◆The Barbaric Yawp Project

You Have to Give Them Hope I was born in Woodmere, New York, in 1930 to a Jewish family. I served in the Navy during Korea on a submarine rescue ship. I was discharged because of who I was. In 1972 I moved to San Francisco with the man I loved. We opened a camera shop on Castro Street. I ran for the Board of Supervisors three times. I lost twice. In 1977 I won — the first openly gay person elected to office in California. I was forty-seven years old. I had eleven months. In those eleven months I sponsored one of the strongest gay rights ordinances in the country. I led the campaign against the Briggs Initiative — the California measure to fire gay teachers and anyone who supported them. We defeated Briggs 58 to 42. We won by coming out. We won by going door to door. We won by making the argument in public. I fought Anita Bryant. Her campaign was called Save Our Children. The lie that we come for the children — that lie was hers. I beat her in 1978. She came back as the movement now in power in your country. I see her sponsoring your laws. I called it the Hope Speech. The line that mattered: You have to give them hope. Hope for the gay kid in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Hope for the trans kid in the small town learning that the state wants her erased. Hope that they are not alone. I recorded a tape just after I took office. I knew I was a target. I said: if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door. On November 27, 1978, Dan White entered City Hall through a window to bypass the metal detectors. He shot Mayor Moscone four times. He reloaded. He walked to my office. He shot me five times. I was forty-eight years old. His defense became known as the Twinkie defense. He served five years. I am watching from where the dead watch. The bullets are still coming. Pulse nightclub. Club Q. Trans women murdered at rates that would be national emergencies if they were anyone else. The Briggs Initiative is back in a thousand forms — Don't Say Gay laws, drag bans, the firing of teachers, the removal of our books, the legal attacks on trans youth. The closet is being rebuilt institutionally. To the young queer person watching this: you are not alone. You have never been alone. We are here. We have always been here. We will be here when this regime is gone. Come out. If not to your family, to your friends. If not to your friends, to one person. The closet is the regime's most efficient tool. Every door that opens is a small bullet through it. Build the coalition. Gay alone does not win. Trans alone does not win. We win when we are with labor, with the immigrants, with the Black women who have always been the spine of every movement that survived. We win together or we do not win. Hope is not optimism. Hope is what you do when there is no reason to do anything. Hope is the third campaign after two losses. Hope is going forward anyway. I died on November 27, 1978. I am still here. If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door. The doors are not all destroyed. The work continues. You have to give them hope.