"Straight Men Yell at Us"

A guest post about homophobia and harassment and the toxic politics of this election

This is a guest post by Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz, V Fixmer-Oraiz, MJ Meidlinger, and Talia Meidlinger, who have experienced homophobic harassment in their community in Iowa City. Although this is about Iowa City, hate crimes that specifically target the LGBTQ community are on the rise all across America. No one is immune because they live in a blue state or a progressive community.

The dome of the Iowa State Capitol is flanked by two pride flags during a protest on July 31, 2023.

“Straight Men Yell at Us”

“Fucking lesbians,” he screamed, leaning his head farther out the window to make sure we heard him well. Craning his neck toward us as his friend sped down the main drag of our Midwestern college town: “Just wait until November 5th!” 

It was the second time we’d been queer-bashed that evening, both times within the span of a single block on the busiest street corner adjacent to our picturesque college campus. Right here, in 2024, in the liberal bastion of Iowa City, a place that the four of us have long called home. Street harassment isn’t unfamiliar to us; still, never had we been explicitly threatened with an upcoming presidential election.

***

We had been looking forward to this night for weeks. We had sitters for our kids and tickets to a performance of “The Moth,” which none of us had seen live before but to which we all listened regularly on NPR.

The Moth didn’t disappoint. The theme of the night was Great Expectations. Storytellers recounted moments of exhilaration and heartbreak as the audience wavered between effusive laughter and tears. They spoke of migration and estrangement, disability, queerness, and racism. Threaded through each was the deep human desire for recognition and belonging. An Iowa City native recounted his mission as a child to acquire a GI Joe that was Black, like him, in the late 1970s — a desperate search that led him across three states and countless toy stores with his doting aunt. A young man spoke of his childhood dream to make a name for himself in the hip-hop industry, even as he faced schoolyard ridicule for his height and for speaking with a lisp. And a queer kid of color, persistently mistreated by the high school band director, described in painstaking terms their pursuit of becoming a drum major against the odds. 

Their stories resonated deeply. The simultaneous brilliance, beauty, and danger of difference. The lack of representation in the world. Visibility and invisibility, both double-edged swords. At intermission, we stood closely to one another, holding the weight of this familiarity together. One of us whispered:

“I felt some dread leaving the house tonight. It’s been a while since I’ve been so visibly queer.” 

We all nodded in painful recognition. We tried to comfort, complimenting our friend’s fierce transformation that very afternoon from sporting waist-length hair to a style made iconic by Leonardo DiCaprio in his Titanic era. All of us gender-fabulous humans, donning our best for a night out on the town: trucker hats, button-down shirts, tight jeans, buckled jackets, side-shaved heads, lip gloss, and platform combat boots. In other words, fly af.

After the show, we headed to an upscale bar–one of the few places still serving food as we neared 10 o’clock in the evening. It was in the walk between the theater and the restaurant that it happened the first time. A co-ed, barely of age to purchase cigarettes, shouted down at us from the balcony of a high-rise apartment, his voice echoing across the busy street: 

“Hey! Hey you — how do you identify?” 

Our visible queerness had tipped him off, and he felt entitled to comment. Two of us shouted back as if by reflex:

“Fuck you, fuck off.” 

“I’m just asking!” 

“It’s none of your fucking business!” 

“I’m a man!” he shouted.

Laughter echoed in the wake of his words. Then he quickly retreated into his apartment with his friends. How ironic.

We kept walking towards the restaurant. The nice straight white people around us, all witnesses to this event, said nothing. 

After dinner, it happened again. Queer-bashed and threatened explicitly with the November election. The white man walking just two steps ahead of us refused to turn around. He refused to acknowledge us, refused to acknowledge the car full of young men shouting at us in the street. Refused to say anything at all.

***

The problem with great expectations is that they often disappoint. Moving in many public spaces as queer people is an act of bravery, an act of trust, and an act of self- and community- love. A blue dot in a sea of red convinced us, and at times showed us, that it was ok to let our guards down. To soften our shoulders, hold the hand of our beloved, to feel like we are not the only ones protecting us. In a more just world, these are pedestrian expectations — not great ones. 

But the deep fears related to holding and expressing queer identity are resurfacing, rooted both in our personal pasts and collective present. In 2023, the Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for LBGTQ+ Americans for the first time in its organizational history — and the following year, in 2024, things only got worse. Our home state of Iowa is at the vanguard of this hostility. In 2024, the legislature proposed 37 bills targeting LGBTQ+ people; 22 of these bills were specifically anti-trans. In our city, the University of Iowa chapter of Young Americans for Freedom have hosted Matt Walsh and Chloe Cole on campus to peddle their transphobia as trans protesters get arrested for “obstructing traffic” in a crosswalk (a charge subsequently and categorically rejected by the courts). At the same time, colleges and universities across the country are dismantling and renaming their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion services and professors are being told to modify their syllabi to appease state legislatures — academic freedom, human rights, and First Amendment rights be damned.

So this is not a drill, and this is our direct ask to you, dear readers: Be angry, be outraged, and then get busy organizing your people. The future is not yet written. There is a strong possibility that a ring-wing zealot/felon and his cronies could once more take the reins in the White House, further emboldening the rise of fascism across the United States. And it’s not just the outcome of the presidential race that matters profoundly — we need a progressive majority up and down the ballot in order to stem the tide. Get out of your comfort zone. Challenge hatred, homophobia, and transphobia like it's your job. We do it every day, all day, whether we’re up for it or not, and we cannot do it alone. 

It is not enough to simply cast your vote in this election — although please, for the love of decency and democracy, do vote. Vote in solidarity with vulnerable communities. If and when you witness cruelty in the streets of your community — intervene or check in. It’s as simple as asking: Are you okay?

This is our community, too. We love this place. We have chosen to make our homes and raise our families here. We write this letter as a sacred call from where we sit as a public educator, a county supervisor elected by the people, a therapist who works almost exclusively with LGBTQ+ young people, and a director of a local nonprofit that provides critical services for youth in crisis. Our collective experience underscores the urgency of the matter at hand.

We cannot be the only ones protecting us. We need you, too.

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About the authors:

Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz is a professor of communication studies and gender, women’s and sexuality studies at the University of Iowa. V Fixmer-Oraiz is a Johnson County Supervisor elected in 2022. MJ Meidlinger is an Iowa City-based therapist specializing in supporting at-risk youth, especially LGBTQIA+ individuals. Talia Meidlinger is the Executive Director of United Action for Youth.

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