tired just standing here
Feb. 28th, 2007 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmI had an unpleasant LJ communication yesterday that largely revolved around both myself and the other party not taking the time to make ourselves more than even passingly clear. And it's stuck with me since, not because of whatever unfairness I contributed to the drama, but because it really got under my skin that the conversation was even happening. Not the fucked up part, just I'm sick of hearing about it.
And what, pray tell, is it I'm sick of hearing about? Gay issues. And let's be clear, it's not that I want them to go away, and it's not that I don't appreciate that the current state of GLBT acceptance is better than I thought I'd see in my lifetime when I was 18. Rather, I am exhausted. Not by being an activist, and not by being politically aware. These are necessary things.
What I'm exhausted by is living in a world with so much noise about whether I'm human or not, diseased or not, evil or not, acceptable or not, hot or not, relevant or not, fit to be a parent or not, capable of having a family or not, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. And that noise is there every time I turn on the television, every time I visit the websites I work as a paid writer for, every time I want to check news on the web.
I am not, for the record, an insecure person about my nature. I never worried what it meant that I liked girls as well as boys. I've always had a certain naivete about it, even though I've had bottles thrown at me for who I've held hands with, sat in the emergency room with friends who were bashed in DC, had peers threaten to rape me to show me what I needed. I've never thought I was ill or broken or shameful for who and what fascinated me. My neuroses, like anyone's, are certainly legion, but they lie elsewhere.
I don't know if all queer people feel this way; I'm not trying to speak for them. I'm also not trying to say the bullshit I deal with is worse or more interesting than the bullshit people deal with for being anything other than white and able-bodied in this country either -- those situations have their own narratives. All I know is mine.
And mine is that you're goddamn right I'm defensive. Because I'm tired. And like walking home at 3 a.m. when my day has been too goddamn long and all I want is to go to sleep, the exhaustion this constant debate about my existence, as if it is hypothetical or a piece of furniture, provokes in me requires a certain vigilance. Without it, I run the risk of shrugging my shoulders and not bothering to say anything when my goodness, decency, patriotism, talent, relevance, desireability, compassion, humanity, sense of humour, intelligence, morality, ethics, and whatever else you want to list here is challenged because my heart isn't the exact same shape as someone else's.
News flash: they're like finger prints.
I am exhausted. I can't remember the last time I turned on a TV and didn't hear a debate or news story that came down to the simple matter of my, and a whole hell of a lot of other people's, worth on this sphere.
I have lots of queer friends who can laugh this stuff off. Oh, isn't it silly and sad that people think this way. More power to them; it's not one I possess.
I know a lot of you don't have to imagine where I'm coming from, whether because you're queer or because of other bullshit you have to deal with. But I sure the hell would appreciate it if people who didn't know what this was like took a second to try to imagine it. It's a really unbelieveably annoying way to have to live. I'm so grateful that my safety is so much less compromised for being queer today than it was ten years ago, but seriously, that there is even a debate about any of this shit is so insulting to me and so reinforces the degree to which equality just ain't there right now. If I have to hang around waiting to be told I'm equal, listening to people argue about whether I'm equal, it doesn't mean shit regardless of what I know to be true about myself. Because the world isn't listening to me, or even believing in me as a real, live, actual human being with anything to say about it.
So I can do the work all damn day long, but sometimes it's worth noting that I'm tired. Just standing here.
And what, pray tell, is it I'm sick of hearing about? Gay issues. And let's be clear, it's not that I want them to go away, and it's not that I don't appreciate that the current state of GLBT acceptance is better than I thought I'd see in my lifetime when I was 18. Rather, I am exhausted. Not by being an activist, and not by being politically aware. These are necessary things.
What I'm exhausted by is living in a world with so much noise about whether I'm human or not, diseased or not, evil or not, acceptable or not, hot or not, relevant or not, fit to be a parent or not, capable of having a family or not, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. And that noise is there every time I turn on the television, every time I visit the websites I work as a paid writer for, every time I want to check news on the web.
I am not, for the record, an insecure person about my nature. I never worried what it meant that I liked girls as well as boys. I've always had a certain naivete about it, even though I've had bottles thrown at me for who I've held hands with, sat in the emergency room with friends who were bashed in DC, had peers threaten to rape me to show me what I needed. I've never thought I was ill or broken or shameful for who and what fascinated me. My neuroses, like anyone's, are certainly legion, but they lie elsewhere.
I don't know if all queer people feel this way; I'm not trying to speak for them. I'm also not trying to say the bullshit I deal with is worse or more interesting than the bullshit people deal with for being anything other than white and able-bodied in this country either -- those situations have their own narratives. All I know is mine.
And mine is that you're goddamn right I'm defensive. Because I'm tired. And like walking home at 3 a.m. when my day has been too goddamn long and all I want is to go to sleep, the exhaustion this constant debate about my existence, as if it is hypothetical or a piece of furniture, provokes in me requires a certain vigilance. Without it, I run the risk of shrugging my shoulders and not bothering to say anything when my goodness, decency, patriotism, talent, relevance, desireability, compassion, humanity, sense of humour, intelligence, morality, ethics, and whatever else you want to list here is challenged because my heart isn't the exact same shape as someone else's.
News flash: they're like finger prints.
I am exhausted. I can't remember the last time I turned on a TV and didn't hear a debate or news story that came down to the simple matter of my, and a whole hell of a lot of other people's, worth on this sphere.
I have lots of queer friends who can laugh this stuff off. Oh, isn't it silly and sad that people think this way. More power to them; it's not one I possess.
I know a lot of you don't have to imagine where I'm coming from, whether because you're queer or because of other bullshit you have to deal with. But I sure the hell would appreciate it if people who didn't know what this was like took a second to try to imagine it. It's a really unbelieveably annoying way to have to live. I'm so grateful that my safety is so much less compromised for being queer today than it was ten years ago, but seriously, that there is even a debate about any of this shit is so insulting to me and so reinforces the degree to which equality just ain't there right now. If I have to hang around waiting to be told I'm equal, listening to people argue about whether I'm equal, it doesn't mean shit regardless of what I know to be true about myself. Because the world isn't listening to me, or even believing in me as a real, live, actual human being with anything to say about it.
So I can do the work all damn day long, but sometimes it's worth noting that I'm tired. Just standing here.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
?
Date: 2007-02-28 06:27 am (UTC)I grew up there, and I know it's changed from the '70s and '80s, but the Bay Area is really different and this kind of crap just isn't the same dealio out here. Even though I get frustrated by a lot of the things by, and the people living in, the Bay Area, this kind of problem is something I feel we don't have the same problems with. I know you don't want to leave, but you may have to chalk it up to something you'll deal with if you stay.
I say it all the time, but we were better off without mass media.
Isn't Harry Potter and all the movies you go to part of the mass mass media? If anything, I see you as someone very deeply invested in the mass media. You aren't telling us about the out-of-print books you had to get on abebooks, or the small press books you're into, and you usually don't need to hunt down films from speciality DVD companies.
Please,
I know this sounds like criticism, but you're one of the smartest, most articulate people on my friends list, and I am puzzled why you seem so invested in what I see as the mass media. And I can't understand why you haven't rejected it in favor of weirder, less well known, and - forgive me - what I think of as more intelligent, challenging fare.