I’m back in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People again, and I just gotta comment on his description of the “Principle-Centered” view of enemies:
No real perceived "enemies"; just people with different paradigms and agendas to be understood and cared about
I mean, like, ok, I get that my rival is not my enemy, but what about the person who actively wants to harm/kill people out of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. Like are you telling me that I can just have a laissez-faire attitude about the second coming of Hitler in my *Principle-Centered* life because hey, he’s not an enemy, he’s just a misunderstood chap with a different paradigm that I should care about? WTF Stephen Covey (RIP), I know you were a privileged white guy who hung out with Corporate Executives, but seriously.
You know what I care about, I care about people not dying and suffering.
Decades ago when I was a kid, I asked my father what the difference was between sex and gender. I will never forget what he said: that sex was what was in your pants and gender was what you presented to the world. I don't really think he’s entirely right, but he’s also not entirely wrong. Contemporary gender/trans theory argues that making a distinction between sex and gender is not terribly useful since they’re both artificial constructs, and can in fact be quite harmful, because it gives some people an opening for discrimination based not on flimsy social norms but on “Science!" And while, yes, they are both artificial constructs, so are politics, money, racism, class systems, and many many other concepts. And much as we’d like to ignore them away, that doesn’t work.
The concept of sex is that there is a clear demarcation of some organisms having one kind of reproductive cells, and the others having a different kind of reproductive cells and that life begins with the bringing together of those two types of compatible cells. Sex seems to me more grounded in agriculture and animal husbandry than in the monitoring and enforcing of social structures. To those of you who will argue that sex and gender are the same thing, answer me this: when was the last time you inspected someone’s reproductive capacity before addressing them as “Sir” or “Ma’am”? There are lots and lots of other questions we could ask as well, but for a moment, let’s imagine that you are a heteronormative, cisgender, non-intersex man. Sadly, you develop penile cancer and it’s spread to your testicles as well. You have surgery to remove the cancer, and in the process you lose your genitalia. Are you still a man? If not, are you a woman? Would you suddenly go out and buy a bunch of skirts and dresses to wear? Would you suddenly develop a desire to be treated like a lady? Would losing your genitals completely change your gender? My guess is that it wouldn’t. You would still be you. Sure, there would probably be a psychological impact of losing a part of your body, especially if you had wanted and never had biological children. But I doubt that it would fundamentally reverse a lifetime of social conditioning.
So is that what gender is? Is gender merely a lifetime of social conditioning? Are we our assigned genders because society at large decided it's so and enforced it throughout our lifetime? In some ways I think that’s the fantasy for a lot of, let’s just say, a very *particular* type of “feminist”. That if we could just erase and rewrite thousands of years of social protocols, then we’d all be grand and we could forget this whole gender thing ever happened. Let’s just see how long that takes you to accomplish. I’ll wait. Can you honestly expect any of us to behave as if this isn’t the reality that we all live in? You think if I just ignore the misogyny it’ll go away? If we just pretend that we live in a genderless society, then there won’t be any more trans people or gay people and therefore no more transphobia or homophobia? Just because gender is a social construct, doesn’t mean it isn’t real, it just means it isn’t objective.
So, if gender is a social construct, and social conditioning is what produces gender, then what about those of us who turned out differently, despite our family’s and society at large’s best efforts to enforce that gender norm? My best guess is that sex is not gender, and that neither one is cleanly and precisely one specific thing. Sex isn’t a single trait, it’s a complex system, which is why biologists talk about primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Gender isn’t a single thing either. Gender is made up of the way other people treat us, as well as how we see ourselves, as well as what kind of a performance we’re putting on for the rest of the world, as well as how we desire to interact with that world, as well as how we’d like to be treated. It just happens that there’s an overall perception that sex and gender are strongly correlated, meaning that society at large believes that, statistically speaking, most people with “female” sex also have a “female” gender, and most people who have a “male" sex, have a “male” gender. That’s it, just a strong correlation. Just remember Science 101: correlation is not causation, meaning that it’s not necessarily our reproductive systems that dictate our genders.
Growing up I was always too boyish to be a girl, but too girly to be a boy. I didn’t, and still don’t, fit in either category cleanly. Some of us don’t fit in the “correct” category at all. It’s not like we came up with these rules, we’re just trying the best we can to survive them.
The little understood concept of interdependence appears to many to smack of dependence, and therefore, we find people, often for selfish reasons, leaving their marriages, abandoning their children, and forsaking all kinds of social responsibility--all in the name of independence.
Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
I recently finished reading the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I have a lot of thoughts about the book, many if not most of them are not at all flattering to the author, but the basis of his philosophy has merit. What is this essentialism? Less, but better: the idea is that you can do more with less, because by decluttering your life of the nonessential, you are allowing yourself to focus clearly on what really matters, and therefore accomplish more and/or at a higher quality.
Over the last few years I’ve been tangentially involved with the running of a 501(c)(3) conference that celebrates diversity in gender, sexuality, and relationship styles. Basically it’s an LGBTQIAP, polyamory, and kink conference. It was run by a group of people who are really enthusiastic about all of these identities and particularly in the areas of overlap. The planning committee is primarily bi/pan with somewhere around a third to half of the members being transgender, and almost everyone involved is kinky and poly in some form or another.
