No Need to Send in the Clowns

The lyric “Isn’t it Queer?” was Judy Collins' way of asking if her romantic situation was odd.

But in 2025, Judy has no need to send in the clowns. They’re here, as gay activists have adopted the former derogatory label “queer” for their “culture.” There are “Queer Studies” in universities, and gay people call other people “queer” the way some black (and Hispanic immigrant) high school students call their friends, teachers and classmates “nigga” without even asking first. I’m in a Zoom group now reading the novels of Henry James, who was gay, and one of my co-symposiasts insists on using the word “queer” constantly when other terms—“homoerotic,” “gay,” “lesbian,” “same-sex,” “Boston marriage”—would be more apt. Some people—teens, hipsters, bisexuals, the gender dysphoric—run about calling themselves “queer” even though they aren’t gay or lesbian.

I don’t object to the term “queer” because it was once considered negative. I object to it more because it’s what Ayn Rand once described as an anti-concept. It’s an equivocation, a grab bag that’s intended to throw a bunch of things together that aren’t the same, in order to break down boundaries and distinctions so you can put something over on the gullible, usually by obfuscating a real concept based on real distinctions.

Maryland’s lesbian writer Mary McCarthy complains that corporations are not funding Pride as much as they once did—no more floats with dancing, almost naked, twinks covered in glitter, swilling the latest brand of Vodka or wearing banana hammocks with logos promoting Citibank trying to capture the crowds’ interest—because they are, what else, afraid of Trump.

More likely they’re afraid of being associated with public nudity, weird fetishes, and “trans” abuse and mutilation of kids. Something other gay and lesbian Americans, most recently Jillian Michaels, are also complaining about. Writing on X of the mockery of Christians by groups often in Pride marches, like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (men in garish drag as psychedelic nuns) or gays mocking heterosexuals as “breeders,” Michaels asked: “Dear fellow gays, we demand tolerance and respect but then make a mockery of something sacred for over two billion Christians. This type of hypocrisy and lack of understanding is a bad look. We get outraged when the extreme right bashes us but then we do this sh*t. What kind of reaction do you think they will have towards the LGBTQ+ community after this? This is not how we break down barriers, it’s how you build them.”

But the GayTM has its needs. It needed to make transexual grooming of kids central to “gay issues.” With same-sex marriage, gay adoption, and legal surrogacy, as well as gays included in many fair housing and anti-discrimination ordinances, it’s hard to raise money or scare gay voters into voting for some senile Democrat, unless you can create a fake “gay” issue like transexuals in the military to cajole them with.

The latest is that, along with getting rid of federal funding of many other programs Democrats have skimmed money from or used as cushy employment sinecures for decades, Trump’s eliminating federal funding of gay suicide hotlines. What Trump’s really doing is eliminating a special silo on the national suicide hotline where a caller will identify themselves as “LGBTQ” and be shunted to special counselors because of this, or rather these, identities.

I’m curious about why a counselor trained to help people in crisis can’t deal with them when they think their parents will reject them for being gay, or the IRS is auditing them, or they can’t stay sober, or their spouse left them, or their child died, etc. Does every caller need to punch in a number to make sure they go in the correct silo? What if I’m depressed and suicidal for more than one reason?

I’m even more curious if anyone has looked into how often the counselors on gay suicide hotlines push young gay people to imagine they’re trans and just need a snip and some drugs and hormones? And how often Big Pharma and the transing medical professions donate to these suicide hotlines?

And the question in all these cases: you can’t manage to fund “LGBTQ” suicide hotlines without federal funding? How much money did you spend on Kamala’s campaign?

Coincidentally, last week statistician Nate Silver, another gay American, analyzed a lot of polling data about how happy Americans are on X. In every demographic group, non-leftists are happier than leftists. Even allegedly oppressed demographics are usually happier than their oppressors when they aren’t leftists. Conservative women aren’t only happier than liberal women, they’re happier than liberal men. Right-wing blacks are not only happier than progressive blacks, they’re happier than progressive whites.

And gays on the right are not only happier than gays on the left, 60-49 percent, they’re happier than the 57 percent of liberal heterosexuals who consider themselves happy.