Kentucky Fried Sister to Sen. Wheeler: We help people. Your homophobia only hurts them.

I wish that it was under different circumstances that I am writing to speak as a member of The Kentucky Fried Sisters, but this is the second time in a year — during the course of volunteering with the community — that KFS have been publicly berated as a threat to ‘family values.’

First, let me state the shared mission of all my sacred siblings: ‘to spread joy and to fight stigmatic guilt.’ That’s guilt caused by oppression, by dangerous ideologies, and by the statements of those like of Sen. Phillip Wheeler and now-Rep. Richard White, when the Governor’s support for LGBT folk is called indecent, evil, and our appearance at the Capitol called a threat to children.

Each of the Kentucky Fried Sisters dedicates time and funds into improving the well-being of not only queer folk in Kentucky, but all Kentuckians. Each takes vows to recognize the needs of our brothers and sisters, to dedicate our lives to charity, and to do so from the anonymity of sacred clown face. The costumery of the Sisters allows us to shed the day-to-day face known by our peers and pseudo-anonymously devote our lives to ‘joy.’ Clowns, Nuns, Drag Queens — veiled identities that allow us to remove the ‘me’ from our work & focus on the ‘we’ that benefit from that work. As Sisters, we are recognized as symbols of affirmation & love for one another. I invite any Kentuckian to attend a Derby City Sisters or Kentucky Fried Sisters event and see the joy that manifests.

I ask of naysayers like Rep. White and Sen. Wheeler: was it the more than $200 in diapers provided to families at Christmas that hurts kids? Was it the gathering of dresses allowing disenfranchised teens to attend their prom that threatens? Is it our charitable donations to HIV testing/research, meal delivery programs & the needle exchange that endanger Kentucky? Perhaps it was the clothing and money donated to shelters or our ongoing support of art, theatre, and literacy programs that hurt Kentucky? Was it our presence at a rally to end the futile, abusive ‘conversion therapy programs’ already hurting youth that pose a threat? Is it our dedication to remind young people that they are still loved — even when forced from the homes of their evangelical parents — that threatens them? Is it our time visiting and reading to foster children that hurts them? Or — is it just possible — that folks like White and Wheeler are crippled by their homophobia and that keeps them from being ‘good for Kentucky families?’

I am Sister Freida of the Kentucky Fried Sisters. I am grateful for this organization and I am grateful for the chance to be the person I needed when I was a teen who’d been kicked out of his house for being a young queer. I am glad that groups like the Derby City Sisters and the Kentucky Fried Sisters are here to improve the lives of those who need someone to say “you are perfect just the way you are.”

Sister Freida is the professed name of Brent Thomas of Lexington.

This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 2:36 PM.