The problem is that the group is also a bunch of people who can’t say no. The current president of the board is a trained improvisor (Yes! And…). Like many activists, these people haven’t met a cause they don’t want to support, which is truly great, and I’m not trying to say that there are bad causes, but if you want to get anything done, you have to pick a place to focus. The folks in the group who have the most power within the organization, often use their veteran status as a way of enforcing their own ideals, however over the lifetime of the conference, all of these same people have continued to say yes to more and more outside obligations, and most have formed very complex poly families and started having children. The people in charge of the organization continue to claim that this is a priority for them, while continually shoving it to the back burner. All the while a new group of members who have fewer obligations and more energy and focus are blocked from getting anything done because the veterans won’t let go of the reigns. As a result the organization is failing. They have had to skip and delay multiple conferences over the last 6 years and it’s looking very unlikely that a conference will happen this year either.
Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with being passionate about many topics. And there’s nothing terrible about having a rich and fulfilling home life involving partners and kids. But we have to be honest and realistic about our priority. Notice I didn’t say priorities plural. You can accomplish a great many things in your life, but only if you focus on one thing at a time, and be more discerning about what projects you’re willing to take on. It runs counter to our gut sense that more is better. We don’t want to miss an opportunity, but what good is an opportunity if you completely drop the ball? Saying that you care deeply about a project and that you don’t want to see it die fails to ring true if you prioritize almost everything else in your life ahead of that same project. You don’t have to do it all. You can focus on cause A this month and cause B next month, or this year and next year. But trying to focus on everything all of the time will inevitably result in burnout and failure.
I’m writing this today because unless you’ve been raped or sexually assaulted, the ‘why' is purely hypothetical. Survivors of sexual assault don’t often explicitly talk about why it’s bad because it’s so overwhelmingly visceral it’s hard to wrap your head around. Because even among the enlightened, liberal, feminist, sex-positive, consent-teaching progressives that I know who aren’t also survivors, almost none of them understand why, just give lip-service that it is and then go on their way.
There is a tacit belief that certain types of rape are worse than others: sodomy is worse than vaginal, violent is worse than non-violent, that serial rapists are worse than garden-variety rapists, that visible wounds are worse than psychological ones, and that penetrative assault is worse than non-penetrative. I once heard a young man say that the only people who could *really* be raped were men because that was what vaginas were for anyway.
Rape is bad because it takes away personal agency. That sounds really vague, so let me make it clear. Rape happens when one person takes away the free will and bodily autonomy of another person and forces (even “merely” with coercion) them to do something they don’t want to do, something so invasive that it strips away their personal sense of identity and humanity. Does it even matter if you were asked for consent if the choice was never really yours in the first place? Popular media would have us believe that the rape victim “feels dirty” and maybe many of us do. There’s a lot of cultural pressures telling us that sex is dirty, so it makes sense, but that’s not the only or worst psychological damage that survivors face. PTSD symptoms happen because of an overwhelming sense that at any time, anywhere, someone could do anything to us or force us to do things we don’t want to do. Our personal experience has taught us this. We have no assurance of control over our own bodies. Do you know what that makes us? It makes us objects — non-people — not human. Imagine having everything in your life that is good, everything in your life that makes you you stripped away in an instant. What are you? What’s left? You know who else this happens to? Soldiers. Prisoners of war, the soldiers who are forced to kill other human beings and later wind up questioning their own humanity, and people who grow up in war-torn regions face the same psychological trauma as victims of sexual trauma.
The first chapter of Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery is devoted to the western history of PTSD. Originally in women, it was diagnosed as “hysteria” and there were some fantastical explanations thrown around by white male psychiatric professionals about what caused it because they were blind to the domestic violence around them. It didn’t affect them, or more likely, it only affected them positively. Then soldiers came back from the World War I displaying the symptoms of hysteria, but that was a women’s disease, so they had to give it a different name: Shell Shock. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the reality that PTSD was common to survivors of battle, sexual assault, and domestic violence. It is an ongoing struggle to get society at large to admit that sexual violence is a problem, because the very act of admitting it is inconvenient to the status quo.
It should not be taken as evidence that people who aren’t publicly displaying signs of PTSD after a traumatic event are liars and fakes. Human beings have an amazing capacity to push down things they don’t want to deal with and pretend that everything is ok. We can even trick ourselves into believing it for a little while, but it always resurfaces eventually. Psychological treatment is the only way through it, and it can’t be forced or rushed, it has to happen in its own time. Unfortunately, until then, and sometimes even after successful treatment, this subconscious niggling that you aren’t human sticks with you and finds its way to the surface in a variety of ways. When we can’t manage to do what we want, or do it well, we feel broken. Then we’re not just an object, we’re a broken object. We do things like call ourselves “literal garbage” on social media. We overcompensate by trying to be perfect, to control every little thing around us. We develop eating disorders in an attempt to regain control of our bodies. We feel like the whole world sees us differently, that revealing our survivorship gives the entire world around us the confirmation of our non-human status, and if we can’t forget it or get past it, how will they?
