I’m sure you’ve heard about this thing called, The Gay Agenda. Right wingers have been talking about it for quite some time now. Have you ever read it?

I bet you didn’t know that there is a very real Gay Agenda. You see, it all started back in 1978 when the Houston queer community came together to thoughtfully and explicitly create a unified trans-inclusive community.

In 1977 the State Bar of Texas held its annual convention in Houston and invited Anita Bryant, the orange juice queen who was fighting gays in Florida and using her fame to spread hate, to do a show. Surprising everyone, except Ray Hill,thousands of local gay folks came out to protest and rally. The community began to gel. – The Gay Agenda

Trans activist Phyllis Frye, now Judge Frye, marching and speaking for GLBT rights

In the hope of building institutions to sustain the community of determined people that returned from the Anita Bryant demonstration, Ray Hill called for a Town Meeting which was held on June 25, 1978 in the Astro Arena. The purpose was to determine our community needs and begin to organize for our community needs. As a result of that day’s proceedings, we became an organized gay and lesbian community with transgender citizens seeking inclusion, and many organizations were launched, such as, but not limited to The Montrose Clinic (now Legacy Community Services), The Montrose Counseling Center, The Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, The Montrose Sports Association and others. Gay medical professionals and professionals and others groups of interest also formed. – The Gay Agenda

First it was gay and lesbian, then it was gay, lesbian and bisexual. Then someone threw transgender in the mix. Somewhere along the line, it became OK to refer to gays as queers and now, they’ve decided it’s LGBTQIA. That’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and allies. The “gay community” today includes everyone who doesn’t fit into the conventionally straight category, making for a “community” that isn’t a community at all but rather a dumping ground of people deemed deviant by society. – Nikki Dowling

There are those who claim that there’s no such thing as a gay community, a LGBT community or even a trans community. Someone I know was at a conference presenting on the Houston trans community and was confronted by a douchey academic-type who pronounced that there’s no such thing as a trans community; that either my friend was oblivious to this fact or all of us in Houston were oblivious to this fact. I really hate it when academics who are married to a narrative they’ve crafted about one region of the US and apply that same narrative to ALL regions of the US. Quoting David Valentine’s study of one trans population from the 1990s does not mean that his ethnographic work should be applied to ALL populations past, current and future.  Anyway, I digress…

Since the 1970s, Houston has taken on the multi-generational effort of building a queer community and we did it together.

About a decade ago, the Houston queer community undertook the same process that we went through in the 1970s. What came out of that was the official Gay Agenda for Houston:

Note that Houston – especially the Houston trans community – has held to the aims and goals of this document.

We’ve worked hard – in a very intentional way – to seek unity, not uniformity and to deliberately work for our common purpose.

We must all take pride in our collective efforts and move forward for our FULL CIVIL RIGHTS! – The Gay Agenda

Unfortunately, this spirit isn’t found in other regions nor has it been the historical norm.  Additionally, this value has been historically missing in numerous national organizations. Though, when Houston was involved, we made sure this value was our guiding principle.

Since I’ve never before seen another actual Gay Agenda, I thought I’d put this one out there so that right wingers have no excuse for not knowing exactly what the The Gay Agenda is all about.