queer people than protection (especially for queer people of color), some people feel that they are a necessary presence in the face of violent threats.

And the threats are violent. Recent FBI data shows that hate crimes against members of  LGBTQIA+ communities are on the rise in recent years. I know very few people who work in LGBTQIA+ rights spaces that haven’t been subjected to some of the most horrific threats and messages. I myself have received more death threats than I have in my entire life combined, in no small part thanks to the events that lead to me actually starting this blog to begin with, and that’s really saying something, because I’ve gotten a lot of threats in my life. 

This uptick in violence didn’t come from nowhere, for the record. There is a direct tie between the current state of anti-trans legislation and this rise in violence we’re seeing going into Pride 2025. According to translegislation.com, there have been 910 anti-trans bills introduced nationwide in 2025 alone. In 2024 that number was 701, and in 2023, it was 615. Compare that to the first year of my FFRF Fellowship, 2022, with 174 anti trans bills. Compare that to a decade ago with 21 anti-trans bills. 

These are exponential increases, covering bathroom access, sports, education, healthcare, and beyond. And the rates of violence are increasing right along with it, largely because of the vicious rhetoric being spewed every day by anti-transgender politicians, pastors, and pundits. 

Think about it. Despite there being no evidence to suggest that bathroom and privacy related crimes increase in jurisdictions where trans people may use the restroom that best aligns with their gender identity, every single day we hear about how “women are under attack” by “men invading sensitive women’s spaces.” Using old school talking points lifted directly from the anti-integration movement, anti-trans advocates have created an environment even cis women who choose to dress more masculinely are harassed out of public restrooms, and when trans men use the restroom aligned with their “biological sex” as demanded of them, they too face removal. False claims that trans people are “grooming children” and forcing them into “sexual perversion” have dominated the discourse on trans rights. On the floors of our state legislatures trans people have been called “demons and imps,” and bills restricting access to best practice medicine have carried Biblically inspired titles forewarning of future executions (Millstone Acts, anti-Gender Affirming Care Bills, named for a radical misinterpretation of Matthew 18:6, “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,[a] it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”)

Executive orders now to gender affirming care as “genitial mutilation” and attacked trans people under the guise of “protecting women.”

Every single narrative attacking trans people has been intentionally designed to stoke violence against us. 

So of course we have more identified hate crimes than in recent years. This isn’t a bug of their system, it’s a perk. It does not matter that the majority of these bills never pass, and more of them get blocked by judges who spotted this malarkey from miles away, because by their rhetoric being legitimized for consideration in the halls of government, they have given people something to fear. And people will always attack the things that they fear.

The exponential uptick in anti-trans hatred was not caused by trans people “asking for too much too fast.” First of all, I don’t believe that when it comes to rights there is ever a “right” time to demand equal respect and dignity under the law. But also…we haven’t asked for anything unreasonable. We’ve asked for our access to best practice medical care, as determined by reputable medical organizations, to be maintained. We’ve asked to use the bathroom without fear of violence or harassment. We’ve asked to be permitted to participate in sports and competitions within the standards set by individual sport governing bodies that understand the needs of that particular sport and medical science, rather than a shotgun spread of legislation that treats contact sports and Irish dancing as exactly the same. We’ve asked for the basic respect of being referred to by the names and pronouns that best identify ourselves. We’ve asked for the basic dignity of safe housing, food, education, and employment that each and every single human being is entitled to from the exact moment of their birth by nature of being alive.

We did not do anything to deserve this violence. We did nothing to deserve this terror. And terror is what this situation has escalated to. We are not talking about suppressing “free debate” or the marketplace of ideas” when we talk about the harm this rhetoric is causing. We’re talking about an ideological push from the Christian nationalist movement that amounts to terrorism, with the direct and explicit approval of our federal government.

As I pointed out in my last blog, the FBI defines terrorism in two ways, depending on if it is international or domestic:

International terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations (state-sponsored);

And

Domestic terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.

Using the feds’ own definition, we are, right now, being actively subjected to state-sponsored, Christian, domestic terrorism in the United States, especially if we slightly alter the definition to recognize that we are in a situation where the State gets to determine which acts are and are not “criminal.”