The deletion of personal agency and bodily autonomy trumps just about any other effect of sexual trauma. If we have scars, then we carry with us physical reminders of the psychological trauma. If we don’t have scars we miss them, because we feel invalidated in our perception of that very same trauma. The specific forms that PTSD takes are not determined by your arbitrary beliefs about what kind of sexual abuse we faced: whether the perpetrator was a repeat offender, whether they were a stranger to us, or whether or not they pointed a literal gun at our heads. The psychological trauma is determined by our perceptions of the incident, the life we experienced up to that point, our childhood up-bringing, and the way that we perceive our experience in relation to society as a whole. They are internal factors that can’t be properly measured by anyone else. Which is why you don’t get to tell me that my assaults weren’t as bad, or that they were so much worse than someone else’s. You haven’t been inside my head.
Sexual assault survivors are not the only ones who have had personal agency and bodily autonomy taken from us. African Americans who are assaulted by the police have too. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that POC are more likely to be raped in their lifetime. Sexual assault is most often a crime of opportunity; it preys on the disenfranchised and vulnerable. LGBT folks who are locked up, tortured, and told to “pray away the gay” have had their agency and autonomy taken away. As have trans people who are told that they can’t get medical help, or be recognized for who they are because they don’t meet an outdated view of gender. Not to mention the fact that LGBT folks are also more likely to be sexually assaulted, including “corrective rape". The demographic group that is most likely to experience sexual assault in America are Native/Indigenous people. I don’t think it’s a surprise given how recently they received recognition as citizens (1924), which isn’t a big leap from not being seen as human at all. It’s not okay. None of this is okay or acceptable.
P.S. I am not a psych professional. I believe that my personal lived trauma experience, my research in trying to wrap my own head around it, my experience in therapy, and my years of sharing stories with other survivors gives me the right to speak about our experiences. But everyone is unique and your experience may vary. I recommend Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman M.D. if you’re interested in learning more.
Say it for the little things, even the things you think “they should do anyway”. It’s a little thing and it makes a huge difference. If they don’t already say thank you to you, let them know you like hearing it too.
Not to get too kumbaya on ya, but it’s one of those little things that when it’s missing can really hurt a relationship long term. Just be sincere about it.
While I wasn’t technically homeless at 15, my mother had disowned me. I didn’t exist in her eyes because she didn’t approve of my sexuality. So from around the age of 15 I was financially responsible for myself. I was lucky and privileged that I was able to stay in school and get merit-based financial aid for college. I only had to work one job at a time through college. Part of this privilege had to do with the fact that I am white. Part of it had to do with coming from a relatively well-off family, so I had resources already in my possession that I was able to use even after being cut off from my family: reasonably nice clothing, school supplies, etc. Coming from a middle-class family also meant that if I did not disclose my situation to people, they had no idea that my home life wasn’t exactly like theirs. Here are some things I learned:
First and foremost: there are people out there who will love you just the way you are. You may not know them right now, but believe me, they do exist.
Never turn down free food, especially veggies because they’re hard/expensive to get otherwise. To this day I get super excited when someone offers me the zucchini overflow from their garden. Get to know where there are exceptional free condiments, like peanut butter and jelly packets, available in your area. In my case it was a bagel cart with a self-serve fixings area.
If you act with confidence and self-posession, people won’t question your right to be there and take up space. White privilege definitely plays a role here, but I think it’s still an important thing for everyone to know and do.
If you can blend in, libraries and universities are great places for shelter and resources. Student Centers have a great many nooks, crannies, and couches to nap on if you don’t have a place to sleep at night, just make sure you look like you belong. If you must eat in a library, move someplace inconspicuous so you won’t get kicked out. There was a certain area of the stacks in my public library that was less frequented, and I would go there if I had something to eat. And while you’re there, read and learn something useful. Teach yourself some skills that will help you get into a better situation.
It’s ok to be shielded or even deceptive about who you are for the sake of survival. This includes not only what you say and how you say it, but also how you dress and act. Think of it as a role or persona that you are putting on. The world may not be open-minded enough for you as you are, and as long as it’s not seriously hurting anyone, it’s ok to dress and act a certain way so that you stay safe and don’t get harassed for calling attention to yourself.
Don’t spend a single penny that you don’t have to. Make it a game to see just how much you can do without. Find other ways of doing what you need to do, or getting what you need to have, or just simply go without it.
Don’t make mistakes that will cost you more in the long run. Not paying bills and fines is really tempting in the moment, but unless you know for a fact that it won’t follow you, you should always pay them if you can, because they’ll just come back to bite you in the ass. Seriously, the money-collectors have heard all of the lies and played all of the games, and they’re really good at compounding interest, fees, and penalties. Likewise, don’t get yourself into trouble. You may need to do some illegal things to survive, but don’t take foolish risks and whatever you do *don’t get caught*. You can’t afford to have a record or a reputation.
