Restoring the rainbow: How cis white gay folks must show up for trans & queer people of color
Kaila Adia Story was in a gay bar the first time she heard a white person call a Black person the N-word.She had just moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and was visiting the hole-in-the-wall establishment with some friends. When the owner walked in with two fearsome-looking dogs, Story hopped onto a pool table to avoid them. Related Jo MaMa has changed Chicago forever. They know you can change your world for the better, too. She asked him to leash the dogs, and he hostilely replied, I dont like big girls on my pool tables.A disagreement ensued as her friends came to her defense, and in the midst of it, the owner called one of them the N-word.If the owner was this comfortable throwing that word around, Story knew others must have experienced similar aggressions from him, too. She began protesting at the bar, determined to bring down the owner.Thats when the hate mail began. But to her surprise, it came from other queer people white queer people, to be exact. They were angry at her for going after a queer space. Who was she to take away a bar where they felt safe? Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today I dont know if they assumed because I was Black, I was also not a lesbian, she told LGBTQ Nation. I think the owner might have interpreted the same way.This incident embodies the crux of Storys 2025 book, The Rainbow Aint Never Been Enough, which dismantles the myth that we are one big, cohesive LGBTQ+ community united under the rainbow.Queer spaces are not the same amount of safe for everyone, she said, and can often be as racist and transphobic as any other. In fact, it has taken protests in multiple cities to dismantle racist carding policies at several prominent gay bars.But Story believes cis white LGBTQ+ people often see their queerness as absolving them of responsibility to show up authentically for trans people and queer people of color.LGBTQ Nation spoke with Story about why many cis queer white people need to do better, especially given the state of emergency the community is in under the Trump administration.The interview has been edited for length and clarity. LGBTQ Nation: The book debunks the myth of LGBTQ+ solidarity. Why does the myth exist at all, considering, as you argue, the solidarity never has?Kaila Adia Story: The myth was created over time, primarily through mainstream media. I argue in the book that the campaign for marriage equality started highlighting this idea for the general public.Every time I saw a campaign about marriage equality, and anytime there were LGBTQ+ people of color, they were always partnered with someone white. These were models, not real couples, trying to stage the scene to argue that marriage equality should be made possible and that this is a human right. While I vibed with those things, I found it disconcerting that I never saw Black queer couples, Black trans couples, as these poster children for marriage equality. When I was younger, I went to queer bookstores and learned all this remarkable history. Then, when queer media and content started coming out, I started renting all of these movies from Blockbuster. Anytime there was a Black lesbian, they always seemed to be partnered with a white lesbian.In the gay and queer spaces that Ive been in, there are overt acts of racism, there are covert acts of racism, so Im not sure how everyones ending up in bed together. As a person who has no issue with interracial couplings, I just wondered why this relationship model was being portrayed as more exclusive than other queer relationships that I had witnessed, that I had been in myself.There was a lot of multicultural erasure when LGBTQ+ communities were portrayed in mainstream media. This is problematic because it doesnt address issues of transphobia by cis gays that have been happening since Stonewall. It doesnt address racism; it doesnt address queer fetishes that are racialized. All those things, to me, had been part of my experience and part of Black LGBTQ+ history.Sylvia [Rivera] at the Christopher Street parade, which is our first gay pride, got booed off the stage, had things thrown at her, and was told to shut up by cis white gay men. So now we hold up Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia as mavericks for change and as representatives and symbols of queer liberation, and yet, in their own lives, transgressing only in queer spaces, they had to deal with the same things.Sylvia Rivera marching for trans rights in 1970 | Wikimedia Commons Is it only white queer people who have bought into this solidarity idea, or do you think it has permeated other, more intersectionally marginalized groups?I dont think that it is only white cis queer people who hold racial animus. Black LGBTQ people have internalized white supremacist and racist messaging in these queer spaces.I have seen Black queer people in a predominantly LGBT bar celebrate and be excited for a drag queen in