Fresno Supervisors send cruel message of exclusion to LGBTQ+ community | Opinion
On Tuesday, I stood before the Fresno County Board of Supervisors and spoke my truth as a trans woman, a taxpayer, a daughter, a sister, a wife and a member of this community. I watched as three supervisors voted to erase the celebration and visibility of people like me.
In a 3-2 decision, Supervisors Garry Bredefeld, Nathan Magsig and Buddy Mendes voted to bar the Fresno County Public Library from participating in the Fresno Rainbow Pride Parade and Festival, as well as from celebrating Pride Month entirely. The cost to participate was $125, a fee that organizers had already agreed to waive entirely.
This was never about money. It was about sending a message, with the full authority of the government, to people like me: You do not belong here.
I want people outside the LGBTQ+ community to understand what that message feels like when you carry it home in your body.
As a trans woman, I already navigate a daily onslaught of willful misunderstanding and bigotry. I already wake up knowing that somewhere out there, a politician is using my existence as a wedge issue, a fundraising tool and a scarecrow to distract the masses from the job they’re not doing.
What happened on Tuesday didn’t create that fear — it amplified and legitimized it. When elected officials use the machinery of government to signal that one group of citizens is less deserving of recognition than another, they don’t just create policy, they create a climate of fear. And in that climate, LGBTQ+ people suffer as the target.
When the government treats queer trans women like me, and the broader LGBTQ+ community, as problems to be managed or agendas to be stopped, the psychological toll is real and exhausting. The fear, anxiety, depression and despair experienced by LGBTQ+ people are direct consequences of the targeted, institutional contempt displayed by these three supervisors.
What should be most striking about Tuesday’s vote is that, while our county faces rising inflation, out-of-control costs, a housing crisis, restricted access to healthcare and food insecurity, Bredefeld has made “indoctrination” his rallying cry.
Let’s be clear: There is no indoctrination taking place other than what Bredefeld is trying to push. Trans and gay children are born this way, and more than 100 years of health and medical research and thousands of years of human history have borne that out.
No amount of book restrictions, parade bans or removal of diversity, equity and inclusion language from county materials will change that fundamental truth. Like other community celebrations, Pride is about love, affirmation and recognizing the hard-won rights and freedoms we continue to pursue.
Yet, instead of addressing the real, pressing needs of Fresnans, Bredefeld and his supporters focus obsessively on the lives of LGBTQ+ people. What happened Tuesday was not democracy or freedom. It was three supervisors deciding that one group of taxpayers — their own constituents — deserves less dignity than everyone else.
That needs to stop. LGBTQ+ people in our community will not disappear. We will be at the Pride parade in June, and the whole community is welcome to celebrate with us, regardless. And we will remember, at every election, exactly who chooses to put their personal priorities to discriminate over the needs of our entire community.
There is a true impending crisis on our doorstep, and the celebrations the library participates in have no bearing on whether our community will be ready to address it. However, bringing us together to celebrate and learn about our diverse community could help Fresnans all be better neighbors.
I want to see a world where no one faces erasure because of the personal whims of government officials — a world that celebrates the unique diversity within our culture, including the LGBTQ+ community. In the words of Maya Angelou, “the truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”
Madison Nield is a board member of PFLAG Fresno.