pride month is over, now the hard work begins.
pride month is over, now the hard work begins.
An interview with Batavia activist Scott Naylor about what comes next.
Queering the Burbs is a regularly-published distillation of pop culture, politics and queerness written by Joe Erbentraut. If you like what you see, please consider subscribing (it’s free!), liking or sharing this piece.
We did it, queers. The coming and going of another Fourth of July means we successfully made it through another Pride Month, a month packed with parades and festivities bringing heightened visibility to and celebration of our communities. And now it’s, uh, on with the rest of our gay lives?
As I’ve already discussed in this space, this Pride Month felt a little different than many previous ones. My expression of this frustration resulted in a fair amount of feedback, but as I’ve seen the rest of the month play out since that piece was published, I do stand by it.
The level of hate targeting our community is higher than it’s been in some time, and even as (to my knowledge) all the Pride Month festivities here in the immediate area went off without incident, we are continuing to see LGBTQ+ events like a Rockford-area library’s drag queen story hour get canceled and replaced with a Zoom meeting due to threats of violence. Zooming out nationally, Dylan Mulvaney recently spoke out about feeling unsafe leaving her home in recent months due to the far right’s hate campaign in response to her Bud Light brand partnership. The threat of Christian fascist anti-LGBTQ terrorism remains very real and it’s simply not going away.
But all of that said, here in the Fox Valley we have a lot to be proud of when it comes to Pride Month. At Annie Hex’s Queer Prom at Sidecar Supper Club, we danced, swayed, busted open a Ron DeSantis piñata to Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Heads Will Roll,” and watched Sobby the Clown jump on a trampoline to Kim Petras’ “Coconuts.” The Aurora Pride Parade featured a Ghostbusters squad including a convincing Kate McKinnon lookalike. At a Belong: Fox Valley get-together, we belted out Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” while Cheryl Rodey wrapped up her acoustic set at Sturdy Shelter Brewing.
Odds are, if you took part in any queer event in the area in June, Batavia activist Scott Naylor probably played at least some part in making it happen. Naylor is a board member of Belong: Fox Valley, the incredible group that organized or took part in nine (9!) separate Pride events during the month of June. Beyond that, Naylor is an outspoken and truly fierce individual who is pushing for progress in our town on multiple fronts, whether it be his activism on DEI+ issues in the school district, his fiery and informative Facebook posts, or he and his wife Mary’s undeniably epic pride flag yard display (which you might recognize from local news reports from last summer).
And contrary to urban transplants like me, Naylor, 48, was born and raised in the Tri-City area. Brought up in an evangelical Christian household, Naylor grew up at a time when queerness was just not openly discussed. But today, he is open about his queerness, bisexuality, and nonbinary/genderqueer identity, and that openness invites others to be a bit braver and louder in expressing their authentic selves too. I include myself in that group.
At a June 5 Batavia City Council meeting following the raising of a pride flag outside City Hall, Naylor spoke to the council about the importance of the flag and Pride Month proclamation. His words took on added meaning as they followed a series of vile comments from two community members who pleaded with the council to take down the pride flag because they considered it to be anti-Christian. But Naylor did not waver as he urged continued support for our communities.
During a recent interview at his home on Batavia’s west side, I spoke with Naylor about how Pride Month went down here in the western suburbs and what he hopes will happen next. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
It’s been a big Pride Month in the Fox Valley with a lot going on locally, and you’ve been involved with a lot of it. If you could sum it all up in three words, what would they be?
Exhausting and overwhelming, which is kind of the same thing, but also rewarding.
What has been the most rewarding part of it? What’s your rose and thorn, I guess?
The hard part, as you know from the City Council meeting, is that there was some pushback against our own community displaying a pride flag, which they’ve been doing for the last few years and people are still coming out and speaking out against it. I guess we see it everywhere, but to see it locally in the community that I live in and raise my family in is kind of disheartening. But I would say the good part of it is being a part of Belong: Fox Valley this year for the first time and having a lot of positives with that with the events we’ve been able to take part in, organize, and hold, and just to realize we’re becoming a bigger part of the community and seeing the support not only for our organization but for the LGBTQ community locally.
Belong held a ton of events this year. If you had to pick a favorite one or a favorite moment from all of it, what would it be?
Just this month? When somebody asks that, the event of ours that comes to mind is the Teen Queer Prom that was most rewarding. It’s an opportunity not only for the kids to have something to come to where they can feel comfortable and be who they are without judgment, but to see that we’re actually reaching those kids in the community and that they want to come and be a part of it is a huge thing for any of us. I’m sure it was for you too, being involved in the event.