blackface. I didnt understand that. Theres this idea that racist microaggressions are okay in queer spaces because its a taboo subject, and were queer and we get to toy with those things. I understand drag as a queer transgressive art form, but it should be a resounding fact that blackface is racist and has no part in queer spaces. Right now, were in a space where SCOTUS just said were not touching marriage equality, so everybodys so excited. Im excited. Im a married gay. And then Im upset because SCOTUS is also saying trans folks and nonbinary folks passports will not be able to be renewed with their proper pronouns and their proper gender markers because somebody else outside of them says they cant.We need solidarity within our community to fight this really aggressive fight. Trans folk and nonbinary folk are not a political liability that we can just throw to the wind.This idea that were united under the rainbow makes us think people will fight. Still, I see my trans friends and my nonbinary comrades, theyre struggling, theyre suffering, and Im not seeing cis gay folk support them and advocate for trans causes in the same way that they were all undone about drag shows and the way theyre all undone about marriage equality. So if having this colossal common enemy in the Trump administration is still not spurring cis white gay people to fight, what can?The first step is education: confronting these issues head-on and engaging in public discourse about them. Im already seeing that on social media, especially when this current administration has some cis gay people in it.You have cis gays currently doing the bidding of the administration against trans people, against other folk in our community, against Black folk, Latinx folk. And this is the thing, too. All issues are LGBTQIA issues, and I want the general public to stop thinking that theyre not. LGBTQIA people exist in every single community. They exist in poor communities, Black communities, Latinx communities, immigrant communities, and undocumented communities.So when were talking about war, genocide, reproductive justice, all of those issues are LGBTQ issues, and I think that mainstream media wants to silo these issues so that it seems like all LGBTQ people care about is marriage equality, drag shows, parties, and their nightclubs.I wanted a book that contextualized our community for the American public, that we are not just concerned with A, B, and C; were actually worried about all of it, because we are everywhere. We need to show up and support each other, and we cant do that with bigotry and animus.The No Kings protest Saturday afternoon, October 18, 2025, at the Caddo Parish Courthouse in downtown Shreveport. | Henrietta Wildsmith/The Times / USA TODAY NETWORK You implore people to become accomplices over allies. Whats the first step to making that shift?We need folks who are in spaces of privilege whether that means gender identity, race, class to go to those families that raised them and say how much they love those other people that the family told them not to. Because that family, that community, that church, that space in which they were raised, and that socialized them to be bigoted, will listen to them talk about social justice more so than someone like me.This is hard psychological and emotional work because it is your loved one or someone youve been in community with. Its very uncomfortable to challenge that. Accomplices have always existed, and its been very difficult for the work that they do. But they certainly have done it. Its just the work that nobody wants to do. Before we had marriage equality in 2015, Id go to the gay club and see straight women in there with bride sashes. They didnt see how offensive it was to come to a queer space with people who couldnt legally get married and show off their bridal sash and crown and say how their boyfriends homophobic, but theyre not.This is the allys performance. You literally are living and breathing with people who are outright transphobic, outright homophobic, but you dont want to get sexually assaulted in your space, so you come to our space. Challenge the sexism and misogyny in your space. Oh, you dont want to do that? You want to come to a space designed for us because we couldnt go into public spaces, and then you take over. You jump on stage, you dont know how to tip drag performers, you think its your own personal concert.I dont know how many times Ive been to the club here in Louisville, where the host has to tell straight women to get off the stage.Accomplices dont do things like that. Accomplices go to the gay club, act as visitors. They dont take over, they dont colonize. They enjoy themselves, and they also advocate in the streets for LGBTQ communities.Its the same as what folks do with Black culture anything but the burden. Being an accomplice is burdensome, its heavy, but thats the work that needs to be done.Milwaukee, Wisconsin / USA June 7th, 2020: LGBT and non-LGBT Wisconsinites came out to the Black Lives Matter and LGBT