Avoid the Red Bucket But Not The Salvation Army as a Whole

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

Content note: mentions of anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes from the Salvation Army as well as abuse with details in links

Avoid the Red Bucket But Not The Salvation Army as a Whole

Now that folks know the history around the Salvation Army being anti-LGBTQ+, many are requesting an all-out boycott. I used to be one of those folks.

It can be hard not to be with the wild stories of exclusion and discrimination.

However, completely ditching SA is problematic, too – and not just because individual chapters can be incredibly LGBTQ+ affirming and friendly.

Who are you and what did you do with Grayson?

I’m still me, I promise! I’m just covered in more hair. I’ve done some growth and gotten more comfortable with gray areas. On top of that, I’ve also learned a lot more about justice and worked to unpack a lot of binary thinking. Don’t worry – the blacklist still exists. It just also includes a caution section, where SA now lives.

Here’s the issue: mainstream LGBTQ+ culture contains a lot of exclusionary thinking, especially classism and location privilege. The ideas of yeeting an organization and shaming those who need to use it are rooted in those ideals. Some think that people can just get help from another organization, that more organizations exist that are LGBTQ+ friendly in every space. The reality is that, in many rural places, the options for our community accessing assistance are slim.

Organizations like the Salvation Army and Goodwill may be the only options many people have.

I recently moved to Ohio, to one of the Appalachian counties. There are very few options for seeking help or second-hand goods, especially with how many people are struggling financially due to the pandemic. Around 20% of the LGBTQ+ community lives in rural areas, so this isn’t a small number.

“Well, Grayson, what should we do then?”

For starters, we can try to not shit all over people who need to access services via SA, Goodwill, or other majorly problematic organizations.

When we use shame to tell folks that helping the Salvation Army harms queer and trans folks, we’re also overlooking those that they help. In fact, using shame can cause lasting emotional harm. We know that shunning and shaming people doesn’t work to bring about change.

The only way I’d entertain this idea of talking down these organizations around those who needed assistance is if you’re willing to personally help pay for goods and services or organize a mutual aid effort.

Would I give money to the Salvation Army?

No. Among other issues, we can’t control where that money might go. It isn’t tracked the same way as other non-profits because it’s a religious organization.

Living in Appalachia now, though, I would absolutely take items to their donation centers. I might not be able to ensure that the Salvation Army treats everyone seeking help from them well. What I can do is make sure that there are be LGBTQ+ friendly options for clothing, books, etc.

This is hard!

I know. Our brains don’t like nuance. We want to see things in black and white, good and evil. The reality is that the world is infinitely complicated.

Something that can help is Meg-John Barker’s idea of the plural self. One of the ways I often explain this to folks is loathing someone like R. Kelly for the harm that he’s caused… and then also having a part of you that gets jazzed to hear the remix to Ignition for the first five seconds.

Someone pointing out that things aren’t that way might take a while to set in. It did for me. I’ll be forever grateful to my friends Paige Lauren and Remy Orcutt for helping me break out of this way of thinking.

All I ask for and hope is that we can start thinking through these things critically – especially for those of you who love to use the word ‘intersectional’ in your bios.

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