It happens every October.
A school board somewhere passes a largely perfunctory LGBTQ+ History Month resolution – without demands, requirements, or enforcement mechanisms – and a dust storm erupts.
In September, for example, in a district serving nearly 12,000 youngsters in Fairbanks, Alaska, after listening to eight community members testify in favor of a History Month resolution and hearing from nine dead set against it, the school board passed it. In response, right-wing groups organized a change.org petition (which I won’t link), requesting a “pause” in the implementation of the (toothless) resolution. At last look, the petition has nearly 900 signatures.
DMV Daily social media post and Fox News headline
At a Virginia school district that serves 81,000 students, the Loudoun County Board of Education also passed an LGBTQ+ History Month resolution. Fox News did an interview with a complainant (which I won’t link), and a conservative Republican representative to the Virginia House of Delegates went on a social media rant. The Advocate and LGBTQ Nation covered the slur-filled meltdown, in which he called support for a “transing the kids month” a “disgusting” idea, and suggested a queer conspiracy behind it:
“If you thought that [LGBTQ] was only for June, I thought that as well, but I always wondered why they…did it [only] during the summertime, [when] they couldn’t get as many kids into their transing program as possible. But here we are again, where they’re going to try to teach this to kids.”
Headlines from The Advocate and LGBTQ Nation
Another conservative website I’d never heard of (and, again, won’t link) headlined their story: “Loudoun County Schools Give Pride Month an Encore.”
The recurring theme for over thirty years, a consistent response from critics of LGBTQ equity in education upon learning that LGBTQ+ History Month is in October (not June), has been much like the social media comment that gave this essay its title: “Y’all need October, too?” (I spoke about Why October? last week at a talk for the St. Louis County Library System, available here.)
I read this year’s “October, too?” post and multiple others at the DMV Daily Facebook page. A digital news outlet covering D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, DMV‘s posts normally get under 100 comments, often under 50. Their October 5 post about the Loudoun County controversy (link here) was swamped with over 5,100 opinions.
While some of the comments are unsurprisingly cruel and bigoted, others throw out that wild idea, a reflexive response not yet fully formed or thought out, all with a tinge of conspiracy theory, that LGBTQ+ people with malicious intent are actually stealing months from them, like they’ll no longer have those 31 days in October for themselves. It’s a zero-sum game, with only one winner — and if LGBTQ+ folks “take” a month, it’s gone. The goofiness of these posts, I admit, makes me smile and shake my head — and sometimes even LOL.
Take a look:
October after October, from 1994 to the present, these questions, comments, and accusations come rolling out like Groundhog Day. After reading a dozen angry responses, I welcome the odd “colonizing the whole year” hysteric. While I suspect most of these “another month!?” critics don’t want us to (quote-unquote) have even one month, their comments are not overtly mean or cruel, just sort of weird and bizarre. That’s where the humor comes from — and even a tiny bit of reprieve from the bile that often fills social media.
And maybe they’re right. Maybe we can steal months. Maybe it’s time to claim a third one? Maybe Queen Guinevere’s “lusty month of May”? 🙂
Rodney Wilson, founder of LGBTQ+ History Month USA and co-founder of the International Committee on LGBTQ+ History Months (ICoHM), spoke about the LGBTQ+ History Month origin story last week for the St. Louis County Library System, available here.)
