Another Goddamn Open Letter...
People of Ireland,
It’s been nearly two years since I wrote my “Open Letter to the People of Ireland (And Anyone Else Who Wants To Read It)” about the marriage equality referendum (http://irishduck.tumblr.com/post/118152887195/an-open-letter-to-the-people-of-ireland-and) and since then a lot has changed for me personally. I’m in college now and all that. But while I have made great strides in personal growth, let’s take a look at Ireland.
Now, for the purpose of not having this letter being 48 million pages long, I am going to, for the majority, not discuss the abortion debate or the numerous Catholic Church scandals (the Tuam babies etc.), purely because time constraints. I actually do have college exams that I’m procrastinating for and therefore, I must vent all my frustrations in an efficient manner.
If you think that the marriage equality referendum and the Gender Recognition Bill 2015 brought equal rights to LGBTQ+ individuals in this country, YOU ARE SORELY MISTAKEN. While our legal status may have improved, society is being the typical arse that it is and not adapting in correlation.
Maybe I’m biased and seeing the negatives in all this, I was raised in rural Ireland after all. But I’ve been living in Dublin now for almost a year and I’ve come to notice a lot of the same stuff happening, some things are even more prevalent. There has been threats, slurs, all the trimmings of a homophobic society. Friends of mine are unable to walk down O’Connell Street without being beat up, simply because they want to wear a pair of heels. I’m not asking for a lot Ireland, I’m just asking you let people do what they want to do. Like cop on...
And lets bring this out to a broader, more global perspective. Lets talk about Chechnya. In case you’re not caught up, there are six concentration camps in Chechnya, a southern province of Russia, where they are imprisoning gay men. 3 dead and 100s imprisoned. That we know of. And while the community globally are making efforts to do something, the mainstream media refuses to cover and people are taking a very Laissez-faire approach to all of this. They are ignoring the fact that gay men are being systematically tortured and killed, and you argue that homophobia is dead?
However, there are some rays of light in all this, its not doom and gloom. People are making an effort to change things. I only know about the goings-on in Dublin, but we recently had fundraisers to raise money for the Russian LGBT Network. There have been bake sales, bucket collections and even a table quiz/drag extravaganza. So people are making efforts.
So what do I want this time? Last time, I wanted whoever read it to vote, this time, I just want two things. One, don’t tell me that homophobia and trans*phobia in this country is dead. Because that’s a lie. And secondly, don’t let people forget about Chechnya. Realistically, Russia isn’t that far away. That could just as easily be me and other Irish gay men in concentration camps. Don’t let it die. That’s the least we can do.
Go raibh míle maith agat,
Luke Nolan.