We Are the LGBT Courage Coalition
A place where members of our community are free to share diverse viewpoints about LGBT-related issues.
Welcome!
We wish to present you with a year of voices from the LGBT community on the controversial topic of pediatric and adolescent medical transition, as well as other issues that divide us.
The media is saturated with stories about our community, stories that often present the LGBT perspective as a monolith, as if we are all in agreement about gender-affirming care and about how gender and sexuality are understood and discussed.
We believe our community is actually much more divided than the media (and LGBT activist organizations) let on. Fraught issues are presented like decided Supreme Court rulings, but privately, debates rage on. Fierce debates.
We believe that every voice matters, and we believe in the necessity of free speech.
We do not accept living in a society where dissenting opinions are shot down by organizations that claim to speak for us. We believe censorship is poison to democracy.
We know that speaking publicly right now takes courage, but we are here to support one another. We respect that we will not always agree, but we are committed to having the tough conversations, so that we can bring civil discourse back to where it has always belonged: our daily lives.
So, readers, welcome to the next 365 days of courageous voices. From the end of Pride Month 2023 until the same time next year, we invite you to read, subscribe—and write for us! Make your voices heard.
We are seeking adult voices and contributors who live in the United States and Canada. We believe the U.S. and Canada are experiencing conflicts about gender and sexuality in a fundamentally different way than the rest of the world. We even question if our dissemination of belief systems about gender and sexuality is in fact a new wave of Western colonialism. This, we believe, is just one of many topics worthy of discussion.
To submit, please send to lgbtcouragecoalition@gmail.com.
Thank you so much for joining us!
Signed,
LGBT Courage Coalition
Jamie Reed. Gay woman. Parent. Whistleblower from the Pediatric Gender Center.
Aaron Kimberly. Transman, dad, director of Gender Dysphoria Alliance, and co-host of the Transparency Podcast.
Aaron Terrell. Transman and co-host of the Transparency podcast.
Ben Appel. Gay man. Husband. Memoir, Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic, forthcoming. On Twitter.
Arty Morty. Gay man. Writer. Co-founder of LGB Alliance Canada. Co-host of The Mess We're In podcast.
Buck Angel. Transsexual man. Activist. Host of his own YouTube channel. On Twitter.
Plus additional coalition members who will be contributing pieces to the Substack, but at this time are choosing to remain anonymous and not be publicly named.
I will read this Substack with interest, but I am not enthusiastic about it. I just don't see how this is helpful. As a gay man, I want a complete divorce from the other letters--there is no 'LGBT community', 'LGBTQ community', 'LGBTQIA+ community', etc. These acronyms need to GO AWAY. The T and other letters were added not to be 'inclusive', but rather to dominate and take over. A quick tabulation of your panel bears this out--2 gay men and 4 trans/trans-adjacent people (Jamie is listed not as a lesbian, but a 'gay woman'; I recall reading she identifies as queer and is married to a 'trans man'.)
I also have to state that a 'transman' is not a 'dad' any more than a 'transwoman' is a 'mom'. These things matter.
I also can't get too excited about the further glorification of a porn star who has probably done more damage to mangle minds than can ever be corrected.
I do appreciate the work everyone is doing to protect children, but I don't think 'Sorry kids, you have to wait until you're an adult to be trans!' is an effective message. I think the only actually courageous thing to say is that 'trans' is just not real.
Great to see y'all putting yourselves out there! We need your voices.