Don’t automatically apply for the lowest paying job. If you have marketable skills, then use them. My first girlfriend in college settled for the bottom of the barrel when it came to jobs. She ended up working three jobs at the same time, for bosses who treated her like shit, just because she didn’t think she’d get anything better. She figured it was just faster and easier to take the shitty jobs that no one else wanted. It’s a good fall-back plan for when you’re desperate, but if you set your sights on the bottom of the pile, you’ll never climb any higher.
My best paying jobs usually came through temp agencies. If you can find one with a lot of clients, and you can prove yourself invaluable, then they’ll keep finding you work. If you really hustle, the jobs will get better and better. There will probably be a delay in getting your first job, but it will be worth your patience, since these jobs usually pay higher from the get go. Unfortunately getting these jobs usually involves looking the part: see #5 above. Imagine their ideal candidate: what they would wear, how they would talk, move, act, etc. They want someone who *looks like* a known quantity. Make yourself a chameleon, but do it with clothing and resources that you already have access to, so you’re not spending any money. You can start being yourself later, once they know what you’re capable of, just knock their socks off with your performance level first. The advantage to temp jobs is that the employers have very little to lose and so the entry-bar is usually set lower since they figure they can just end your contract if you don’t work out for them.
Make friends with people who have a similar body shape/size and much bigger wardrobes. Borrow clothes in exchange for services you can provide, like helping with their homework, chores around their house/home, transportation if you have access, or just be really nice, kind, and dependable if they’re the charitable sort anyway. These sorts of folks often gladly give you their cast-offs, which are usually in decent shape. The same goes for lots of other resources: tech gear, tools, etc. To this day I’m often the poorest person in a group of friends. I usually offer free labor when one of them needs to get a project done (just make sure that they know you’re the sort of person who can be called when the basement is flooded, etc.) and in return they’re usually more than happy to let me borrow their tools when I need them.
Don’t be a mooch. Be as generous with your resources as you can be and in return people will be generous with you. I feel like wealthier liberals will often be more charitable out of guilt if they see someone who has less being more charitable than they are.
Make friends with hoarders. It might be surprising, but often hoarders are just looking for a good home for their collected items. There are lots of people who hoard because they don’t want perfectly good stuff to go to waste, and often they’ll feel relieved/happy if they can provide for someone in need. I’ve found this especially true of middle-aged and older women. I had one coworker who tried to give me all sorts of things: clothes, shoes, etc. She not only hoarded her own stuff, but she would frequent flea markets and yard sales looking for stuff that might be useful to someone some day.
Your best free resource is your ability to listen and understand people. Not only will it help you figure out how to blend in and what people might want from you in exchange for what you need, but often having someone just listening to what they have to say is enough by itself. It can be really rare to find someone who is genuinely listening and interested. It’s something everyone craves, but rarely happens in real life. Sometimes listening can be the key to generous friendships, just don’t fake it, because savvy people will be able to smell that. It’ll also help you do your job better, no matter what that job actually is.
Train yourself to think 5 steps ahead. Practice thinking about what options and choices will remain, or present themselves to you, depending on the choices you make today. Do this with everything. Practice doing this backwards, too. What are your ultimate goals/needs/desires? What is required to meet or fulfill them? How do you get there from here? Then remember and do it, even if you have to write it down to remember.
It will be ok. For now, your job is just to survive, worry about the rest later.
Polyamory: Feeling Single in my Poly Marriage and Choosing Monogamy
First, when I say I’m feeling single in my poly marriage, I’m not talking about feeling like my spouse is neglecting me. I don’t feel that way at all. Yes, he’s super busy with work these days, but I don’t feel neglected. What I’m talking about is the feeling I had when my other recent relationship ended last year, and I suddenly felt single, even though I’m married, because my marriage relationship is such an intrinsic part of my existence that it almost doesn’t even register as a relationship.
And I’m not talking about taking your partner for granted either. What I’m talking about is the connection so deeply profound in its strength, dependability, comfort, lightness, and humor that the edges of where he ends and I begin blur into one another. It’s this sense that he is an extension of me, so being alone together is like being alone with myself. Since the breakup I have developed an even greater appreciation for what I have in this marriage. Of course it’s not perfect, but it’s the closest I’ve ever had, and realizing this has made me appreciate it all the more. It would be so easy to take this for granted; perhaps if we weren’t on this poly journey, I wouldn’t have gained this perspective and I would be taking it for granted, or griping about his little faults the way that so many of my monogamously partnered friends do.
I love being single. What I love about being single is much of what actually drew me into polyamory. There’s this sense that all options are open. Every interaction with a new human being could lead to *any* kind of relationship. It’s not all about sex. Most of the time it’s not remotely about sex. It’s about the spark between two creative brains. It’s about meeting another human being you don’t know very well yet and not trying to limit that interaction to a smaller subset of acceptable interactions, but just allowing the relationship to become what it wants to be organically.