It really was. One of my favorite parts of the night that I was so struck by I think we've already talked about but for the record, this was such a sign of, like, how cool these kids were. When you got up there after Kylie [Peters] and you spoke to the donation, I was so blown away by the story you shared [of an older community member and longtime local resident’s generous donation to Belong]. I was thinking, oh, the kids aren’t going to get it. They’re just going to want to be dancing and won’t get the significance. But it felt like everyone got it.
I’m not a big public speaker but standing up there and with the kids literally gathered around, sitting on the floor like it was classroom storytime and they were riveted to the story. It was an extremely touching story from somebody who’s from this area and never had anything like that when he was growing up.
Were you nervous going into that event or any of the other events given everything that’s going on? Or not?
I tend to have a pretty cool, level-headed attitude. I think about that stuff, and it comes to mind because I see in the media all the hate that’s out there, that there’s a potential [for violence] at those events, but going into the events and organizing and running them, it really doesn’t affect me where I’m nervous about it. Basically, their bark is stronger than their bite. They like to make a big deal about it, but then they tend not to show up.
Tell me more about what it was like for you growing up out here and if you can recall your first experiences encountering queerness or how it was perceived out here.
That’s a hard question because I don’t think about that a lot. I’ve lived in the Tri-Cities my whole life. I grew up in Geneva and we’ve lived in Batavia together now for 19 and a half years. We have raised all four of our kids here in Batavia. I wasn’t necessarily out and open about who I was to the world until probably five years ago. It was never anything that was hidden, I just didn’t announce it to people. Growing up, we’re talking about the ‘80s mainly so, for one, queer really wasn’t a thing around here. Two, we might have suspected people of being queer of some sort, but it just wasn’t something that was talked about. It didn’t start being a part of my life until we were living in Batavia.
Five or six years ago, I would see all the things that were going on in the media and within the community and I got sick of it. I started posting stuff to social media throughout Pride Month from memes to explanations of flags and terms. I made my official post and told everybody about my sexual orientation, which was long before coming out about my gender identity. In terms of actually being involved in stuff and part of the local queer community, it was probably only within the last two or three years at most.
Thinking back to when you came out on social media, can you tell me a bit more about what prompted that and what the response was like. Was it surprising?
I was not surprised. I’ve always been the kind of person who always told people if you have a question for me, I will answer any question you have. Just be prepared, because I’m going to have an honest answer.
So, without being out, I was always open. I’ve known I was bisexual for almost 30 years now. With the social climate going back the last few years, I had enough and I started pushing for inclusion and acceptance of the LGBTQ community. I came out to say this is why I do this, this is who I am, and how long I’ve been that way.
What prompted you to go from your social media activism to getting more involved with IRL activism like what you’re doing right now with Belong?
I don’t think it was a conscious decision. My kids are in Batavia schools, we’re very open with our kids, and they’re very open with us. They will come home and let us know the things they hear or see at school from transphobia, homophobia, racism, and all the terrible things that are out there in society. So I feel like I’m speaking up for people that don’t feel like they can speak up, and then seeing other people come to the area, like Annie Hex and then Belong, I started communicating with those people as individuals through social media and started trying to go to things they were having, whether it be the flag raising or volunteering for the Teen Queer Prom last year. That all evolved to the point where they asked me to become an official board member.
There have been difficult moments with all of this, like the City Council meeting incident. Have you ever thought there were moments where it all felt like too much? What helps you push through during those hard moments?
The last couple of months have been an incredible amount of time and effort. I haven’t had this conversation with my family but I know that it’s a lot, but as much as it is, it’s knowing how important it is and how much this stuff is needed here. I’m one of those people who wants to do the best I can for the fight to make sure we are treated the way we should be treated. Not everybody is comfortable being loud, speaking at a meeting, doing any of that stuff, which is perfectly fine, but they need people who are going to do that on their behalf. That’s what keeps me going.
I recently wrote about how it felt like we were seeing less allyship from the business community and some of the community groups out here for Pride Month this year. Did you pick up on that too? Do you think that changed at all over the course of the month?
No, I don’t think it has changed. Somebody asked me about your piece and they were like, “Is this appropriate that we should be sharing this with people?” And I said it absolutely is. You know what’s going on as well as I do. You see it when you’re around town. This Pride Month started out rough in the world in general with major corporations standing up for the community and then being torn down by the people who don’t agree with them.
