So over coffee with Phil today I said that I didn't mind that Trish, a girl that we sometimes hang out with in larger groups, is rather conservative in her views. Phil looked monumentally unimpressed. "Well," I said, "At least she comes across as a smart person." And right as my mouth was forming the 'sma-' my brain went WAIT A SECOND! Remember the time she said homosexuals had misappropriated the rainbow?
It was during a class break when Melanie was telling me about how she saw fairy penguins on Phillip Island, except now we weren't allowed to call them FAIRY penguins anymore. We were laughing about how ridiculous it was, when Trish joined in and went, "Yeah, isn't that awful? Like when some people can just misappropriate a word or a symbol, like how rainbows have been hijacked by homosexuals?"
And to be fair, if it wasn't for gays, who have the unfortunate tendency to, oh, exist, there would be no need for gay slurs. Fairies would be no more than delightful mythical creatures, just as faggots would be logs of wood for burning other reprobates at the stake, and queer would only refer to a quaint, harmless Alice-in-Wonderland version of not-quite-right.
As for rainbows... when you consider the enormity of the homosexuals' theft of rainbows, what's a few millennia of oppression? Sure, even today in many societies being gay can get you beaten up, brutalized, imprisoned, killed. It can mean loss of employment, it can mean loss of housing, it can mean lack of agency. Where Trish comes from, it means you don't get to marry and have a family, you don't get to visit your partner when they're in the hospital, you don't get to serve in the military unless you hide who you are.
It sucks to be a gay person in Trish Universe. It sucks to grow up as a gay person - not just figuring out your desires, but forging an identity and negotiating a place in that world, and coming to terms with the fact that it is not going to be easy. Coming out can cost you your family and your friends, and you don't get a trial run or simulation to see how it will go. Suicide rates are much higher among gay teens: it is the number one cause of death among gay teenagers in America (number three for teenagers overall). Gay teens in the US are FOUR TIMES as likely to attempt suicide as straight ones.
BUT the gays took rainbows away! Now you can't have rainbows anywhere - not even in children'sfairy magical winged little person tales - without someone mistaking you for being an open-minded, non-judgmental, decent human being who believes in equal rights, civil rights, for everyone irrespective of their sexual orientation. Sure, the KKK gets to use the cross, but us homos using the rainbow as a symbol of inclusiveness and tolerance of difference gets this chick's panties in a bunch?
So I don't know why I would bother to continue to socialize with Trish. A part of me wanted to show her that we rainbow-toters aren't as bad as she thinks we are. Another part of me just wants intelligent debate, something from the other end of the political spectrum that challenges me and keeps me on my game. There's very little of that, in the real world or in the telly box*. But most of all, there's the very pragmatic, yet depressing knowledge that People Like Her will decide what People Like Us are permitted to have/do in our lives.
*If Fox represents the big bully that steals money from a blind man and then kicks him and runs away, CNN is the whiny coward who pretends not to see, and won't call the cops. If Hollywood's bigger names (and louder voices) fall over each other to condemn the justice system for catching up with an absconding child rapist, then about half the critics ruin it for the other half by conflating Polanski's horrific crime with the general 'immorality' of Tinseltown's liberal elite.
Sometimes I guess you just have a delayed epiphany about these things. I was sitting in a lecture between Andie and this guy, Adam or Max or something (straight guy, I happen to know), and the prof was showing us the Tom Barnett lecture video. Barnett's a pretty engaging and witty guy on stage, and there was plenty of laughter in the lecture theatre. He was talking about Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) getting caught and the three of us were mid-laugh when he said, "Good thing he didn't hide it up his ass, or we'd all be gay then."
And both Andie and Adam/Max groaned, simultaneously. For me, it was the most beautiful sound on the planet. The sting of the joke was taken out before it even sank in.