The goal of these threats and increasingly hostile rhetoric is not merely to enact physical violence. The goal is to frighten people into compliance without a single act of legislation needed. Every time someone is attacked in a public restroom for gender nonconformity, people will increasingly alter their gender presentation to be more in line with traditional gender roles in order to avoid similar violence against themselves. Every time a teacher is lambasted for having a book on their classroom shelf that depicts a family with two same-sex parents, other teachers will increasingly avoid placing those books in their classrooms. People will stop seeking out gender affirming care from formal medical channels, not because they aren’t trans, but because they cannot risk the harm that might come their way by having their transness documented on paper. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and the more visceral the threat, the more people will force themselves to fit into a hyper-conservative traditionalist box for their own safety and survival. And it’s not just queer people who are forced to react. Every single person that does not ascribe to a radical conservative view of the relationship between sex, gender, and social roles will be forced to choose between violence and submission.

This is how terrorism works. 

This is what terrorism is. 

This is what terrorism does.

And these are the conditions under which we are now entering Pride Month.

Pride Month isn’t just a month-long party. It isn’t just about the drag shows and the parade floats and the brunches and the rainbow flags, though they are certainly big parts of it. Pride Month has, from its inception, been a vital act of resistance. Despite its modern corporate veneer, Pride Month is, and always will be, a protest against a world that so deeply wants to shame queer people out of the public eye, out of existence, and out of ourselves. It is creating space for us in a world where powerful people think that the only acceptable space for us is the grave.

So yeah, I’m going into Pride Month scared. I’m going into Pride Month anxious. I’m going into Pride Month full of fear and trepidation. 

I’m not going to be ashamed of being scared, though. Because to deny that I’m frightened would be to deny the very reality that we’re in. And while I’ll be carrying that fear and trepidation with me to Pride Month activities, that will not stop me from going. I’ll still pull out my favorite brand of glitter, throw on the brightest, most obnoxiously queer outfit I can. I’ll still be writing and doing the advocacy work I’ve been doing for years. 

I’ve learned a lot in the past year, and especially the past six months, but one of the biggest things I’ve come to understand is that being scared is not something that is shameful. You can do all of these things while scared. Being scared of the current state of things is, in fact, a pretty normal, rational reaction all things considered. It’s not a failure. It is not because of a lack of character or strength. It is your mind and body reacting to the constant, real time danger we are experiencing every day. It’s cheesy to say, but you aren’t brave because you aren’t scared. You are brave because you are scared and you do the damn thing anyway.

(I don’t think there is shame in survival either, for the record. Survival is resistance, even if it’s in the closet for a time. For better or worse, that’s what the closet is for. But it’s not the choice I’m making for myself, at least for as long as I can.) 

My hope for this year’s Pride Month is that we continue to hold fast to the idea that the response to fear cannot only be the closet. This isn’t something I came up with, it’s the idea at the core of Pride. But we need to refocus on it this year. Because the question of a violent attack at a Pride event this year, unfortunately, is unlikely to be one of “if,” but one of “when.” And we should let it make us cautious. We should let it have us take care to be aware of our surroundings, and keep track of our friends and family present with us. But we cannot let it stop us. Because if we are all scared out of celebrating our lives and survival and identity, that’s the ball game. Wrap it up. They’ve won. And I don’t know about y’all, but I’m not quite ready to give up yet.

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Kat (they/them) is a queer lawyer, activist, and theorist focusing on the intersections of law, queerness, religion, and politics, with the occasional bit of theology, political theory, and legal theory thrown in for good measure. Originally from rural southern Indiana, Kat earned their B.A. in Political Science in 2019 before continuing on to earn their J.D. in 2022, both from Indiana University- Bloomington. A former Equal Justice Works Fellow for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Kat has spent their professional career fighting for the separation of church and state and LGBTQIA+ rights. Outside of work you can find them at a ballet or contemporary dance class, sipping on dirty shirleys at their local gay bar, or playing video games with their cat, Merlin.