Bubba Copeland outing: It’s clearer than ever what the far right wants for LGBTQ+ people.
In America today, so much has changed that it might seem ludicrous to say that I fear a return to an environment like the 1950s and ’60s moral panic over homosexuality, with its climate of secrecy and fear, and the central role of the press in driving harassment, humiliation, firings, and sometimes suicides. In parts of the country where LGBTQ+ acceptance is firmly ensconced, there’s likely not much conservatives can do to roll back the tolerant attitudes decades of activism have won. But in other places where extremists have taken over governance, LGBTQ+ life, particularly trans life, seems much more precarious than we might have thought.