With that happening on the big scale, you almost wonder if in a small town setting like ours if the business owners who are already having it hard enough trying to bring in business and keep customers fear they would alienate people if they did boldly show their support. We know the ones who are supportive, but I just can’t help but think that many of them fear decorating, painting windows, or putting up big flags that are obvious for fear of alienating customers and having a backlash. If the city can’t do it without getting backlash, nobody seems to be able to support us without having some kind of negativity come toward them as an organization.
Exactly, so then the true allyship is the question of who’s willing to risk that and stand firm.
It’s hard to claim you’re a true ally if you aren’t visibly showing your support or standing up to the hate that’s out there. There’s a lot more to allyship than just knowing a gay or trans person and saying, yeah, I support you.
With all of that said, do you feel you’re seeing the positive impact from the work you’re doing, or do you feel there’s still a long way to go?
Both, but I do see change, even if it’s just a little thing here and there. At the [Cheers Queers] event we were at last night, somebody showed up to that and said they saw it on social media and had never been to one of them. They came by themselves and had a great time. Whether it’s at the farmer’s market or the Elmhurst Family Pride event I did the other day, people are constantly saying, “I never had this growing up, I’m from this area, I didn’t know I had any place to go or any people to turn to.” People are starting to notice what we’re doing and know that there’s events being publicly advertised that make them feel comfortable to go out in public or go to an event and feel comfortable and meet people with like mindsets in a protected space. It’s huge. Even if it doesn’t happen every day, it’s happening.
I ask this question of everyone I interview for this newsletter, but what do you feel are the biggest changes still needed to make suburban communities like ours better, more welcoming communities for queer folks?
There needs to be continued visibility and Pride can’t be confined to June. We need things to be going on throughout the year, and education is a huge thing. For the general population, they notice things happening in June, but July 1 comes along and Pride’s over for them. For us, it’s an everyday thing all year round. Somehow carrying this through the rest of the year is what I think needs to happen. We need to be having conversations and meetings with other leaders in the community and doing it in public so people know that we’re talking about these things and trying to make things happen outside of June. It takes all of us working together to try and make bigger things happen. I think we’re having a good start to making that happen, but we just need to figure out how to bring everyone together so that it’s known throughout the community.
As our wonderful friend Annie Hex likes to remind us, we do this work to make sure queer kids become queer adults. If there is a queer kid who happens to be reading this right now, what would you want them to know?
Know that we’re here. That there’s support from adults, organizations in the community, in their schools, everywhere, for them to be able to go. If they’re not getting the support where they live, if they don’t feel like they’re getting the support from their school, there’s always somebody to go to. Our whole point of what we do is that, to make all of this available to everybody who needs it in our community.
A lot of this is life or death. If there’s nobody doing the work to support them, that individual might feel like they’re the only person like that, they’re the only person who’s queer, they’re the only person who doesn’t have somebody to talk to. Like there’s nobody else like me out there because we’re not visible to show them that they have the support.
For more words from queer folks out here doing the work in the western ‘burbs, read my previous interviews with Batavia artist Annie Hex, Aurora organizer Javi, the organizers of Geneva Pride, Batavia alderman Dan Chanzit, Paramount Theatre artistic director Jim Corti, Aurora trans activist Penelope Torres, North Aurora musician Katie Bogle, and Hoof & Horn co-owners Jarrod Johnson and Adrian Xavier Frost. As always, please comment, share and subscribe if you like what you read.
I previously was in the habit of sharing book, movie, TV, and music recs (and even the occasional recipe or restaurant pick!) to close out each edition of this newsletter, and I’d like to get back to that, if you don’t mind!
If you’re looking for a lighthearted, very queer streaming pick, Netflix’s Glamorous stars Kim Cattrall and Miss Benny and is extremely snackable for anyone who loves Ugly Betty, Jane the Virgin, or The Devil Wears Prada vibes.
On the written word front, I’m back on a nonfiction kick and I just devoured Samantha Irby’s latest essay collection, Quietly Hostile, and am now almost done with John Waters’ memoir-meets-advice-column Mr. Know-It-All. If you want a preview of Irby’s book, one of its essays appeared in The New Yorker earlier this year.
And if you need a new song to make you feel like the main character in your own rom-com, try either Georgia’s “It’s Euphoric” or Róisín Murphy’s “Fader.”