Aroostook Maine Pride Choosing Bigotry over Queer Safety.
TLDR: Pride Aroostook chose to allow a Trump supporting bigot who openly mocks the queer community and is actively voting to remove our rights to be a vender at the pride event while driving out actual queer creators.
This year I made the choice to be a vendor at a local Pride event. It was a hard choice, considering I live in rural Maine where I have frequently been threatened with violence for being somewhat visibly trans. (I unfortunately, for my safety, can't always pass as cis) I took the chance, though, and have now been forced to demand a refund and not attend because of the Pride Aroostook board's choice to include a non-queer bigot over an actual queer artist and vendor. I know that this might seem like a non-problem for a lot of people, but this was going to be the first pride event I’d gone to since coming out as trans and after being isolated for over 7 years now. This event was so important to me that I spent the last six months preparing for it, putting all of my hard work and money into making tons of fun pride merch. But now I can’t go because I genuinely don’t feel safe.
Because Pride Aroostook chose to allow a rabid Trump supporter to attend rather than keep it a safe place for the queer community. A supporter who is actively voting for him this year.
Just as he just recently said he would revoke the rights of trans people as soon as he was back in office. This, on top of the person in question making posts calling for the assassination of Nancy Pelosi, posts telling anyone who doesn't support Trump needs to leave the country, liking and sharing posts calling liberals fascists, posts about their guns etc. This person is the most transparently bigoted person, who literally only slapped a pride flag on their etsy store the moment they got accepted to sell their AI/drop seller junk at the local Pride event. I know this because I saw their store before they got accepted for the event, and after.
I mean, her profile is extremely transparent in her disdain and hatred of us.
But they chose her. Even after she posted a nice little rant about how she won’t support the community because of this. She is also, as a reminder, not a part of the queer community. And, of course, the little nasty ‘I know who you are' at the end.
And their reasoning?
"Our mission and vision is to have vendors who are committed to rural LGBTQ+ visibility regardless of political affiliation."
You cannot claim to be a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community while taking action to remove us from society. The end. The hypocrites who run this local pride event do not care for queer people's safety, and have chosen to include someone in this event who actively hates us.