By Cat Poland
Better Off Said
It’s June, and that means it’s Pride Month. In our household, it’s a cause for celebration and celebration education, as we learn to be better friends and loved ones to those who look and love differently than we do.
But in other households, it’s apparently causing PDS: Pride Derangement Syndrome. According to the dictionary of Me, PDS is when miserable people whine like toddlers that the attention is on someone other than them, and create all sorts of tall tales and fake news to scare the plebeians into homophobic submission.
At the heart of their argument is that somehow, your innate gender identity or sexuality is a choice.
So let me ask you, when did you choose to be straight? When did you choose to not be trans?
Born This Way
I am a cisgender (not trans) woman who is attracted to men. Okay, a man. Just my husband. Highland hero Jamie Fraser has certainly never caught my eye.
So when did I make this decision? When did I choose to be straight? Never. Why did I choose to be straight? I didn’t. I just knew.
Even at 4 and 5 years old, I had crushes on boys at daycare, boys in my class, and when The Little Mermaid hit theatres? Prince Eric made my heart pitter-patter. I even had a very serious crush on a boy in first grade who I soon found out was my distant cousin. Heart=shattered.
And as far as my gender goes, there are definitely times when I did not like being a girl or woman. When I was catcalled, sexually harassed, and belittled.
But I’ve never felt like “woman” was a metal cage I desperately needed to escape from. I just wish the patriarchy wasn’t a thing.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the Hutchinson Public Library’s board meeting in support of LGBTQIA+ affirming books being available to all library patrons, especially during Pride Month.
I was there to stand in opposition to “concerned citizens” who’ve demanded, year after year, that the library remove these books.
Oh wait, I mean citizen. One, lone, solitary, citizen. Three years ago, she brought a small group of supporters. Last year, two. This year, she came alone, hell-bent on forcing the library to “Hide the Pride.”
I had every intention of asking her, “When did you choose to be straight? When did you choose to be cisgender?” But she left immediately after speaking.
On the one hand, I admire her tenacity. At least she’s not giving up on something she believes in. And on the other hand, I feel sad for her. Is this your legacy? You’re choosing to spend your time spreading falsehoods about the queer and trans community?
Cowardly and Complicit
So where are all of the other “concerned citizens” who oppose equal rights for LGBTQIA+ people? Why don’t they show up armed with facts and stats and personal anecdotes about how “Pride” has personally ruined their life?
My opinion? Most people do not care what other people are doing in their personal lives, as long as it doesn’t impact them. We’re too busy, too broke, and too focused on the breaking news headline of the day about how we’re trying to destroy ourselves in one way or another.
But we have to pretend like we care. We have to keep up appearances, and nod along as the preacher incorrectly identifies the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean sure, let’s just breeze by the fact that Lot offered up his daughters to be raped.
So if we really don’t care how people dress, identify, love, dance, sing…why is so much real harm being done?
Since 2024, 232 anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-transgender bills have passed nationwide. Help hotlines for those in mental distress have disappeared. Funding for supportive organizations has gone away. More than 50 trans people have been murdered in the US in 2025 and 2026 so far.
Queer or trans kids have a 2.5% higher chance of ending up in foster care. Around 30% of kids in foster care are LGBTQIA+. Why?
Because in spite of the fact that their child didn’t choose to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, or asexual, the parents choose to reject them.
Yes, parents literally give up their legal custody, and abandon their child … simply because they don’t look or love like they want them to. They don’t fit the mold. So they throw the whole thing away. How’s that for the party of “family values?”
Bathroom Bans and Bodily Autonomy
Certain lawmakers and lobbying groups really want you to believe that trans people are lurking in every bathroom, ready to pounce on unsuspecting children, kidnap them, and force them into a sex change, operated on by the school nurse, obviously.
I cannot believe we’ve fallen for this BS.
Kansans must not be the practical, pragmatic, logical, common-sense people that we claim to be. We’ve proven to be easily fooled, hoodwinked, manipulated, and our unfamiliarity has been weaponized into deranged paranoia.
All the while, Erin’s Law (look it up) did not pass in the state of Kansas. So the party that could have voted for evidence-based, logical, common sense ways to protect children from harm, chose not to. But hey. We have unenforceable, nonsense “pee patrol” laws.
Buck up. Let people live their lives. Remember what freedom means.
Why is Pride Month necessary? Because the opposite is shame. And shame is toxic, metastasizing into violence and oppression.
Cat Poland is a local writer. More of her work can be found at substack.com/@catpoland.