And yet, I have temporarily decided to step back into monogamy. I’m not expecting him to be monogamous, but I’ve decided to shut the door to the possibility of pursuing another relationship with someone else. I’m not even leaving the door cracked for casual dating. This was a really tough decision for me to come to, because I *love* dating. I love going out and doing things and I love to do those things with a variety of interesting people. So why stop now? I’ve realized that I am very prone to falling in “like” with people, which can often lead to falling in “love” with people. It’s not the same kind of love that I have with my spouse, it’s sort of a euphoria I get when I’m spending a lot of time with someone I share a lot of common views and interests with and we’re having a really great time and doing a lot of fun and interesting things. It’s not really love, it’s this proximity thing, like a contact high. It’s fabulous, possibly the best feeling in the world. And don’t get me wrong, I want to experience it again—I hope to fill my life with it—someday. But right now I can’t really afford the distraction. Right now I’m focusing on my professional development, which had somewhat lapsed of late. That drawn out, protracted breakup made it impossible for me to focus on my goals and what I need to do to achieve them, and I will achieve them. But I’m just too damned distractible when there are wonderful, interesting people in my life.
Looking for opinions and education here. Not an argument.
I identify as nonbinary. And I also identify as pansexual. What are your thoughts on someone like me using the terms trans and gay in my every day life. For example, “I identify as nonbinary, which is under the trans umbrella”. And when I see an attractive person “Holy shit I’m gay”.
I ask this for a few reasons. One is that I don’t wish to offend anyone. And the other is because I have been told by a few people recently that there’s “no such thing as a trans umbrella” either you’re 100% trans or your just something else (example: not trans, nonbinary or genderfluid). Also I have been told that the term gay is offensive unless I solely experience same gender or sex attraction. I’m just conflicted is all. These terms make me feel comfortable and they aren’t being used in shitty ways. I’m using them in a self identifying manner.
Also questioning, can someone of my status reclaim the f slur. I really just want to know these things. Throw some polite education my way, please and thank you.
There absolutely is a trans umbrella. I'm genderfluid and identify as bisexual even though my orientation is actually a bit more broad. I generally don't use gay to describe myself simply because it's not accurate and contributes to bi erasure. However, I think there is a case that can be made, that if people can reasonably use gay to refer to a same sex relationship, even if both people in that relationship aren't actually gay (and let's face it, this happens to bi/pan people all the time), then you could reasonably argue the use of gay when it pertains to your own feelings or behaviors. In a casual context, this seems fine. Another factor is that the general population uses gay and LGBT interchangeably, even when they're not referring to the G in LGBT specifically, to say that other people get to use it to label you, but you can't use it to label yourself is hypocritical.
As far as the f-slur goes, it's not one I've ever been comfortable with. I'd say it's one of the ones to be cautious about. At least where and when I grew up it was one of the worst words someone could call you, but maybe the time and place you're at is different. I guess in general it's not a word I'd use around people I don't know well, unless I were using it for a very specific and strong point in a non-targeted-at-another-person kind of way.
In general, I think as I get older (in my late 30s now), it becomes more and more clear that things are not that black and white, lines are not that cleanly drawn, and language and culture are an ever evolving and moving target, one in which we all have a say in how it evolves. So it doesn't matter what any one person feels, it's what the majority ends up agreeing upon in the end that determines history. But even then, opinions can change overnight with the right argument or the right voice speaking it.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Sounds good right? The number one problem with the golden rule is that it is based around the assumption that you and I are the same. When I was working at the hospital, one of the tenets of the “diversity awareness” training was to treat others as *they* would want to be treated. From a cultural standpoint in a hospital setting this makes sense. People from a culture where touch is expected might feel slighted if the hospital personnel around them are stand-offish, on the other hand folks from a no-touch culture may be really uncomfortable if the staff around them keep laying hands on their arms, shoulders, etc, even if those gestures are well intentioned. The golden rule was created at a time when people didn’t stray too far from home and it was reasonable to expect that the people around you were steeped in the same cultural traditions that you were. However, that’s not the way we live today.
Every human being deserves respect and compassion, right? So how could those go wrong? Well, what makes you feel respected? What feels compassionate to you? Those questions probably have different answers for everyone. Therein lies the rub.
Even outside of cultural differences, you an I are not the same person, and we generally don’t have the same life experiences behind us informing our human interactions. And whether it’s nature or nurture, we all tend to have different “love languages” and it would stand to reason that the opposite would be true, that we all have different things that cause us offense or even harm.
But probably the biggest piece of crap reality about the golden rule is the built-in assumption that if you’re nice to other people, then they’ll be nice to you. There are some people who will never treat you the way *they* want to be treated much less the way *you* want to be treated. (*cough*Drumpf*cough*) I think it’s awesome to be good and kind to people, but don’t make the mistake of believing that treating others as you would want to be treated means that they’ll return the favor. Constant capitulations to other people’s wants/needs/etc. may just make you a doormat. Not that I would ever advocate being the jerk to avoid ever being taken advantage of, but we need to stop this myth that everyone is good at heart, even if it’s deep down inside. They may be, if only in the tiniest cinder of their soul, but you’re not going to magically make them realize that by being overly nice or accommodating. I’ve dealt with enough bullies to know that's just rewarding their bad behavior.
