This short article appeared in Saturday's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/16/really-thinking-gay-teenager (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/16/really-thinking-gay-teenager)
Excert:
QuoteThe flamboyant minority of gay people don't make it any easier, either; they're the ones you see on TV and who make homosexuality appear something trivial, effeminate and optional. The reality for a lot of young gay people is radically different. The silent majority are straight-talking and straight-acting, but gay.
This has gotten me thinking. We are weighed down by stereotypes, in every aspect of life. The image is seemingly, as important as the individual.
The gay lobby has an obscession with comming out. Why? Why should any of us feel compelled to tell the world about those aspects of our lives that have nothing to do with the situation in hand.
Oh wait, perhaps I'm wrong here. Perhaps I should come out of the closet. OK. I'm going to come out of the closet now and tell the world something abiut myself. I....., yes, ... I am, ... actually, a qualified and licience electrician.
Now everyone, reading this in various parts of the world, don't you feel better, knowing that, in your midst, there is someone who, I'll take a breath, is an, .... electrician? Yes, and what's more, I'm proud of being what I am. I've no shame. I'm a sparky. Yeah.
Utter nonsense.
I'm thinking about that video of Nikki Araguz where she was interviewed in an office. It was posted recently in this section.
Looking at Mrs. Araguz, I defy anyone to say that she is anything other than 100% woman. I defy anyone to say that her medical history has any significant differences from any other woman.
Her calm dignity, her respectable, socially appropriate demeanor in the face of a barrage of insulting and highly personal attacks is admirable and exemplary.
It seems to me that this is a significant part of the reason so many gay activists are ignoring transgendered people. For the gay activist, it's all about being flamboyant, out and proud, in your face, inverted shame.
We are the felow travelers, the confused weidros who can't quite jump on the gay bandwaggon. Who can't face their gayness, so we try to make out that we are really the opposite sex, in an effort to make our gayness respectable.
Except, we're not. We are people who have a need to express ourselves in the gender, opposite from our genetics.
I have no illusions about my physical limitations. I know, after SRS, I can never become pregnant.
I don't want to parade myself on some party float, like a defiant clown, being dragged to the social guilotine. I'm not interested in going to gay parties, picking up the first man I happend to bump into. I really don't want to be identified as the trans, the gay, the one with false tits. The one who's intersting because, you know what they use to be, don't you?
I just want to take my place in society. If my personal life is relevant to someone then fine, I will tell them. But whose business is it who I sleep with, what my body looks like or what sort of clothes I wear?
My role model is Nikki Araguz.
Ask the average man or woman, in the street, what they have between their legs and the result is likely to be a punch in the nose.
Yet somehow, what I have or not, is treated like an election result.
Sorry, but my private life is no-body's business.
An electrician? :icon_yikes: OMG ??? I am shocked.
I could not agree more. I am me, period. what is down there is no ones business but mine and at times my doctor.
The focus on community is the reason so many are pushed to out themselves. Focus on the many and the long term result rather then the single man or woman. It is true that the more visible gay and transgendered individuals are the more accepting the average man or woman will be of them. Most people I talk to claim not to know anyone who is queer in any way at all. The realization that people outside of the norm exist and are productive and friendly and not some creature crawling up out of the swamp is the best way to make social change. Otherwise it is distant and untouchable to most people so they see no reason to reorientate their thinking.
Just an another opinion I wanted to put out there.