Today at Work ... (Safe Space Rant)
"Hey, I heard you know all about this LGBT stuff. Can you educate me?"
Mild panic. Intense Anger. Guilt. Confusion. Weirdness. Deep breaths.
"I'm not an expert on anything, but I have a list of resources for people who want to learn more about topics that are generally labeled LGBTQIIAAA somewhere in my inbox."
Oh honey, don't look so puzzled.
"What do all those letters mean?"
The mechanical beat of an ink cartridge metronome kept me from exploding. I offered over-simplified definitions for words that used to define me while printing the list that sits in my email for moments when my queerness gets unexpectedly detected.
He grabbed the paper I held out to him, producing a sound that seemed as loud and aggressive as I wanted to be in that moment.
"Why do you have this list? How do you know all the PC terminology?"
Silence. Construction of a truth that is not the answer to the question.
"At my last job, it was really important for me to try to learn about all the different kinds of marginalization that folks might feel. It's kind of what I studied in undergrad, too, and something I'll spend my whole life trying to wrap my head around. It's not about 'political correctness' for me. The words I use are not popular, polite, or sanctioned by any authority. I try my best to figure out how to show respect with my language without sounding too pretentious or using too many words. I fail a lot, but trying is important to me. "
I said it all way too quickly with an attempt at nonchalance and humility, leg twitching and wishing for sounds other than my own voice.
He nodded, made some generalizing comment about people who study at the historically all-womyn's college that I attended, thanked me for the list, and then walked away from my desk.
Fuck Meg, you just talked about queerness and passed as heteronormative.
___________
Figuring out when to "come out" or "pass" about all the non-normativity sucks. Thinking about how to feel safe and honest simultaneously is exhausting. I feel like I have to do it all fucking time. I am really over it.
I will stop trying to create a safe space to explain my personal/political perspective on social justice, kyriarchy, intersectionality, and how these things effect every single action I take from "how I order toner" to "how I avoid defining myself."
I have yet to encounter a truly safe and intersectional space that affirms all the marginalized experiences anywhere in the world.
And I know for sure that it cannot be created by me.
It's not pessimism, lack of moral imagination, or fatalism. It's self-awareness and cognizance of how fucked up the world is.