beers, steers, and queers

i’m still not much of a beer guy…

…but i think it’s funny there’s all this insane hype over this:

it’s bud light supporting a trans influencer on day 365 of her transition which she documented on tik tok. i’ve never heard of her, and as i’m not on tik tok at all, i’ve never seen an episode of her series. but good on her for sticking with her journey to be, i’m sure, even more fabulous than when she started.

but as it’s a trans journey to a certain segment of our country it’s evil and wrong. of course a lot of them got more anti-trans (who knew they could?) when a school shooter identified as trans online…but 99.999999% of school shooters identify as white males online, and they’re in literally EVERY beer ad, and yet somehow that’s not a thing.

moving on…

i think the issue is specifically a trans thing, not and lgbt thing (i stop at four letters because at this point it’s not an abbreviation, it’s the only word in the english language without vowels). beers have supported the community for a while, particularly the one in the cross hairs this time…

and the other options are about the same…

so here’s my two cents on it. guys, even gay guys, for generations (including my own) don’t like to admit they’re scared of anything. because men aren’t supposed to be “scared”, but they’re allowed to “not like” or “hate” things. so, for instance, my buddy lance (who i’ve known was gay since about 1983 but just recently came out and got married to a lovely gentleman last fall) took me to get my longest living pet, a columbian red tailed boa constrictor, in 1992. he did so under slight protest because he “hates snakes”. but in reality he doesn’t really HATE shit, he’s just scared of snakes but we can’t say that. he doesn’t really know much about snakes, save for the ones he knew growing up, which were rattlers and cotton mouths, both of which are poisonous killers.

i can see how that would taint ones opinion of an entire genus of beings.

likewise, i think a lot of straight white folks have never met a trans person (that they know of), and as a result don’t know a lot about them, and ignorance breeds fear, but since we guys can’t admit fear, it turns into…

…exactly.

so before you “hate” something, learn a little something about it. i got off lucky – while i’ve never had an issue with the lgbt crowd, i actually have friends that fall under all the categories, although until recently just one in the “T” variety. that one and i work together, and have always gotten along well, so when she decided to be a he, i had questions and got answers to all of em over dinner one night. while i by no means had any animosity prior to that late night meal, i had a much better understanding of the experience and stumbling blocks after and made sure that anyone and everyone felt safe and appreciated where we worked.

you can easily do the same.

the world isn’t just for straight white folks – the sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be. then we’ll work on that whole “jesus wasn’t white and probably wasn’t straight, either” thing…