March to end the death of LGBT and Black lives due to police brutality | Shutterstock When it comes to calling out family members, in the moment, its hard to feel like expending the energy to call out a crazy uncle or bigoted grandpa is worth it or impactful. But you believe it can cause a significant domino effect?Your confrontation with the uncle or grandpa makes them think: Oh wow, this is someone I care about or someone I love, and theyre in distress because I hold these views.A lot of people are holding views, and they dont even know why. Its just somebody that they respected and loved told them they should think that way, so they started thinking that way, and theyve never once been challenged to think any differently. Conversations to me are very, very powerful. I want cis gay people to raise the alarm for trans people the same way that we were growing it around marriage equality, the same way we were raising it about bans on drag performances, bans on Pride festivals. I dont see that happening, and I dont see that happening because cis gay folks have also internalized transphobic messaging from larger society.People dont see transphobia as an addendum to homophobia, as an addendum to racism, as an addendum to classism, as an addendum to body shaming. All those things are connected.I mean, scratch a racist, and youll find homophobes, right? Those things dont exist in isolation. You started writing the book during the pandemic. If you were writing it now in the midst of the second Trump administration, is there anything you would approach differently?I would talk more about how dangerous these things are that we see as ideological, as opinions, seeing now in this climate those views being turned into policy, and how white cis gay people are a part of it.I would have concentrated more on folks who are interested in weaponizing their queer identity and white identity to make others in our community suffer. I would talk more about the anticipated suppression of educational tools to get through this moment together. Your book is built around the idea that the rainbow does not symbolize solidarity as many people think it does. How do you connect with that symbol, and does it hold any meaning for you?The rainbow symbol held a significant place in my heart when I was young because I knew right away that the rainbow symbolized gay-friendly places.Over time, those ended up not being safe spaces for me and thats from Detroit to Chicago to Philly to Louisville. There was at least a microaggression or overt act of racism or something I had to deal with or navigate through, and all I wanted to do was be in a queer space and have a cocktail and relax, but then I had to teach lessons.Theres a concerted effort to change the dynamics that have been happening in our spaces for a very long time, and Im glad about that.At one point, I saw the rainbow as showing that we were all together united against gender and sexual tyranny. But as I kept living and growing, I started feeling like the rainbow was literally a cover-up for all the issues were having. It was a shroud and a veil that made it seem as if we were all together.Hopefully, we can put the rainbow back together again, and itll actually be in the interests of all of us and not just some of us.NEW YORK, UNITED STATES Mar 06, 2021: Trump supporters march in New York City, call for his reelection in 2024, unveil worlds largest Trump 2024 flag Do you believe anything has improved in the way the community shows up for one another since Sylvia Rivera was booed off stage all those years ago? I do, in some ways. We certainly have queer creatives giving us more representation of trans and non-binary identities and lives in television and film. We also have a number of Black trans women at the helm of educating and informing mass audiences about the interiorities of the joys and injustices that trans people face. Black trans women like TS Madison, Raquel Willis, Angelica Ross, the late activist and blogger Monica Roberts, and Imara Jones of theTranslashpodcast.At the same time, we currently have active gay, lesbian, and bisexual organizations that openly disparage trans people, verbally co-signing harmful anti-trans legislation on their platforms, like theLesbian, Gay, Bisexual Alliance (LGB Alliance)in the United Kingdom andGays Against Groomersin the United States. We also have trans and nonbinary people in queer communities who still have to deal with misgendering, deadnaming, and other cis microaggressions. Black trans people deal with this, and on top of it, also have to endure racism. Black trans women have to deal with misogynoir on top of this.We can only truly show up for one another in our community if trans bias, racial animus, and nonbinary discrimination end. We still have a long way to go. We all need to recognize that our trans and nonbinary siblings survival, liberation, and freedom is a struggle that we must all fight for. The stakes are too high not to.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