Thinking back to that moment, I know this much: I am tired of being anyone's token minority friend. I don't want to be the validation or exception to anyone's fuckwit stereotype. I don't want to have to hear dumbass blanket statements about sex, sexuality, race, religion, or ideology, followed up with, "Oh but not you, you're different." Because I'm not, and I don't take well to being told that I am. Because it's not that different from being asked, "So why are all you people like that?" ...And because, as long as there are Andies and Phils and Maxes and Adams around me, I know I don't have to put up with this shit, at least not from people I call my friends.
It was during a class break when Melanie was telling me about how she saw fairy penguins on Phillip Island, except now we weren't allowed to call them FAIRY penguins anymore. We were laughing about how ridiculous it was, when Trish joined in and went, "Yeah, isn't that awful? Like when some people can just misappropriate a word or a symbol, like how rainbows have been hijacked by homosexuals?"
And to be fair, if it wasn't for gays, who have the unfortunate tendency to, oh, exist, there would be no need for gay slurs. Fairies would be no more than delightful mythical creatures, just as faggots would be logs of wood for burning other reprobates at the stake, and queer would only refer to a quaint, harmless Alice-in-Wonderland version of not-quite-right.
As for rainbows... when you consider the enormity of the homosexuals' theft of rainbows, what's a few millennia of oppression? Sure, even today in many societies being gay can get you beaten up, brutalized, imprisoned, killed. It can mean loss of employment, it can mean loss of housing, it can mean lack of agency. Where Trish comes from, it means you don't get to marry and have a family, you don't get to visit your partner when they're in the hospital, you don't get to serve in the military unless you hide who you are.
It sucks to be a gay person in Trish Universe. It sucks to grow up as a gay person - not just figuring out your desires, but forging an identity and negotiating a place in that world, and coming to terms with the fact that it is not going to be easy. Coming out can cost you your family and your friends, and you don't get a trial run or simulation to see how it will go. Suicide rates are much higher among gay teens: it is the number one cause of death among gay teenagers in America (number three for teenagers overall). Gay teens in the US are FOUR TIMES as likely to attempt suicide as straight ones.
BUT the gays took rainbows away! Now you can't have rainbows anywhere - not even in children's
So I don't know why I would bother to continue to socialize with Trish. A part of me wanted to show her that we rainbow-toters aren't as bad as she thinks we are. Another part of me just wants intelligent debate, something from the other end of the political spectrum that challenges me and keeps me on my game. There's very little of that, in the real world or in the telly box*. But most of all, there's the very pragmatic, yet depressing knowledge that People Like Her will decide what People Like Us are permitted to have/do in our lives.
*If Fox represents the big bully that steals money from a blind man and then kicks him and runs away, CNN is the whiny coward who pretends not to see, and won't call the cops. If Hollywood's bigger names (and louder voices) fall over each other to condemn the justice system for catching up with an absconding child rapist, then about half the critics ruin it for the other half by conflating Polanski's horrific crime with the general 'immorality' of Tinseltown's liberal elite.
Sometimes I guess you just have a delayed epiphany about these things. I was sitting in a lecture between Andie and this guy, Adam or Max or something (straight guy, I happen to know), and the prof was showing us the Tom Barnett lecture video. Barnett's a pretty engaging and witty guy on stage, and there was plenty of laughter in the lecture theatre. He was talking about Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) getting caught and the three of us were mid-laugh when he said, "Good thing he didn't hide it up his ass, or we'd all be gay then."
And both Andie and Adam/Max groaned, simultaneously. For me, it was the most beautiful sound on the planet. The sting of the joke was taken out before it even sank in.
Thinking back to that moment, I know this much: I am tired of being anyone's token minority friend. I don't want to be the validation or exception to anyone's fuckwit stereotype. I don't want to have to hear dumbass blanket statements about sex, sexuality, race, religion, or ideology, followed up with, "Oh but not you, you're different." Because I'm not, and I don't take well to being told that I am. Because it's not that different from being asked, "So why are all you people like that?" ...And because, as long as there are Andies and Phils and Maxes and Adams around me, I know I don't have to put up with this shit, at least not from people I call my friends.
