I spent Memorial Day weekend with C.S. and we went to go see the new X-Men movie. All I will say about the movie directly is that Brett Ratner needs to hide, because armies of comic book nerds will otherwise find him and eviscerate him alive.
In the current issue of the Advocate, the editor who I oftentimes find myself at odds with finally wrote about something upon which we agree. He complained that masses of immigrants could converge and protest to the point of national coverage and debate because they feel threatened, but you'd be hard pressed to find a similar mobilization among gay people when it comes to our rights.
I have written at length, and expressed my deep frustration with, the complacency of gay people when it comes to demanding our inalienable rights.
Growing up I read the X-Men comics and I always felt there was a strong parallel between them and myself. Not because I had psychic powers or could bend metal but because they had traits intrinsic to them that others violently hated and wanted to oppress. Because I, like the X-Men and other mutants, was hated simply because of something a part of myself that I had no control over.
If you had asked me at 12, after I'd come out to my parents in one of the most uncomfortable of ways and was enduring regular beatings from my evangelical parents whenever they got drunk or merely mad, if I would take a pill or a shot to not be gay, I would've told you yes under pretty much any circumstance.
I guess that's what the problem is when it comes to gay rights. Unlike being black or latino, within most respects it's easy to suppress being gay. Most of us are the Storms and Jean Greys and Kitty Prydes of the world, where to outward appearances we look just the same as everybody else. Excepting the Beasts and Nightcrawlers of homosexuality, most of us could hide being gay if we had to. And I think that the editor of the Advocate hit it rightly when he said that, without sufficient reason to be afraid, most of us couldn't be bothered to pretend otherwise at the risk of damaging ourselves.
We as a people and a subset of humanity aren't afraid to risk much for our rights. And that's why we are treated like shit in most places of the country. That's why we can't get married. That's why HIV+ people aren't allowed into our country, the land of the free, give us your tired, your poor.
I'm equally as guilty of it, in my own way. I hide being gay at every new job until I feel out my coworkers and then come out slowly, demurely. When I realize I'm swooshing down the street I get embarrassed at myself and correct my step, trying my best to not walk so fucking gay. I point out the same to my flamey friends, partly to tease, partly hoping no one notices. I try not to feel this way and part of it is just the inbred hatred I'm expected to have for myself and by proxy those who emulate these things that are a part of me. When I came out at my high school in the middle of bum fuck Louisiana I was criticized by the few other gay people who felt brave enough to do so, because they thought I was going to make things harder for them simply by admitting what everyone with eyes already knew.
We aren't expected to feel that we're people. Therefore we're happy living in little bubbles where we feel like we're safe, cos c'mon, who doesn't like gay people in New York City? And inside these bubbles we're content pointing and ridiculing the South and the faggots who wear tight ass jeans and glitter makeup. I'm just as guilty of it. I feel bad about it afterward but too often I don't stop myself in the moment.
So, to make another X-Men allusion, I feel more inclined to go with Magneto these days. I am bothered by gay "activists" who complain gay rights parades are bad PR, that we should make friends nicely and politely with the straight people in order to get treated like human beings. Under whose authority are the straight people qualified to grant out marriage and abortion rights? Why should I have to ask anybody to be treated like an equal?
I don't feel that I should anymore. I don't feel like I have to ask anymore. If Pat Roberts said tomorrow that God hates black people and they shouldn't be allowed to vote or get married or have children, can you imagine the kind of backlash he'd deal with? If Bush said that he felt marriage was between white people only, can you imagine what he'd deal with? Why is it that Howard Dean, chairman of the "liberal" party, can go on the 700 Club and say that the Democratic party is against gay marriage and it takes two weeks to show up on the Daily Show, meanwhile few gay people know anything about his remark. Why can't gay people get royally pissed when we're faced with these comments and worse? Why when someone says something mean about us on television all they get is a strongly-worded letter from GLAAD? Why is that our choice? I don't want activism by gala-affair anymore. That's clearly produced little in the way of results.
The reason that no one tries to say these things about black people, chinese people, the Jews isn't because the bigots are tolerant of them and not us. It's because the bigots are terrified of the uprising that they'll face if they did so. We have no one to police the media and the homophobes because we don't represent anything they feel they need to be afraid of. But I'm tired of it. Unlike Magento, I don't think that gay people are better than anybody else, but I do think we're equal.
It's time that gay people react to this covert oppression appropriately. It's time for civil disobedience. It's time to demand that the world respect us as people, because they aren't going to do so just because it's the nice thing to do. It's time that we start risking whatever it takes to be treated humanely. I'm fed up by those who are content to roll over and hide in their bubbles or, even worse, pretend to be straight to pass through unscathed at the harm of someone else who isn't as "straight acting."
If you had asked me at 12 if I'd take a cure for homosexuality so I could be normal, not hated, and treated like I was a person I would've said yes. It's taken me a lot of time and torment to reach the point now where I'd respond proudly that you could shove that cure up your ass. We shouldn't have to change ourselves because the lowest common denominator dislikes us. I'm tired of thinking that way. And I'm tired of being fed the complacent bullshit that our movement wants to preach.
30 May 2006 at 10:52 pm | 1 Comment » 
proselytizing
