I woke up to the news this morning that the State of Israel is “flattening buildings in Lebanon.” That euphemistic language really means that the Israeli military is bombing apartment buildings filled with human beings, humans beings who scream in fear and agony as they die.

I mentioned that this morning to Intesar Toufic  in response to his Prism & Pen story, A Gay Arab’s Take on the Iran-Israel War. Intesar occasionally contributes his Lebanese perspective in P&P stories, and if you don’t follow him already, I hope you will now. I especially hope you read his story from this morning.

As an American, I feel especially horrified that my tax dollars are paying for cruel slaughter. Because while Intesar is correct that this war is between Israel and Iran, without Trump, not nearly so many people would be dying in fear and agony as I type these words.

How Do We Queer People Fight Trump and Netanyahu’s Cruel Slaughter?

As a queer person, I feel a special sort of horror. As a former AIDS activist watching while more than a third of U.S. states RIGHT NOW snatch HIV medication from tens of thousands of people who can’t afford it and who will die without it, I’m accustomed to cruelty. I was going to write an article about that today. Maybe I still will, but I can’t get the images of burning, screaming people out of my head.

How do I fight against that? How do any of us queer people?

Yesterday, Esther Spurrill-Jones showed me a lovely story about an Australian wheat farmer organizing the shipment of 500 tons of free wheat to starving people in Sudan. He’s organized a whole network of farmers to donate parts of their crop, a magnificent example of human kindness. But now? Their container ships, I realized yesterday, aren’t going make it through Netanyahu and Trump’s war zone. Maybe they can find another route, I don’t know, but the ships will at least be delayed while people starve.

How do I fight against that cruelty? How do any of us queer people?

How do we fight against appalling cruelty? We can start by raising our voices, yes? We can proclaim our truths forcibly, loudly, and clearly. We can take of stand of human decency and kindness.

We can tell the talking heads on social media and TV news that we’re sick of their euphemisms, that we UNDERSTAND the human suffering, that we condemn it with every fiber of our beings.

Whether we live in the U.S., Israel, Lebanon, Australia, or the U.K., we can stand up and be counted. We can shout, “No! This is cruel. This is evil. This is wrong. It must stop NOW!”

You tell your stories, we’ll help you share them.

This is a special writing prompt, and it’s not meant to signal an end to our Queer Magic