For LGBT people, October is supposed to be a month of celebration. With our histories at the helm, it’s supposed to be an unbreakable inner tube chain down a lazy river of light, love, lust, and laughter for 31 whole ass days. For four weeks we should be breezily tandem biking with our witch sisters down a road less traveled but still adequately paved!!! Except this year so many people took time out of their busy schedules to set cursory fires to whatever was left of a resolve already scourged by infernos.

Because, to be clear, when I say “tried to ruin October for us,” I’m referencing people associated with events that we didn’t even know could be soured, not events that had us clinging onto these unknowns in the first place. This is not to speak on the kind of evil that leaves you longing for an Atlantis-style restart. No, these are the cherries on top of a horror sundae that’s being piled onto with such frequency it’s collapsing under its own weight and melting as quickly down a retro tulip dish as our polar ice caps are into our seas.

1. Kevin Spacey

This unbelievable piece of garbage. This is a man who has enough money to surround himself with a public relations team so adept at a slight of hand that he could have separately addressed his coming out and his apology in a way that might have seen him through the other side partially unscathed, and he still went with this option. And now we have to even entertain his application? Two days before our national holiday? No!

2. Any news outlet that used the phrase “witch hunt” when referring to reports on sexual misconduct

It appears, based on October’s news cycles, that anyone who’s ever been involved in media in any shape or form has either been a perpetrator or survivor of sexual assault/harassment, which is an overwhelming confirmation of an assumption that feels good, comforting, mentally and emotionally stabilizing, more than okay, groovy, cool, coolcoolcool, and like a bada-bing-bada-boom kind of jazzy.

It was a new roundup of allegations every day, and because so many were happening in such quick succession and about so many high profiled men in a way that possibly felt frenzied, what started to accompany these reports was the phrase “witch hunt,” as in the scapegoating of an innocent group of women, which makes it wrong on two levels. Three if you consider common decency on a moral level, which I do. The good witch name was disgraced all month by being aligned with sexual predators, which was a personal slap in the face to the queer community.

3. Dove

Shout out to ruining soap – something we love – I guess!!! 

4. Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines has threatened the public with pop up concerts on their aircrafts, which is a co-opting of lesbian acoustic culture without consent. It’s hard enough to be at a party you are likely not legally bound to where a pop up concert may be very much on the horizon, much less a confined plane. The only time I want live music on a plane is if Erykah Badu is ushering me to my aisle while singing “Window Seat.”

5. Men in general

Honestly, this one is a timeless classic. If this concept could be summed up in one image it would be those warehouse signs that say “It’s been ______ days since our last accident!” where the accidents are men fucking up everyone’s shit and the blank space has been changed to zero every day since men have been alive on earth.

This proved especially true in October after the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault allegations that spanned decades and the deeds of his peers were finally made public. Because if there was a silver lining about this nightmare, it’s that for the first time ever it felt like the wheels of change were in actual motion, whereas before an attempt at change felt like someone on The Price Is Right theatrically reaching up like they’re about to spin The Big Wheel off its axis only to barely cause a 180 degree rotation. Actors were leaving films associated with outed offenders! Outed offenders were losing jobs/endorsements/societal and financial backing!

And then, lead by BOSTON’S OWN Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who by the way were verrrry aware of what Harvey Weinstein had been accused of and yet continued to work with him, the Fathers of Daughters conversation started.

First of all, shut up, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, forever. Second of all, one of you is very much in the same boat that’s careening into rocky shores. Third of all, way to set up the talking points that were then regurgitated en masse by every jag on Twitter for us to witness.

Obviously, there are more, but I am tired. Although if I could personally submit who ruined my October I’d like to extend it to my sublet roommate who ran line (one, singular line) for eight hours a day as prep for an acting role in the room next to me, Airbnb for continuing to email me even though I’ve all but climbed atop their headquarter building threatening to never leave if they do not stop with the emails, and the owl that hooted at exactly midnight on Halloween, which was a little too on the nose for my liking.

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