Not repeating your behaviour
Using any power you have to prove you have changed (politicians making pretty speeches but not actually changing policy or votes? Homophobes playing the PR game)
No appeals for “a second chance” or “trust” you are owed neither
Not profiting from your apology or your gestures of redemption
It’s happened again. Well it’s never stopped happening. Tumblr, where common sense goes to die and fail goes to breed and thrive, had a rather reasonable post on what counts as allydom and what counts as the actions of a decent human being. And of course, we had a string of allies saying how “meaaaan” they were and they’re alienating people etc etc ad nauseum.
And then there’s Chris Kluwe’s rather awesome response to homophobic arseholery that should be embossed in gold. And what happened? While most have cheered, I’ve seen people gasping because of the swearing and disrespect. Really. I think his own words nicely sums that up. Now I could even see the point on “cockmonster” kinda, but swearing and disrespect? Seriously? Because the bigots bigotry wasn’t already rude and disrespectful?
And, of course, in response to be my criticism of the raging bigots who keep occupying the equality’s minister’s seat, I’ve been chided that I need to “calm down” and wait and “engage” with the nasty homophobic bigots otherwise how will we convince them to support us! Oh I am sabotaging us!
And I say fuck it. Yes I have been mean and nasty which means, apparently, a load of people are now going to spit their dummies out and no longer support GBLT equality.
Really I would question how much of an “ally” anyone is if they will decide that the entire movement of GBLT equality – or, indeed, any equality movement – is no longer worth their time or attention if one person who belongs to that group is unpleasant to them.
Even beyond unpleasant – even if I were a rapist, a murderer, a paedophile, a bad karaoke singer or someone who persistently knocks on your door of a Sunday morning to try and sell you something – it is still patently ridiculous, enormously arrogant and exceedingly selfish to dismiss an entire equality movement and an entire marginalised group because one of them isn’t a very nice person. Really, this is the bar you put on your support? This is the standard we have to meet to be worth of equality? Absolutely impeccable behaviour from all of us at all times?
This doesn’t sound like someone who cares over much about equality or justice to me.
But, beyond that, I think being all kinds of unpleasant is quite necessary to achieve true equality and to see who is actually allies.
See, I want a equality, I want justice and in that struggle I very much wants straight people to support me.
Full stop.
I don’t want a “but” there. I don’t want a “so long as” tacked on the end.
I don’t want people to support my rights – so long as I behave
I don’t want people to fight for my equality – so long as I’m nice and polite.
I don’t want my equality, my rights, my respect as a human being, contingent on my playing nice and following certain rules.
I don’t want to “engage” with people. I don’t want to have a dialogue.
I don’t want to have to convince people I am deserving of humanity.
I don’t want to BUY respect with praise and cookies and headpats.
I’m not asking for justice, I’m demanding it.
Equality is not a gift to be given, it is a debt that is owed.
In particular parents, my mother’s brother, his wife, their daughter, and their grandchildren who decided to stop around at MY house yesterday.
The door was locked, the door to MY house we might add. Yes, I know you have a key. That’s for emergencies. That’s for “we haven’t heard from Sparky for 8 days and we fear he may have fallen down the stairs dragging Beloved with him and they both hit their head” kind of emergency. That’s for “Sparky has locked himself out and needs help” emergency. That’s for “Sparky and Beloved have gone gallivanting and not fed the cat” emergency.
It’s not for “we tried to open the door and it was locked so we just unlocked it and went in without knocking” NOT!Emergency.
Look, I’m not going to say “you’re always welcome” because that’s ridiculous. We don’t say that in our family. It doesn’t need to be said, it‘s assumed. You don’t ring ahead, you don’t plan, you don’t look for an invite. Any one of us will happily show up on the doorstep of anyone else at a moment’s notice. But a knock would be nice. ESPECIALLY if the door is locked.
Yes, you walked in on us rather more than half naked (all I can say is thank gods you didn’t arrive 15 minutes later). This is my cue to be shocked, angry and, indeed, fly around in howler monkey outrage.
You? You do not get to be shocked and appalled. No no you don’t. Surprised? Yes, you can be surprised. Embarrassed? Oh yes you sure as hello can be embarrassed. Apologetic? Hell yeah we can have a double order of that!
Shocked and disbelieving? Not so much. Especially on the disbelieving. Honestly, you’re acting like you walked in on us feeding baby dragons or something. What was happening was not impossible, unbelievable or completely beyond the realm of anything you could imagine was possible. Or, at least, it shouldn’t have been.
When I moved in with Beloved, what, 7ish years ago now? (I’m not sure myself when the ‘uni room mates’ because ’room mates who started dating’ became ‘lovers who lived together’) I don’t know what you thought we were doing. Playing tiddly winks? Your gay son was living together with his gay room mate and we were dating and in love. For years. Astonishingly, part of that wonderful loving relationship included sex!
Nor can I imagine what you thought we were doing when we actually got married. I know you know, you were there. Remember the distinct obsession so many of you had with putting damn flowers everywhere (for the record, I still hate cut flowers. I do not understand why anyone would see something so beautiful and natural and decide to kill it and put it in a vase and watch it rot). You know this isn’t a platonic friendship. And while not every relationship is sexual, there have been more than enough hints over the years to make it clear that ours most certainly is.
See, I knew to respect you as sexual, adult beings when I was a teenager. I gave you space, I knew better than to walk in anywhere without announcing my presence. I never saw anything and I took pains not to do so – to respect your space and your life because (unusually considering the average teen’s reluctance to consider their parents having sex) I was aware of the activities you were probably doing. I was aware you needed your boundaries respected. I think it’s not to much to ask to be accorded the same respect in my own damn house.
