This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated June 30, 2023
With the close of the month of June comes the end of Pride. Besides being a month-long celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community, Pride is an annual opportunity to affirm the rights of all queer people, their right to exist as their authentic selves, and to pay tribute the history of that long fight for equality. Today, it is smore necessary than ever.
On Thursday, June 15, during Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny’s updates during the Community Board 10 monthly meeting, he included statements about the LGBTQIA+ community that were immediately condemned. I do not just mean that they were condemned online, following the meeting, by members of the queer community and its allies, which they certainly were. They were denounced by members of the board at the end of the meeting, which included the introduction of an impromptu resolution to condemn Brook-Krasny’s remarks and declare Community Board 10’s support of the LGBTQIA+ community. That resolution passed with overwhelming support.
“Now, who knows what self-evident truth is. Who is boy, who is girl? But I am not going to go political. It is just absolutely, incredibly, wrong”
Assemblyman Brook-Krasny, in remarks to Community Board 10, June 15, 2023
Brook-Krasny’s update began with talk about the majority in the Assembly, in what was a vague, opinionated take from a political point of view, rather than a legislative update. He followed by talking about bills, but not any particular bill. He mentioned, “some bills I see on the billboard” and that “I don’t want to entertain you with all the bills I see on the board now.”
From that unclear update on proposed legislation, he opined that “some of them are just totally out of common sense.” Then, while invoking self-evident truths from the Declaration of Independence, Brook-Krasny added, “Now, who knows what self-evident truth is. Who is boy, who is girl? But I am not going to go political. It is just absolutely, incredibly, wrong.”
The following day, the Bay Ridge Democrats, for whom I serve as Vice-president, denounced his comments. LGBTQIA+ political club, Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn, did the same, as did the Brooklyn Young Democrats, Independent Neighborhood Democrats of Brooklyn, Indivisible Brooklyn, Senator Gounardes, Assemblywoman Simon, Councilman Brannan, and Democratic District Leaders Chris McCreight and Julio Pena, among others.
The Assemblyman’s reaction to this was to double-down on his rhetoric from the community board meeting in a tweet in which he stated that “The LGBTQ+ community and even ‘pride’ itself is inherently sexual. Every letter literally represents a sexual orientation. I would even go as far as to say that it’s hyper-sexual.”
His anti-LGBTQIA+ tweet went on much longer, with a caveat in the middle that he condemns “people who do hate others just for their sexual orientation.” While I will take him at his word that he believes that and stands firmly against anyone he spews hate toward someone for their sexual orientation, by Brook-Krasny’s own logic, his use of the term “sexual orientation” would mean he was talking about sex.
No particular sexual orientation or gender identity is any more sexual, nor “hyper-sexual” than any other. Just as how me, as a straight man, talking about my relationship with my wife is not sexual, any LGBTQIA+ person talking about what letter(s) of that acronym they identify with is similarly not sexual.
One of the many problems with this rhetoric, especially from a person in a respected position of authority, is that it gives license to some who hate others for their sexual orientation or gender identity; the thing that Brook-Krasny said he condemns. This was evident in the days following the statements he made.
On June 19, someone used colorful chalk to draw some rainbows and the phrase “love is love” on the sidewalk outside of Brook-Krasny’s Bay Ridge district office. Two days later, it had been covered over with spray paint. Though the chalk symbols and message of inclusion could have been washed away with water – or the rain that fell the next day – someone chose to use paint to mar the sidewalk and stamp out that artwork.
Online, myself and others who had shared messages of support for the LGBTQIA+ community in response to Brook-Krasny’s words were targeted with tweets that used photos of us and our family members, labeling us as groomers and pedophiles. These sorts of attacks with these terms have become increasingly more prevalent from the right in recent years, and that includes from GOP electeds.
Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMahon (D) gained national attention when she took the floor of her state house little over a year ago with a powerful rebuke of a fellow legislator from across the aisle who had accused her of wanting to “groom” kids. Florida Gov. DeSantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, said that his bill referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill would be better described as an “Anti-Grooming Bill.”
New York is not immune to this kind of hateful rhetoric in our politics. New York is not immune to hateful acts on the LGBTQIA+ community. It is incumbent upon all of us to stand up to hate wherever it surfaces.
