The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Recently, legal counsel for the Pima County Board of Supervisors took the rare and extraordinary action of banning a member of the public from attending Board meetings for three months. That was prompted by the individual repeatedly calling me, an elected member of the board, a “pedophile” during the call to the public section of our meetings over the course of several weeks.
As a gay man, I know what that word is code for — it is a loud, piercing dog whistle for homophobia.
I’ve watched with horror over the past few years as state legislatures around the country — and right here in Arizona — have passed anti-LGBTQ+ bills into law. According to research from the Human Rights Campaign and the Center for Countering Digital Hate, after Florida adopted its disgraceful “Don’t Say Gay” law, social media content using the words “groomer” and “pedophile” surged by more than 400%.
We as a country are living through an extraordinary moment of hatred and demonization of the LGBTQ+ community. It is the throughline that connects a member of the Pima County community hurling slanderous slurs in my direction to online hate speech to homophobic and transphobic bills being passed by our elected leaders in state legislatures.
Let’s be clear. The narrative that I, as a gay man, am a pedophile or that someone dressing in drag — or a librarian — is a groomer is a lie spun on the far fringes of the right meant to escalate the culture war driving a wedge through our society. And clearly, it’s working. (Look no further than the call to the public of any given meeting of the Pima County Board of Supervisors.)
This pernicious lie has real-life consequences. As my colleague on the board, District 1 Supervisor Rex Scott highlighted, brandishing about the word pedophile has a traumatizing effect on actual survivors of child abuse. “When you capriciously throw that slanderous remark around in a public meeting like this constituent did, you’re not only violating the rules of the Board, you are perhaps triggering children in our community who actually have been victims of child abuse and actual pedophiles,” Supervisor Scott said at a recent Board meeting.
And as a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, I’d go further to say this hateful language indeed endangers the mental and physical health of young and vulnerable members of our community — those we should be striving to protect.
The slaughter at Club Q in Colorado Springs last November that left five people dead is just one devastating and horrific example of the real-life consequences of hate speech. According to the Human Rights Campaign, nearly one in five hate crimes is now motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias. The past two years have been the deadliest for transgender people since the organization started tracking such attacks. And study after study has revealed the deterioration of mental health outcomes for LGBTQ+ youth.
This is not happening in a vacuum.
I am a firm believer that our constituents should make their voices heard during the call to the public of our biweekly meetings. But I also strongly believe that those opting to speak in that forum are subject to the rules of our Board — and just as importantly, the norms of civic engagement. Supporters of the constituent who received the three-month ban have decried the action as violation of her free speech. It’s not free speech – it’s hate speech. The words we use matter.
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