Friday, I was getting ready for the Drag.
And the Supreme Court unleashed chaos.
States rights matter, except for guns.
Save the fetuses, so they can be slaughtered in school.
Preparing for our annual drag march, I thought about the decision.
Our plan was simple:
“Gather at the 9th street and Avenue A entrance at 7:00 PM on Friday, June 24th to cast the circle. Step off is around 8:00 PM. We march to Sheridan Square and The Stonewall.”
But history intervened.
If onlys run through my mind.
If only Thoroughood Marshall had stayed on through November 1992, instead of Summer 1991, when his departure ushered in Clarence Thomas.
I told you so, Anita.
If only RBG had stepped down on day one of the Obama administration, passing the baton when she was still capable, as responsible leaders do.
Her legacy is tarnished.
I found myself thinking of fighting all three Trump judges, unsuccessfully.
And remembered the feeling after Bowers vs Hardwick in 1986. I worked at Massimo's in Dallas, with its mostly gay staff. Everyone felt like the government had turned its back on us. These things are cyclical certainly. And five of the justices on the court were nominated by presidents who did not win the popular vote in the election in which they took office, the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections going to dems, who are now woefully underrepresented in the liberal bloc of the court.
What an overreach, I think, looking at it all.
Yet, tonight is the drag march. Nothing says resistance like ten inch high heels.
Tonight is not a night to stay home.
Friends post a few comments.
Says Eric Laursen:
·
“Welcome everybody to PROHIBITION 2.0! The most insane social experiment this country has attempted since the 18th Amendment outlawed the manufacture, sale, distribution and importation of intoxicating liquors. That was a disaster, and so will be the outlawing of abortion. But as with the earlier harebrained scheme (cooked up, like this one, in the Bible Belt), a lot of people (women, to be precise) will suffer and die before it’s repealed. The so-called law enforcement establishment will set new high water marks for abuse of privacy and other civil liberties. Etc. Let’s do everything we can do make the Supreme Court’s decision a mockery and get this horrible ordeal over with as quickly as possible.”
John Waxen follows:
“It means building strong peoples’ networks to get free abortions for everyone who needs them for any reason. thank god we have abortion pills (though they’re not a panacea), the distribution of which can’t be controlled no matter what the Texas stasi and their ilk threaten. People can’t meet every need, but a supreme court decision also can’t control what people do with their bodies. This catastrophe will result in our building much stronger mutual aid networks to bring people to abortions and bring abortions to people, and it will remind us that we have eachother and dont need to depend on the state and non-profits.”
Rebecca Solnit posts:
·
“Friends, the right is trying to distract* from the fact that it's a neofascist criminal syndicate by feeding its followers on culture wars, against women, trans people, and queer people, as well as the usual wars against BIPOC and facts. If you're not in these categories, it's a good time to step up your advocacy for the people in them in your actions, speech, friendships, donations, teaching, writing, and whatever else may arise. Thank you. *i.e. rather than discuss the merits of the hearings about their coup attempt, or governing, or addressing the other crises we face, such as climate, they're inflaming their followers' imaginations with rantings and lies about children's books, trans people, the 1619 project, abortion, etc. We can keep talking about climate and coups and also support the targeted and their rights.”
It starts to hit.
They were really doing it, really overturning 50 years of precedent.
Thomas went as far as saying he wasn’t done. He was going after contraceptives and gay marriage as well. But no interacial marriage. Privacy was ok in that matter.
Groan.
Some posted notes about the ever expanding surveillance state we are entering.
Others reminded us of the traumas of unwanted pregnancies.
Messages flowed into my inbox:
One from my union:
“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade is the greatest setback to women's rights and reproductive justice we have seen. Organized labor must stand unequivocally with pregnant people and defend their right to make their own reproductive choices and control their own bodies. As a nationwide movement, unions must fight to protect access to abortion. And we must commit to the kind of deep organizing that can reverse the decades-long conservative attack on our court system, our bodies and our politics. In the interest of our students, our members, and all working people, the dangerous, aggressive advocacy of this Supreme Court must be challenged. Be part of the fight-back! Join one of these demonstrations today if you can. NYC For Abortion Rights | CUNY for Abortion Rights protest, 7PM (gather time 6:30) in Washington Square Park. Flier. Bans off Manhattan protest with Planned Parenthood of Greater New York Action Fund. 8 PM in Union Square Park. 201 Park Ave S.
