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Accept nothing less than complete equality and acceptance
By Johnny Trlica
Commentary: Seems like old times. Pride Month is here again and once again we are compelled to demand equality while under hostile fire. All those battles we’ve fought since the 1960s were just that — battles. We never won the war.
Sure, we have marriage equality, the prize we all wanted, but the ultimate prize is complete equality and acceptance. Even with that, for the first time in American history a right was stripped away when the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, so don’t think it can’t happen to your right to marry the person you love.
In 1978, I attended a gathering of Houston’s LGBTQ+ people at an event called Town Meeting I. Held at the Astroarena, it was the first formal celebration of Gay Pride Week. Former state representative and gubernatorial candidate Sissy Farenthold was the keynote speaker. She made a statement that so resonated with me, I remember it to this day. “We are none of us free unless we all are free. We cannot open the door to some minorities while denying access to others.”
While right-wing politicians, including the current president, are viciously attacking our transgender community and some in the LGBTQ+ spectrum want to eliminate the “T” from our title, take a few moments to re-read those words spoken by a straight woman to a group of gays nearly 47 years ago.
A couple of years later I attended my first Pride Parade. It was a modest affair attended by a few hundred people lining Westheimer Road in Montrose. I stood under the marquee of the Tower Theatre to try to stay out of the sun.
There was no one within ten feet of me, as many people stayed away, fearful they may be caught by a TV news camera, shown on the 10 o’clock news and fired when reporting to work on Monday morning. That really happened!
A few years later I saw the first major corporate sponsor in the parade when a large Bud Light truck rolled down the street. I remember almost breaking out in tears seeing it as before then the only participants were gay bars and businesses. It meant we had arrived.
St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, makers of Bud Light, faced backlash and boycotts from its association with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman who appeared in a 2023 marketing campaign promoting Bud Light. This year with Republican attacks on D.E.I. programs, the beer maker withdrew its sponsorship of St. Louis Pride, an event they have supported for 30 years.
Anheuser-Busch is not listed as a sponsor of this year’s Pride Houston Parade, according to a look at Pride Houston’s website.
History has shown us that when an authoritarian regime takes over, it’s typically due to being able to convince the masses that they have a common enemy by demonizing a small segment of the population.
Our trans brothers and sisters have felt the wrath of the haters. The right has effectively made transgender people the focus of their attacks. How many times in the last election did you hear “no men in women’s restrooms,” or “no boys in girls’ sports?” That hateful rhetoric got us President Trump.
Lest we forget, it was not long ago that the entire LGBTQ+ population was in the crosshairs. George W. Bush campaigned in 2000 on promising a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. It got him elected.
As public opinion shifted on that issue, Republicans needed a new boogie man, hence the demonization of transgender people.
In 2025, there have been 886 anti-LGBTQ+ bills presented in 49 state legislatures, reported translegislation.com. Texas has 128 of those bills.
In no less than nine states, Republican legislators have filed bills to overturn marriage equality. In Texas, a bill has been filed to create a new category of marriage — solely between heterosexual couples. Reminds you of “separate but equal” from the Jim Crow era of public schools.
So, as we celebrate Pride Month, let’s not be complacent or divided. We have won many battles since Town Meeting I but the war rages on. We have taken far more steps forward than backward, and we have persevered.
Sissy’s words from 1978 are as accurate today as they were then: “We are none of us free unless we all are free. We cannot open the door to some minorities while denying access to others.”
Happy Pride!
