Author’s note: A previous version of this article included a synonym for “insensitive” that can be considered offensive to the deaf and HH community. I hear you and have eliminated the term from this updated version of the article. I offer my sincerest apologies to anyone this gaffe has hurt, and thank you for extending the labor of bringing it to my attention.
By Barrett White
“F*ck Texas.”
“F*ck the South.”
“Let’s just divide the country at the Mason-Dixon and let the South fend for itself.”
“Texas is a lost cause.”
These are just a few of the tactless tweets I have seen from well-meaning liberals over the last few months, years, and so on. It’s exhausting.
Let’s be clear: If you perpetuate that narrative every time you want to express displeasure at a southern Republican or conservative legislator’s gaffe—you’re part of the problem, you’re tactless, and you’re showing your ass to the countless activists whose work you refuse to acknowledge.
Allow me to explain.
We’ll start with Texas—my home state. Like any other Texan, I’m proud as heck to be from a place this cool. I’m a first-generation Texan. Houston, the most badass city in the South, is home to the grimy streets on which I came of age as a newly out gay man in college. Driving past any of the old queer haunts in Montrose—Houston’s gayborhood—feels like a warm hug as I look back from where I am today.
Houston is one of the largest cities in the nation and is often cited as the most diverse. Nearly 200 languages are spoken here in our metro area of seven million people. Completing a quick Google search on Houston’s Museum District will show you its metropolitan airs. Conversely, a night at Numbers will release all inhibitions and present the city’s inviting underbelly. In fact, if you’re inside “the fruit loop,” you’ll find Houston’s pretty dang gay, too.
Equity is an intersectional goalpost, though—it’s not just for queer rights that we fight, it’s for the rights of BIPOC folks, women, and immigrants, just to name a few. There are countless organizations fighting for these communities and the intersections that exist between them. Do haughty liberals outside of the South not see them?
I gave a little extra love to Space City because that’s my home. However, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and the Rio Grande Valley are just as (or at least almost as) diverse as Houston. All of the large cities in Texas and the South are little blue islands in the otherwise sea of red. There is, of course, nuance here—there are even plenty of small towns throughout the South that are remarkably progressive, or home to progressive movements, even if they come out red on an election map.
Well, Austin’s pretty white, but we love them anyway. I digress.
On to the broader South: New Orleans and Atlanta. These are some incredible cities, both of which I am privileged enough to have spent some time in over the years. Everyone in Houston knows someone in Atlanta and vice versa. We’re basically sister cities, cousins, friends reaching across the southern region.
New Orleans and Atlanta are diverse as heck. Like I highlighted when discussing Houston, there are countless grassroots organizations working to further equality coming out of these cities. The question remains, then: Do elitist anti-South liberal activists not see them either?
Is it ignorance of our work, or is it an intentional oversight, an oversight working as a means to an end: If we don’t talk about the work being done there, we can cut the whole region out and save ourselves the trouble of The Work?
Inevitably, when I, out of a morbid curiosity, click through to the profile of a person proclaiming “F*ck Texas!” I find that they live in New York or Los Angeles. Ten out of ten times, that’s what I see. However, I can see how easy it is to say such tactless things (there isn’t a better term for it) when you live somewhere where the work has largely been done for you already. Somewhere where the fight isn’t what it is here. When you are someone so wrapped in your tree of privilege that your elder generations gifted you that you miss the forest of the ongoing movement taking place in the South by people with more fortitude than you.
Houston, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, New Orleans—all queer meccas for southerners who don’t fly out to Los Angeles, San Francisco, or New York City. Yes, it’s true (and it’s the crux of this very online publication), we don’t all flee to the East and West Coasts. Many of us stay here, and thrive here, on the Third Coast.
I’ll be honest, I’m tired. As an activist myself, I’m tired of being on the same side as do-good liberals who live outside the South, only to see tactless drivel come out of them like, “F*ck Texas” or “F*ck the South” as mentioned at the top of this piece.
I must wonder, can’t y’all use your platforms for something productive? Do your due diligence as a so-called activist. Do the research and find the names of these organizations based in the South and promote them. Use your platform to help us bring meaningful change. Stop being an elitist.
Yeah, yeah, I get it. You don’t mean any harm. You’re just expressing your disapproval with politics and society in the South. It’s an exasperation that we, as southerners, know all too well. Please ask yourself, though: What is worse? Is it worse to hear that something backward has come from the mouth of a conservative elected official who was gerrymandered into office, or is it worse to hear such a statement from such a person, only to find that in addition to that, all the work that you’re putting in to change that status quo is being overlooked by folks who are allegedly on the same side as you?
We get that you’re tired of it. That’s not a good enough excuse. Not to those of us who are actually putting in work toward equitable change down here.
Every time you want to call it quits on our behalf, every time you wish to broadly sideline the South or Texas with unabashed and unchallenged fervor on Twitter, how about instead you put your activism where it counts. Show your community that you’re a real ally to minoritized southerners by donating to and promoting some of the folks down here putting in hours:
- Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT) is an organization dedicated to furthering gender diverse equity in Texas.
- Save Our Sisters United is a resource for transgender women of color in Houston.
- BreakOUT! envisions a city where transgender, gender-nonconforming, and queer youth of color can live without fear of harassment and discrimination. They build on the rich cultural tradition of resistance in the South to build the power of LGBTQ+ youth, ages 13–25.
- Based in Arkansas and led by Stonewall veteran Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, the House of GG creates programs, services, and resources for transgender, gender-nonconforming, and gender-questioning people.
- The Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative is a Black, trans-led organization based in Atlanta.
- The Mahogany Project aims to reduce social isolation, stigma, and acts of injustice in TQLGB+ communities of color.
- The T.R.U.T.H. Project educates and mobilizes LGBTQ+ communities of color and their allies through social arts that promote mental, emotional, and sexual health.
- Hatch Youth is Houston’s oldest currently active social group for LGBTQ+ youth. Hatch is dedicated to empowering LGBTQ+ adolescents, ages 13–20.
This list is not comprehensive. There are many, many others doing the work down here who do not deserve to be overlooked. Do your damn research and uplift us. Don’t cut us off.
This op-ed was inspired by a Twitter thread the author posted to his personal Twitter account in July 2020. To read and retweet the original thread, click here.