If being a good person is really important to you, then by all means, treat others as *they* want to be treated. Personally, I try to treat others well, but once they’ve repeatedly confirmed that they’re not even trying to play nice, I stop making the effort. I see no reason to be someone else’s punching bag. The only good reason I can see for continuing to be kind is if the act of being kind is itself your own reward. Do it for your own sake, not theirs.
In my last post I advocated reclaiming the word qu**r. Right after I posted that piece I read a post that described how qu**r was *the worst* slur used against LGBT people in the area where the OP grew up. Unfortunately I can’t find that post now because I waited too long and my dash swallowed it away. A reblogger commented that the attitude held by people who insist on reclaiming that word had forever turned them off from doing so. I wanted to give that post (If someone knows the one I’m referring to and can send a link my way I would really appreciate it) a lot of thought and try to figure out how to reconcile my feelings about the word with the possibility that I am participating in a culture that is hurting people I consider *my* people.
First, let me say, I am *so sorry* that you experienced that pain. There is nothing fun about having epithets thrown at you. Sticks and stones… but words *can* really hurt. It won’t be the same words for everyone, and not all of us experience it to the same degree, but there’s nothing quite like the pain and psychological damage that particular words can inflict.
Words are not the culprit, they’re just the weapons: the metaphorical bullets, baseball bats, and brass knuckles. And though words can also be the precursor to physical violence, the real culprits are the bigots and the larger society who allow such hurtful ideas to fester and even thrive.
Growing up, the movement to reclaim the word qu**r was already picking up steam, so for me that word never held any power. Far worse for me were d*ke, f*g, f*ggot, c*nt, b*tch, and sl*t. Sl*t and c*nt were the two slurs that had the biggest impact on me personally. I think a lot of that had to do with being dfab, a sexual assault survivor, and feeling a sense from a very early age that I was broken. I can’t lie, both words still make me a bit uncomfortable today, and I would only ever use them with people I knew well and was comfortable with. But participating in the Sl*t Walk, reading The Ethical Sl*t, and being friends with someone who liberally peppered their most passionate speech with the word cunt really desensitized me to their effects. And yet… sl*t, in particular, cringingly brings back memories of the ugly abuse I received from family members. Over the years, I’ve managed to reframe it in my brain to disarm the weaponization of the word. In effect, I’ve reclaimed the slur on a personal level.
Those of us who have been through psychological trauma and come out the other side have triggers, things that bring us back to that moment of trauma, not willingly of course, but dragged back by our subconsciouses. Sometimes that trigger can be a word. We all have different lived experiences. We all have different triggers and we are all in a different place in terms of psychological health. Reclaiming a slur isn’t as simple as merely using it repeatedly. Reclaiming a slur is an active process of addressing the trauma beneath the trigger. It’s not a process that can be done for you, and it’s not a process that you can do for anyone else. It’s a process that you need to do for yourself if you choose.
This past year I had the unfortunate experience of having a person that I loved repeatedly trigger my PTSD. I was already triggered, and she kept doing and saying things that activated that trigger. I guess there’s this sense that those of us with psychological injuries are just “too sensitive”, but it’s roughly the equivalent of having a broken arm and people keep hitting that arm. Would it be any wonder that the arm wasn’t healing?
So if the word qu**r is a trigger for you, then I’m sorry. I hope that you’ll find healing. I’m sorry that you have experienced folks like myself being insensitive to that injury. I hope that we as a community can get to a place where it’s no longer a trigger for so many people.
That being said, I still feel that the personal process of reclaiming a slur has merit. It is in fact *the worst* slurs that we have the most to gain in reclaiming. Taking away the power that a word has over you is a really great tool in the process of healing. It’s like disarming a nuclear weapon. But the LGBT+ community is not a monolith. We need to be sensitive to the traumas that our members have experienced. I think that publicly reclaiming a slur as a community is a far more complicated process than personally reclaiming one. I hope that the discussion can remain open, but hopefully in a way that’s respectful of everyone.
Those of us who came of age back in the late 80s early 90s probably came into the LGBT community at the peak of the movement to reclaim the word queer. Many folks, especially those much younger, argue that queer is a slur and should never be used. So here’s the thing, queer was a slur, but so were just about every other word under the LGBT umbrella. All of them. That’s because there were no unsullied words for what we are; what we are *was* the slur, not the words used to label us. We’ve reclaimed gay, lesbian, and even dyke and fag, so why not queer? It’s a better label by far than many others for what I am, since it’s really hard for me to stay in any one pigeon-hole. I understand that different slurs were more or less taboo/bad in different parts of the country, and even different parts of the world. But why are we fighting so hard about this? It’s a word. It’s a word that a very large segment if not majority of our community are 100% AOK about using. You won’t generally find a word for what we are that *no one* in the community is going to have qualms with. Unlike ethnic groups, we didn’t have an original self-identifier. There is no single identity from which we all sprang. For much of history, we were the thing no one talked about in polite society. So why be polite now?
The only time I’ve ever been repulsed by the word queer is when my ex suggested that straight kinky people should be able to reclaim it too. *Sigh* I hate community policing, but... really? Nothing has made me want to abandon the label so fast; it made my head spin. You’re into kink, fine, me too. But the only thing I’ve got in common with a straight, cis black-pants-dom is that we both like wearing black pants.
