More preaching to the choir. But hey, look over here at funny!
Also, look at the t-shirts that Wife designed for straight allies in the support of equality!
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I’m tired.
I’m tired of being mad about my one all-encompassing issue. I’m tired of playing the gay victim. I’m tired of shouting about injustices when it doesn’t seem to make a lick of difference, and I grow weary of giving the benefit of the doubt to politicians.
I’m tired of caring. I wish I could stop, but I am compelled.
One of my male gay friends told me about an encounter he had recently on the streets of San Francisco: He wouldn’t give the junkie who lives on his corner a quarter, and so the junkie got upset and started yelling out gay slurs. My friend stood up to him, getting close and daring the junkie to do something: To back up his words with any action. The other guy backed down.
I asked my friend if he was scared. I asked if he thought it was worth the possibility of getting hurt to prove a guy wrong who’s clearly down on his luck. I asked if he should instead just feel sorry for the guy with a drug problem who probably lives on the streets.
He said, “Look. When I was in high school, I got jumped and beaten up so badly that I ended up in the hospital because I’m gay. I didn’t even know I was gay yet, but other people figured it out and thought I should be punished for it. I’ve made a promise to myself that I will never let someone mis-treat me because of my sexuality when I can do something about it.”
It’s always about context. We all have something that drives us.
I don’t look like I’m married to a woman. I don’t dress in a classically lesbian fashion, and my hair is shoulder-length all over, not just in the back. I’m able to pass as straight when it serves me, and it has. When I’ve been in situations in which strangers expressed negative opinions of homosexuals, there are times I’ve stayed silent if by myself. When people I didn’t know complimented me and told me my husband is a lucky man, I did not correct them. Outside of my close friends, I avoided the word marriage in reference to my relationship with Wife because even though I considered myself married, I knew it was a hot topic. I did these things because I was afraid for my safety, yes, but also, I didn’t want to rock the boat.
I didn’t want to offend.
I can’t pinpoint the moment I decided I’d had enough. When I read of yet another suicide of a gay teenager in a religious household or a comment on how gay people’s relationships aren’t valid because their “parts” don’t fit together (and oh but they do). Perhaps it was the girl from high school who told me that maybe I didn’t choose my sexuality, but I sure am choosing to act on it. And then she wanted to make sure that we could still be friends.
I’ve had enough, and I refuse to stop, and I refuse to shut up.
As some sort of perverse self-punishment, I read the comments on articles about gay protests. (This, by the way, just shows that I could never, ever be famous because I would be unable to stop reading the press about myself.) There’s a common theme to the comments: People wish that the gay population would stop whining. We should be content with the progress we’ve made so far. We should take our domestic partnerships and smile. If we’d only stop pushing our agenda (the oh-so-famous gay agenda), maybe people would like us more and want to give us more rights….After all, don’t you draw more flies with honey?
My question is: Who in the hell WANTS the flies?
As annoying as it is to the world and to ourselves, it turns out that complaining seems to be one of the most effective tools we have, closely following visibility of ourselves and our supporters.
I’m just so tired.