In solidarity,
James Davis, President
Andrea Vásquez, First Vice President
Felicia Wharton, Treasurer
Penny Lewis, Secretary…”
Text messages, depressed, dejected, disgusted.
Lots of bad news.
This was not a night to stay home.
First Washington Square Park.
The train is popping with people, many with signs.
The Park is even fuller.
I've never seen Washington SquarePark so full, dejected faces, sullen.
"Supreme court eat shit!!!!” says one sign.
People are disgusted.
Speeches and chants.
Abort the court, they scream.
The US is a laughing stock.
Moving backwards.
Minority rule.
Off I walk East, trying to keep my spirits up.
But depression is grasping at me.
I’m tired of bad news.
We beat back Trump but not his three new judges to the top court, hell bent on eroding freedoms, privacy, and environmental regulations.
Everyone is meeting at Lucky on Ave B before the March.
Friends from everyone, getting ready at Abby’s bar.
Abort the fuckers, says Ken, welcoming the spirits.
Abort the USA, say others.
This is a sexual freedom movement for social outsiders, socialists and homeless people, anarchists and kinksters, the queers not welcome, not wanted to marry.
For years we’ve been making room for ourselves, the sex workers, the gender insubordinate pranksters, the sex activists, radical faeries and so on, circling, remembering saints.
You were Herald to my Maude, says Brian, recalling Elizabeth M, our fallen hero, dedicating the march to her.
tears .
The crowd proceeds to march West, into the sunset.
And then stops.
The unofficial leaders Ken and Brian are snipping at each other: who's in charge, why isn’t the march moving? Why are the pedicabs sitting there, not moving? Why did you close the circle so quickly? Enough pictures, let's march.
I walk up to one cab saying, it is a march. It's time to move. He seems oblivious, not sure where he’s at. In the past the pedicabs are driven by movement people, flowing into the panorama, a part of the cavalcade, where the elders are adored. This year, they are decidedly outside it.
And we get going, marching, singing, screaming.
Brian is hot.
Out of my fucking way.
“What? Drama among the drag queens? Thats amazing…”
“Shhhh,” says Kathleen. “If the rest of the the drag queens hear you let anyone have drama, they want all the drama, and then where would we be.”
One percent is not enough, groom, groom, groom, says Brian, leading the chants.
“Recruit, recruit, recruit,” says Ken.
It's not a night for good taste.
It's a night to remember a riot.
On we march.
A car tries to dive into us.
But a nurse, dressed in nothing but a black thong with speaker on hand, jumps on their hood.
Tempers are short.
Our rights are under attack.
Everyone remembers.
Feels like we are walking backwards, fascism and social control looming in the distance.
Somewhere over the rainbow … we sing at the Stonewall, hoping for something better, ever hoping, imagining, wondering.
“This is like Gilead, the totalitarian, theonomic, and neo-Puritanical regime that takes over the United States of America. The Handmaid's Tale is no longer fiction, just as 1984 is no longer fiction,” says Erik, the amicable photographer. “It's like what happened in Peru. Endless division.”
Yet, looking around, everything feels queer, everyone, walking through the West Village.
Love your dress they say.
Ken gave it to me I replied, demurely.
Bodies dance in front of the Stonewall, trying to make sense of it, dancing to remember and forget.
We all remember dancing here after gay marriage, celebrating.
Are they coming for us?
Are they coming for the outsiders?
“We’re not baby making machines,” notes one marcher.
“I fuck to climax, not to conceive.”
At least we’re in NY, some say.
But somehow that doesn’t feel comforting.
It's the next step toward to civil war or dissolution of this messy union.
Can’t we get a divorce?
I don’t want to live with these people.
Can’t we join Canada?
Others are more circumspect, pointing out that it's up to us now, us to organize, us to vote, us to change laws, us to talk, us to support mutual aid, us to fight back the right, us to support body autonomy.
Now the elections about women, not inflation.
Like syringe exchange all those years ago.
Get those life saving supplies out there.
Mail order away.
Drag march while you still can.
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