My Job Application for The Onion

So I have a story. Every time there's been a mass shooting (since Columbine) in the United States, The Onion posts the same article: "'No way to prevent this', says only nation where this regularly happens". It's always been brilliant, because the only thing that ever changes is the location and time of the story. But after the Texas elementary school shooting that just happened, The Onion republished all 22. And like...wow. I can't swear on this blogpost, but feel free to insert any expletive of your choice here. 

So anyway, I conducted a highly scientific experiment*. I decided to channel my inner Onion writer and do the same thing for the queer community: 

Every single one of these stories is true, by the way (according to Google, which hasn't let me down yet). And I didn't even begin to cover them all. I think The Onion might've done this better than me, but, you know, I don't have 23 years of experience writing about the same mass shooting response, so give me some credit. 

But jokes aside, even now, in a (RELATIVELY) more accepting time of the queer community, there are still entire Reddit threads about whether or not Harry Styles is gay as though it's of utmost importance that we know everyone's sexuality/gender identity. It's almost depressing, honestly, that 130 years since Oscar Wilde literally died for being gay, we're still publishing the same article, just with a different date and location. It's almost as if we haven't learned anything at all. And like... for a country as rich and powerful as ours, don't people have better things to be doing than trying to control other people's sex lives? Just a thought. 

Sometimes I wonder why Oscar Wilde channeled all his queer energy into The Picture of Dorian Gray and yet still never explicitly said anything outwardly gay. The scene with Dorian and Henry in the garden was all written figuratively, with drunk flowers and falling pollen, and Dorian's relationships with men -- from Alan Campell to the "old friend" he meets in the opium store -- are always described as "intimate" and "close", sublimated with music and art and science, instead of what they probably truly were. Just like with the preface, Wilde seems to be trying to protect himself; which is ironic, because nobody ever suspects murder mystery authors of committing murder, but thematically queer books can be entered into court evidence when an author is tried for being gay? As with every minority, the minority groups an individual belongs to quickly become the only identity the general public is willing to acknowledge. And it seems that that headline will be published over and over again for all eternity. 

*And by that I mean a Google search.