Martin: Even in 'liberal' Seattle, still ‘a fight to be had’ for LGBTQ safety

You can't drive down a Seattle street in June without seeing a rainbow flag.

We have the country's second-highest gay population by city, coming in at 13%, just below San Francisco. Nearly 50 years ago this month, 200 Seattleites celebrated the city's first Pride, and our annual parade has been largely free of protesters in recent years, save the odd "End is Nigh" street preacher. In 2017, our city elected its first openly lesbian Mayor and King County voters chose the first openly lesbian Sheriff.

Not too long ago, I worked on a story about the city's oldest gay bars and the battles they are fighting to stay relevant and open in a time where, to many queer folks, they no longer feel like a necessity. We feel comfortable holding hands, or sneaking a kiss at almost any establishment in town and the need for gay-specific spaces is not as fervent. This is both bittersweet — the slow disappearance of our bars but also our need for them — and hopeful.

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We like to think of Seattle as a liberal bastion, a welcoming space for all kinds. We're so proud of our LGBTQ-friendly oasis.

Despite this gay-utopian facade we have created, at two-thirds of the way through 2019's Pride month, a series of hate-fueled incidents has shattered the idyllic illusion.

This week the Pride flags were ripped down from several business, including two recently-opened gay bars blocks from my house in White Center, and from The Crescent, a bar that has stood as an inclusive, queer space in Capital Hill for 70 years. On Monday, police were stationed outside the Des Moines Public Library to manage a slew of vocal protesters, mobilized by national anti-LGBTQ organizations to disrupt the library's first Drag Queen Story Hour, as local performer Cookie Couture read to dozens of families inside. Wednesday, an art installation that was installed for Pride over the weekend at the Capitol Hill Station was destroyed. This week also has the organizers of the upcoming Trans Pride event scrambling over protester-related security concerns. Members of Seattle's leather community and others have stepped up to form a "human wall" around the event, shielding participants from transphobic hate groups who have scheduled their own rallies at the same time.

Community members are also coming together to raise money for United Christian Church in Renton, whose colorful Pride installation, which reads "God's doors are open to all!," has been vandalized four times, most recently by an explosion that occurred Wednesday morning and is now being investigated by the FBI.

This all comes on the heels of a 400% increase in hate crimes since 2012, according to a recent audit by the done by the city, including a string of anti-gay assaults clustered around Capitol Hill.

From Charleston to Portland, an alarming Trump-era rise in the visible presence of alt-right and nationalist groups has emboldened racists and homophobes to emerge from their dark internet holes and take their message to the streets. These groups normalize hate and increasingly seem to be stealing more pages from the gay community's "out and proud" playbook every day.

All this is to say, the need for those safe queer spaces still exists.

The theft of a few Pride flags may not seem like a huge deal, especially in the larger historical context of anti-gay bigotry in this country. But in this time and this place, it's a threat of escalating violence. A reminder that we are not welcome. And a sign to others who harbor hate in their hearts that they too should turn those feelings into actions.

It's a microphone for that little voice in the back of our heads that makes us afraid for our safety, afraid to take up space in the world, afraid to walk down the street as the most authentic versions of ourselves.

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As we celebrate our community this month and remember a time when there were no safe spaces, some of us may be looking over our shoulders a little more often than usual.

As Wildrose co-owner Shelley Brothers told SeattlePI in 2017, "We've all found that it's still necessary for our community to have a safe space. And as many strides as society has made, we're not there yet. And we want to provide that space. It's not over. There's still a fight to be had."

I am lucky to reside in a city where I feel safe, and have enough privilege to be myself and live my life out loud. I am grateful for our diverse, accepting community where I have never felt in danger because of who I love.

But, the events of this month and a broader trend of increased targeted homophobia are a reminder that, even in Seattle, despite all of our self-congratulatory liberal complacency, we are not always safe. Anti-LGBTQ sentiment didn't disappear the day Amazon switched their logo to a rainbow for the month of June any more than institutionalized racism wasn't solved by the election of a Black president. The flags on those bars have all been replaced, but the implied threat may linger a little longer. There is indeed still a fight to be had.