Thread by @PettyCrockerAR

I can pinpoint the exact moment that the American “left” lost me. In April 1993, I joined the March on Washington for LGBT Rights. The whole “Q+” wasn’t really a thing, though the term “queer” wasn’t what it means today. It didn’t include such things as “straight people who

don’t partake in hookup culture” or anything like that, it generally was an umbrella term for same-sex attracted folks.

Anyway, I was marching with a large contingent of my fellow veterans. I had gotten out of the Navy just over a year before, having gone through two

investigations by the then-NIS (now NCIS) trying to drum out myself and a number of my friends. I got tired of hiding who I was, and declined to reenlist after seven successful years in the military. There was great camaraderie among the veterans’ contingent at the March.

It was my third day in DC, having arrived a couple days early to view the NAMES quilt, take in some entertainment and just enjoy not being a hiding minority for a bit. Around the midpoint of the actual March route, a sizable crowd of mostly young people ran on from the

sidewalks and into our midst, holding anti-war signs, chanting about murder and just generally trying to shout us down. I’ve never in my life been subjected to such a hateful display in my face, not even in smaller Pride marches with religious fanatics shouting from the sidelines

or preaching at us with bullhorns.

The entire point of the March was that LGBT people should have the same opportunities as straight people, including serving in the military if we so choose. LGBT service members at the time were at great personal and professional risk at this

time, an era even before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was enacted and the military used disgusting tactics to root out everybody they could and eject us from the services, often times with a discharge record that prevented us from landing good employment in the civilian sector.

It was my first exposure and wake up call that the purported “left” will literally invade any movement to use it for their own purposes.

I’ve seen it repeat with Black Lives Matter, MeToo, Women’s March and other protest movements, and have since learned how the Civil Rights

and Women’s Liberation movements were invaded in real time and have since had attempts at history being rewritten to claim these movements that are heavily rooted in identity and bigotry were actually purely economic in nature.

The “Left” loves to shout about invasion and

colonization, but the truth is there isn’t a single liberation movement they won’t invade and colonize for their own pet problems with society. We see it in their attempts to claim Black Civil Rights leaders as their own, adopting dead leaders to cherry-pick quotations from them

that may align with their grievances against capitalism. They minimize the contributions of women and say some of the most sexist things imaginable about people like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. They have tried to erase the contributions of everyday gay men and lesbians

who not only kickstarted the LGBTQ+ movement but also saw us through one of the worst health disasters this nation has ever seen with the AIDS crisis. I do not deny that some brave Trans people have been at the forefront of the movement, but that movement was very far from being

a trans-only era. But to hear it told today, Stonewall was only two people, despite the two most often cited not actually being there until hours into the first night of the fight against police. Gay men died by the thousands, with many other thousands getting involved with

ACT-UP and Queer Nation and other activist organizations that were literally about fighting for our lives, not about grievances with capitalism. Lesbians became our fighters, our caregivers and our champions, often being the only ones to visit us in hospitals or bring us food

while we were incapacitated by illness. We won significant legislation, the right to serve as we wish, the right to live and work without discrimination and finally the right to marry who we love.

So yeah, if I’m angry at the “left”, I have every right to be so. They purport to

be our allies, just as they do for other identity-centered movements, but the reality is that our struggles and the organizations that we build are just fodder for them to try to take over and use to their own ends because they truly suck at organizing and finding allies

and building coalitions. And yeah, this is a long-ass thread from a guy who generally tries to be pithy and just post zingers or short screeds. But this has been on my mind for quite a while, and I’m sick of the gaslighting of history and the colonization of our movements.