I am the person who should be angry here. This level of shock and horror from you is unwarranted, ridiculously excessive and rather irritating. Please to be stopping now and do expect many guilt trips.
This piece originally appeared at Womanist Musings where Renee has very generously allowed my random musings to appear on her excellent blog
This is probably going to be less reasoned than my average post. Largely because it comes from a whole lot of anger that has roiled in me.
I am so very tired of being told how to be me. I am tired of being told how to be a man. I am tired of being told how to be gay. I am tired of being afraid of “doing it wrong” and I deeply regret the foolish things I’ve done in the past in an attempt to “conform” to some standard.
I am a man. All I need is what is in my head that tells me I am male. I am not any less of a man because I am gay. Yes I’m short and yes I’m slight. I’m not going to bulk up in the gym because it would look awful on me. My slight stature doesn’t make me less manly. I’m not going to cut my long hair to fit some narrow definition of what a man is supposed to be, because men don‘t have long hair.
I like to look good, though I eschew fashion labels, I’m not going to wear stained rags because it’s somehow more “manly” to look like a tramp. I’m not going to pretend interest in sport (well, any sport that doesn’t involve speedos anyway) because that’s what “real men” do. I’m not going to be fascinated by DIY or sports cars or power tools and I still think BBQs are a damned inefficient way of cooking. I will not feign interest in “manly” things to conform to how a man “should“ be.
I look back and regret the times I avoided cooking – because a man didn’t cook and if I cooked it would be proof of how gay men weren‘t real men. I regret the tedious hours I spent trying to garner the slightest interest in sports – because I feared failing as a man. I remember the endless doubt and shame about my clothes, about my appearance about my hobbies. I wouldn’t discuss my taste in music, even with close friends, for fear that my taste would reveal me to be less than a true man, that it would show that I was the homo, the poof, the queer, the fag.
I reject a ridiculously narrow standard of what it means to be a man. I reject that a man must meet these foolish, harmful standards. And when I don’t meet that standard, it’s not because I’m gay. It’s not because a gay man is less of a man. My “effeminate” or “less manly” behaviour or tastes most certainly does not somehow prove some trait about gay men everywhere. I am my own person and it is an absurdity to infer anything about other gay men by my actions.
I am a gay man. The fact I am a man solely attracted to other men, and that I identify as gay is enough to make me a gay man. I am not any less gay because I am not flamboyant enough. I am not closeting myself because I don’t wear glitter or rainbows or pink (pink? I look AWFUL in pink). I am not refusing to embrace my gayness by not wanting to wear drag. My monogamous life and preference for monogamy is not some kind of betrayal of what it means to be GBLT. It doesn’t make me a wanna-be heterosexual. My domestic partnership (gah I hate that ridiculous term – my MARRIAGE as it should be) doesn’t make me somehow not truly gay.
I am gay by all pertinent definition. Trying to force us into a horrendously narrow box of a series of connected stereotypes is damaging and insulting to all of us. We are more than this, we are greater than this – we run the full range of all things human. You can’t squeeze us into a tiny box – we don’t fit and you’ll hide so much of us – that which you don’t cut away to force us in.
I am a gay man. By definition I am doing it right – both being gay and being male. Because that is WHO I am. You can’t tell me someone else does it better, knows it better or that I am somehow doing it wrong. I can’t get being me wrong.
I don’t need instructions for being me.
And all being me tells you about… is me. No-one else. Just me.
I nearly forgot my annual valentines day rant! This is a good thing, it means I haven’t been assaulted by saccharine pink banners and cutesy heart and cherubs and all the rest of the eye abuse that assaults me this time of year.
Still, rant I shall! I hate Valentines – let me count the ways!
Firstly, even Hallowe’en has more actual sincerity of a holiday than this one. I think it’s on par with Mother’s/Father’s day in the running for “holiday most blatantly created by the greetings card industry to make you spend money.” Sure it had a history – but it’s a Hallmark Holiday. And florists and chocolatiers hike their prices to ridiculous degrees to take advantage of that
Secondly, it’s heteronormative as hell. The straightness oozes from this holiday and its depictions. For far too damn long it has been another big flagship of proper straight relationships that I am not part of. It’s only recently that gays, bis and lesbians have been given the nod – and even then that’s due to there being gold in them thar gays more than anything else.
Thirdly, the tubby baby with aerodynamically challenged wings has to be the WORST depiction of a love/sex/fertility deity in the history of the world. Seriously – I say yet again, if you’re going to use Eros/Cupid like this it’d be 100 times better for him to be some fine piece of prime man meat. Because Psyche didn’t wander round the world for no damn baby (and yes, Greeks and Romans portrayed him as a YOUTH but that WAS the depiction of gorgeous male beauty for many back then).
Fourthly – it’s meaningless. For the 10 thousandth time – there is absolutely NOTHING romantic about a mandatory gesture demanded by society. Giving gifts at this time isn’t a sign that you care or have remembered something important or great romance – it’s a sign that you are performing a societal obligation. It has no meaning because it’s demanded. Romance comes from doing something for someone because you care about them, because they matter to you. Not because society demands an overpriced card, some straggly garage flowers and some dramatically named chocolates in early February. Obligation is not romantic.
Of course we can all look forward to the real holiday – CHEAP CHOCOLATE DAY!!!!!!!!!
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