![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Coming out Day redux
Oct. 14th, 2008 12:48 amWell last year I spoke (or blogged? Oh gods, did I blog? Am I a blogger? Naaaaah, I’m far too disorganised to be a blogger) about National (by national I mean some nation which probably isn’t England and is most likely the US, but hey, if you have a good prompt for a verbose ramble, I take it) Coming out Day
Handy-dandy linkie is here: http://sparkindarkness.livejournal.com/180962.html I could probably use html to make that look pretty and stuff, but I tend to think if you have to laboriously copy and paste html codes from older posts and FAQs you may as well stop pretending and admit to being computer-inept
Now back then I made a pledge to myself - that I would destroy the last shreds of the closet that bound me. Not to the point of loudly avowing my love of cock at the Westboro Baptist Church Gun and Flamethrower Display, certainly, but in situations where I avoid “social awkwardness” by hiding, glossing over or otherwise diverting from my homosexuality I have been fighting back the cowardice and made sure those closet doors are all the way open.
I am proud of me for that - because it was hard. It’s amazing how deep the instinct to hide, to lie, to deflect is ingrained. Even simple things like someone saying “Is your wife a lawyer?” and responding with “No, my husband/partner is a computer technician” takes an effort of conscious will to bite down on the automatic gender neutral or even female response.
But more than just fighting my own instincts, it’s shocking how much rougher it made my life at times. Obviously I got the odd “You’re GAY?! Curse you abominable excuse for a human being! I shall now judge you with nonsensical insults!” because, duh, you EXPECT them. Hey we’re ALL used to dealing with them and we can be (usually) confident that most people around us think they’re complete arseholes as well.
However there were some more general rough patches that caught me by surprise - it’s eye-opening how much basic homophobia constantly rubs against you - and how much more noticeable it is when you refuse to swim with the tide. Some things that have worn at me.
( Read more... )
Handy-dandy linkie is here: http://sparkindarkness.livejournal.com/180962.html I could probably use html to make that look pretty and stuff, but I tend to think if you have to laboriously copy and paste html codes from older posts and FAQs you may as well stop pretending and admit to being computer-inept
Now back then I made a pledge to myself - that I would destroy the last shreds of the closet that bound me. Not to the point of loudly avowing my love of cock at the Westboro Baptist Church Gun and Flamethrower Display, certainly, but in situations where I avoid “social awkwardness” by hiding, glossing over or otherwise diverting from my homosexuality I have been fighting back the cowardice and made sure those closet doors are all the way open.
I am proud of me for that - because it was hard. It’s amazing how deep the instinct to hide, to lie, to deflect is ingrained. Even simple things like someone saying “Is your wife a lawyer?” and responding with “No, my husband/partner is a computer technician” takes an effort of conscious will to bite down on the automatic gender neutral or even female response.
But more than just fighting my own instincts, it’s shocking how much rougher it made my life at times. Obviously I got the odd “You’re GAY?! Curse you abominable excuse for a human being! I shall now judge you with nonsensical insults!” because, duh, you EXPECT them. Hey we’re ALL used to dealing with them and we can be (usually) confident that most people around us think they’re complete arseholes as well.
However there were some more general rough patches that caught me by surprise - it’s eye-opening how much basic homophobia constantly rubs against you - and how much more noticeable it is when you refuse to swim with the tide. Some things that have worn at me.
( Read more... )