You may have noticed that I took a little break over the holidays. I’m back now and I’m going to focus on adding more original content here in the near future. Thanks for following!
Like many folks in the LGBTQIAP community my family of origin has been less than supportive. In fact, most of them have been neglectful at best and abusive at worst. I struggled for decades to find a way to make some of those relationships work, and finally determined that there wasn’t going to be any happy middle ground for us. I am no longer in direct communication with my birth family except for my sister.
But this world is a cold and lonely place for folks who don’t have a group of people that they can rely on for support and comfort. This is especially true for those of us who are introverts and don’t naturally tend to reach out and make friends easily. And all of this is doubly true at this time of year, when other folks are going home to see their families, eat traditional family foods, sing together, laugh together, and strengthen those family bonds.
Don’t get me wrong, even folks who have great families feel a lot of stress this time of year, but even through the stress, if your family is solid, then you have a sense of place and purpose and grounding. Families act as an anchor, sometimes it may feel like they’re just weighing you down, but they keep you from drifting off to sea and getting lost in the world. Getting the most out of having a family may just be about knowing when to reel them in and when you need to let them out a bit more.
Most of us old school LGBT/queer folk have a different understanding of the word family. Sometimes I think of it as Family with a capital F. Back in the day, asking if someone was Family was a more covert way of asking if they were one of us, a member of the LGBT community. And that was important because it meant that person was a safe person to be ourselves around. I’m sure this is still true in some of the most conservative areas of the U.S. and definitely still true in some parts of the world. I wonder, now, whether the fact that LGBTQIAP folks are generally safer in most parts of the western world has made us lose touch with that sense of Family. Now that we’re all safer in being who we are out in the wider world, that absence of danger has loosened our sense of community and we no longer *have* to stick together in order to survive, which means we’re a lot freer to squabble amongst ourselves instead of accepting our differences for the greater good of the community and taking care of our own.
Polyamorists too often have a different sense of family. In some ways there’s some similarities to the old school LGBT sense of Family. In other ways it’s closer to a historical notion of family where the family extends beyond the nuclear family. In still other ways it’s very similar to modern extended and blended families, except that in addition to extending families due to consecutive relationships broken by divorce, poly families can also be extended through concurrent relationships.
I often refer to my family of origin as "my family” for the sake of clarity when talking to people in the wider world. There’s also a pervasive notion that my husband and I do not have our own family because we haven’t had children. But when I think of my family in the most positive sense of the word, I think that my family consists of me,my husband, and our respective partners; it also includes my sister, her husband and kids because they play an active role in our lives. It also includes my best friend, her husband and child, and a few other close friends, and many members of my husband’s family of origin. This is our family of choice. These are the people who are closest and dearest to us. These are the people who we can more or less depend on, and despite minor disagreements we love spending time with all of them.
Unfortunately it can be hard to spend a satisfying amount of time with our family of choice at this time of year, since most of them have obligations to their families of origin. And that can make things lonely for those of us who do not have family of origin in our lives, even if on the whole our lives are much better for having shut them out. So please, for your own self care, and the sake of those people you count in your family of choice but not origin, during this holiday season, please make time to spend with those people you care about, and consider including some of us who don’t have people to spend the holidays with into your plans with your own families. Because the holidays can be rough, and for some of us they can even be deadly.
I’m also making a more and more conscious an effort to expand my circle of friends in order to hopefully expand my chosen family. It’s hard given that my natural inclination is to live like a hermit. Having a broader social circle is good for me and it’s good for my friends and family too as it means I’m not as heavily reliant on any of them for support. So if you too are an introvert, consider finding low-anxiety ways to expand your social circle. It’s almost always worth the effort.
As with a traditional nuclear/extended family, it’s helpful to build bonds with your family of choice through shared meals, rituals, and traditions, so make up an excuse to have a gathering, share special foods, play games, be silly, add music, and make it an annual, biannual, or even monthly tradition.
I’ve spent the past few days distracting myself from the depressing news that Trump will be our next POTUS. It’s a situation that I still cannot even fathom. It’s Gore vs. Bush all over again, except without the hanging chads. After the 2000 election I seriously considered moving abroad. I was scared. I’m scared again.
In the hours after the election results there was a lot of talk of people leaving the country, going back into the closet, and just generally hiding. The election results held a mirror up to my life and made me realize just how comfortable I’d gotten with having a moderate liberal in the White House. Since Obama’s been in office I have come out as transgender, come out as polyamorous, and become more active in the LGBT community. The prospect of a Trump presidency makes me want to take all that back and hide under a rock. Again, I’ve contemplated leaving the country.
Since the election there’s been a lot of talk about “coming together” and unity for the sake of the country as a whole. Isn’t that what liberals are so good at, bending over backwards to make everyone feel accepted? But to me that sounds like a recipe for being a doormat.
