Demonstrating in Hartford, CT

Temperature Check on a Little Blue State

On September 13th, I went to the Health Collective’s Hartford Pride Fest with a group of ROGD moms. These are liberal women who have suffered the harms done to their kids by gender ideology. The rainbows, the slogans, the endless motifs of the Progress flag — seeing all of that must be a source of pain for them, and I commend them for sticking it out and participating in DIAG demonstrations.

I’ve attended several pride fests this year as a demonstrator, and at every single one I’ve been flipped off, verbally threatened, and spat at. So far (luckily) I haven’t been physically assaulted. Going into Hartford, we weren’t sure exactly what to expect in the wake of Charlie Kirk being murdered. Would the alphabet mob be even angrier and more aggressive toward dissenters? Would there be copycat killers on the loose? Or would things be the opposite?

We chose a street corner with high foot traffic. I opened my sign bag and handed everyone a sign. These are carefully crafted DIAG signs: “Support Detransitioners,” “There Is No Wrong Way to Be a Boy or Girl,” and “Protect Gay Kids.” The signs frequently fly under the radar of most “LGBTQ+” folks — until they start talking to you. Pretty soon after we organized ourselves, a police officer came over and told us he was watching out for us and that he wanted to make sure we would be able to exercise our First Amendment rights. I noticed that the police presence was heavy. This made sense given recent events. As people trickled into the festival, we got some thumbs up from onlookers. Some just scanned our QR code on their phones and went on their way. One woman in our DIAG group was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Save Women’s Sports.” I was pretty sure that one would get us a big “Fuck you TERFs!” from a green-haired kid in a keffiyeh. A trans-identified male approached us, easy to clock as AGP. I braced myself for the potential verbal abuse. He looked at the T-shirt and said in a friendly manner, “You know, I agree. We really do need to keep males out of female sports.” I nearly fell over. Another woman, mainstream and basic but wearing some rainbows, came over and asked, “What’s a ‘detransitioner’?” While I understand the implications of this term, and that it isn’t quite right for those who have been permanently medically harmed by cross-sex hormones and surgeries, I still think it’s a politically useful label. “There are people who were formerly trans-identified,” I said, “and now they’re coming out of it, but they need help and support.” She furrowed her brow. It never occurred to her that this was possible within the almighty institution of trans. “Huh.” Then she walked away.

A teenaged tomboy stopped in front of me. She took a long pause, then asked sheepishly, “Are you guys like… against us?” “I’m not against you! I’m here to spread a positive message with a word of caution.” She looked at our sign that said “There Is No Wrong Way to Be a Boy or Girl.” “I like that sign,” she said. “Gender is just a social construct anyways.” I chimed in, “Yeah, that’s why we don’t want anyone to harm their healthy body for ideas about gender.” “I’m trans,” she said, “but I haven’t done anything to my body yet.” “You don’t need to change your body! I know people who were trans-identified and did stuff to their bodies that they regret, and it’s sad. You can be gender nonconforming, like me. I have the same body I’ve always had, and I’m happy.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Cool.” And she walked off to the tents of rainbow swag.

A few more people visited us, including a pair of middle-aged lesbians who wholeheartedly agreed that pediatric gender medicine is bad news, and then an older gay man who ran a local radio show and was interested in our point of view on these issues as Democrats. A pair of girls from Trinity College interviewed us. We got hugs from one man who recently lost his partner. The lack of hostility at this pride event was an unexpected relief, to say the least.

The police officer stopped by again. My heart sank, thinking that someone from the Health Collective wanted us to leave just as things were going so well (this wouldn’t be the first time — we were asked to leave at Providence Pride because a trans group staffing a booth was upset with our signs). “I wanted to give you a heads up,” the officer said, “There are some Bible-beating guys coming down the street here. We don’t know whether things will get rowdy, but we need to let them come through, so just be aware.” It had been a while since holy-rolling Christians tried to scare the gay out of me, being a metropolitan New Englander. Seeing our signs — both Democrat and gay positive, two things they felt would send us ladies straight to hell — they zeroed in on us.

“If anyone causes a child to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Oh boy, here we go with the fiery scripture quotes, I thought to myself. One of the ROGD moms in our group, a Christian, started talking to one of the guys and began to tell him the story about losing her daughter to gender ideology. He listened and seemed to pick up on the fact that we were not part of the prescribed menu at this pride festival. Meanwhile, his comrade turned to me and said, “There are only two sexes. What do you think about that?” “For sure. There are only two sexes, male and female,” I said. His eyes widened at the fact that he had found common ground with us, and he saw this as an invitation to go on about the Book of Revelation. I humored him, meanwhile engaging my Jewish mental force field against being proselytized by a Christian. Our supporter wrapped up her story with the other guy and reminded each of them how important it is to come from a place of love rather than a place of anger. Satisfied, they continued down the street.

The day was a brief respite in the gender culture wars. People were treading lightly and mindful of the First Amendment. I left the festival hoping it signaled that we might resolve the gender-ideology mess with minimal collateral damage. Since then, however, we’ve seen dueling news stories about Tyler Robinson’s motives, Pam Bondi’s call to crack down on “hate speech,” and the FCC pressuring ABC to cancel Jimmy Kimmel. Yes, I’m angry at the left media for years of promoting gender-ideology and fostering cancel culture — I want them held accountable for what they’ve done to American society. But any punishment that risks compromising the First Amendment would be a mistake. The right needs to be reminded not to approach this from anger; otherwise we risk losing the progress we’ve made.