The other night Stephen Colbert talked about how in polls, both democrats and republicans reported being scared of the other side. When Obama came to power, conservatives freaked out that he was going to take away their guns and their ability to practice Christianity. They were scared, but did they run away and hide? No, they didn’t. They bought more guns and they stood their ground. They fought tooth and nail to retain their rights.
So that’s what we on the left need to do. Not guns and religion, but we do need to keep fighting for tolerance and equality based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and anything else they want to use as grounds for discrimination. It’s very tempting to go back in the closet and hide, but we can’t. We need to get more active and more visible. I’m not saying that you should put yourself in mortal danger if you are really and truly in fear for your life, but if you can get past the discomfort of putting yourself out there on the frontline, then you should. Please remember, that they may have won the electoral college, but we won the popular vote, which means that there are more of us than there are of them. Take comfort in that. Let’s not let ourselves be bullied.
It’s also important to get active in more than just your own intersections of minority status. If you are white and LGBT, get involved and see what you can do for Black Lives Matter or the Muslim community. If you’re not LGBT, get involved with one of the many many LGBT organizations. Stand up and have each other’s backs. Keep the in-fighting and cross-talk in-house and don’t let the conservatives use it as a wedge to drive us apart. Let’s make our coming together not about crossing the aisle, but tightening our ranks and watching our flanks.
Also, in case anyone reading this is a wealthy business owner that employs a highly educated workforce, please consider moving your business and its employees to a swing state. There may be more of us, but we’re too clustered in the safety of the blue states to make a difference in the middle of the country. The middle needs the jobs, and you can take advantage of the relatively cheap real estate. Our largest cities are far too crowded anyway. Let’s create a few more liberal enclaves in the purple states and turn them blue. Let’s look for the places where we can have the biggest impact.
Biphobia: Is it Real or Just Homophobia in Disguise?
There is much debate in the LGBT community about whether or not biphobia exists as a separate thing from homophobia/lesbophobia. Like many debates, it can get ugly, particularly online.
Now, it can be said that bisexual, polysexual, or pansexual people may be subject to homophobia if the bisexual in question (please note that I’m using bisexual as an umbrella term for brevity here) is in a same sex relationship or otherwise mistaken for gay or lesbian, but that’s not the limit to which bisexual folks are subject to discrimination and abuse for being bisexual as opposed to simply being “not straight".
I got an excellent example recently when I was re-watching an episode from season 3 of Sex and the City (in case you’re wondering, no, it hasn’t improved with age, but that’s for another time. It *is* however, a wonderful peek into the bland and banal sexual mainstream). The episode in question is called “Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl…” and in it Carrie starts dating a 26 year old who casually reveals that he’s bisexual and that one of his exes happened to be a guy. The episode is so rife with negative clichés it’s ridiculous. None of our four leading ladies thinks it’s acceptable to date a bisexual. Even our intrepid Samantha retorts “I did the ‘date the bisexual guy’ thing in college. But in the end they all ended up with men. So did the bisexual women”. We are also regaled with such biphobic brilliance as: "I’m not even sure bisexuality exists. It’s just a layover on the way to Gaytown”, “It’s greedy. He’s double-dipping”, and "Gay. Straight. Pick a side and stay there”. And that’s just the first act. So you see, despite having the perfect gay best friend, who conveniently only makes an appearance when needed (just showing the writers are homophobic, not the characters), the characters make no bones about elaborately articulating just how wrong and unpleasant all this bisexuality is. It’s a ruckus chorus of “these kids these days!” while metaphorically shaking an exasperated fist at the heavens, as though my generation invented bisexuality. Clearly these gals had never heard of Oscar Wilde, Frida Kahlo, Sappho, Alexander the Great, or even David Bowie.
Lest you think that biphobia was a turn of the century problem, back when plaid was last in fashion for non-hipsters, I’ll call your attention to the very second episode of Lady Dynamite, the Maria Bamford autobiographical sitcom from just this year. The episode titled “Bisexual Because of Meth” features a plot line in which Bamford dates a bi guy, and like Carrie, just can’t seem to get past the label. Spoilers, the punchline of the episode is that once she does get over her discomfort with it, this guy just ends up being a big cheater, because you know, bisexuals can’t commit!
And it’s not just the media; my ex-girlfriend (also bisexual) was at a big fancy LGBT event last year, making small talk with a gay guy when he casually remarked “what about those bisexuals, can’t they just make up their minds!” To which the correct response is: we have, it just doesn’t fall into your narrow binary! I am not indecisive, and I am not confused. The way that straights feel about the “opposite” gender and the way gay and lesbian folks feel about the same gender, that’s how I feel about multiple genders. Some people I like, some I don’t, some I’m attracted to and some I’m not. I really, really like chocolate — I don’t think I could live without it — but I’m not about to give up lemon meringue and pumpkin pie forever. And yes, I’m polyamorous, so I can choose to eat two desserts with one meal, whether they’re both chocolate or not, but that doesn’t mean I can’t commit to a sensible diet with no more than one dessert at a time.
So no, bi guys aren’t gays in denial, and bi girls aren’t straight and looking for attention. Nor are bisexuals limited to the gender binary. But the fact that all of this needs to be said goes to show that biphobia is real and still alive and kicking!
