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Oct. 11th, 2010 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdog(I wrote this for Facebook where I have an account under my real name. I think all of you reading this already know all of this about me (and probably more), but I wanted to repost it here too, just to have a record.)
It's important that I write something for national coming out day. Because it is important, it will be long. I hope you will bear with me.
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National coming out day! That's pretty neat. Many of the people I care about are some flavour of LGBT, and life has not always been kind to them because of that. I hope that days like this can have some effect, even if it's just a little, toward reducing discrimination and fear. I think that finding out someone you already know is lesbian, or bi, or gay, or what-have-you might just be enough to make some people willing to reexamine just what it is they think they're afraid of. What it is that they think is threatening them or hurting them somehow. Who this shadowy group of the sinister unknown is. I like to think that society becomes more accepting, and more and more people feel safe enough to come out to their family, their friends, and others in their live, that we'll someday get to a tipping point where these things aren't the kind of unknowns that they are now. People fear the unknown.
And you know, it's not just about sexual orientation. Or even just about transgendered or genderqueer folks (who also have it pretty hard). What about people who are Wiccan who have to explain over and over to members of the public that it's not about sacrificing animals or playing with Oujia boards? What about people who are atheists who don't let the world know what their well-reasoned conclusions about the nature of the world are because they're tired of people thinking atheists are all some kind of amoral, Machiavellians who have no reason to be nice to anybody without an invisible man looking over their shoulder?
And there are other lifechoices too, whose practitioners often hide themselves because they just don't want to deal with justifying huge parts of their lives over and over again. Part of the way I live falls under that category.
It can be argued that personal information about individuals private lives has no business being made public this way. So what if you're a woman who's attracted to other women, or if, on the inside, you think you're the wrong gender. I believe that if there were no longer people losing their jobs, or being bullied to the point of suicide, over things that no one has any business knowing about, that would be true. But because these things do happen, I think it's important for people whose lives are outside the mainstream in some way, and who are in a place in their lives where they can and do choose to do so, to stand up and say "This is who I am. And I'm really just like you." I'd like to think that if everyone could look outside the group of people they know who they think are just like them, and see that there are people they know in their every-day life who are members of the minorities that they fear, that would go a long way toward stopping that fear and misunderstanding.
It's hard to know how to help in gigantic, nation-spanning problems like this. I think we all wish we could do more. Maybe this will help a little bit, somehow.
I'm really pretty much just like you. I go to work. I come home. I have hobbies I enjoy. I like hanging out with my friends.
I'm bisexual. For me, it doesn't make sense for gender to keep me from exploring a connection I make with another person.
I'm polyamorous. I can (and have) had romantic feelings and serious relationships with more than one person at a time. People who are all aware of each other and content with this situation, and who have their own partners who they may have serious, long-term relationships with.
What do those things mean? Nothing. I mean, of course they mean something, but do they change anything else in my life? They're just pieces of who I am, like my devotion to Art Deco architecture, or that I fix computers for a living.
Private details are, for the most part, private, just as they are in most people's relationships, though I'd be more than happy to answer questions about these things in general.
That may be a big thing to associate with my real name. But just as there are people in a same gender relationship who may not be allowed to have their partner be with them in a hospital, there are people who've had to tell one of two people that they love with all their heart (because a heart doesn't have to be divided to be given multiple times; just ask a parent with more than one child) the same thing.
I'd just like people to understand that because someone doesn't love the same way that they love, or because they were born into a body of the wrong gender, or because they happen to love more than one person at a time, that doesn't mean they should be feared or pitied. They don't need to be saved from themselves. They're just people. Like you, and like me.
I've been telling people, on the rare occasions that people actually come to me for advice, that there are no such things as normal relationships. There are only ones that work, and ones that don't. Life can be wonderful, but it's short, and it can be hard, and in can be painful. Let's let people find their happiness where they may, ok? when someone is seeking for what is right in their life, be kind to them. When someone has found what is right in their life, be happy for them.
About life, a character in one of Kurt Vonnegut's books said this; "There's only one rule that I know of, babies. God damn it, you've got to be kind." Please, my friends. To all the people you know in the world, you've got to be kind.
----------
And I so wish Facebook would let me edit my post and fix my typoes. Ah well; the die is cast.
It's important that I write something for national coming out day. Because it is important, it will be long. I hope you will bear with me.
--------------
National coming out day! That's pretty neat. Many of the people I care about are some flavour of LGBT, and life has not always been kind to them because of that. I hope that days like this can have some effect, even if it's just a little, toward reducing discrimination and fear. I think that finding out someone you already know is lesbian, or bi, or gay, or what-have-you might just be enough to make some people willing to reexamine just what it is they think they're afraid of. What it is that they think is threatening them or hurting them somehow. Who this shadowy group of the sinister unknown is. I like to think that society becomes more accepting, and more and more people feel safe enough to come out to their family, their friends, and others in their live, that we'll someday get to a tipping point where these things aren't the kind of unknowns that they are now. People fear the unknown.
And you know, it's not just about sexual orientation. Or even just about transgendered or genderqueer folks (who also have it pretty hard). What about people who are Wiccan who have to explain over and over to members of the public that it's not about sacrificing animals or playing with Oujia boards? What about people who are atheists who don't let the world know what their well-reasoned conclusions about the nature of the world are because they're tired of people thinking atheists are all some kind of amoral, Machiavellians who have no reason to be nice to anybody without an invisible man looking over their shoulder?
And there are other lifechoices too, whose practitioners often hide themselves because they just don't want to deal with justifying huge parts of their lives over and over again. Part of the way I live falls under that category.
It can be argued that personal information about individuals private lives has no business being made public this way. So what if you're a woman who's attracted to other women, or if, on the inside, you think you're the wrong gender. I believe that if there were no longer people losing their jobs, or being bullied to the point of suicide, over things that no one has any business knowing about, that would be true. But because these things do happen, I think it's important for people whose lives are outside the mainstream in some way, and who are in a place in their lives where they can and do choose to do so, to stand up and say "This is who I am. And I'm really just like you." I'd like to think that if everyone could look outside the group of people they know who they think are just like them, and see that there are people they know in their every-day life who are members of the minorities that they fear, that would go a long way toward stopping that fear and misunderstanding.
It's hard to know how to help in gigantic, nation-spanning problems like this. I think we all wish we could do more. Maybe this will help a little bit, somehow.
I'm really pretty much just like you. I go to work. I come home. I have hobbies I enjoy. I like hanging out with my friends.
I'm bisexual. For me, it doesn't make sense for gender to keep me from exploring a connection I make with another person.
I'm polyamorous. I can (and have) had romantic feelings and serious relationships with more than one person at a time. People who are all aware of each other and content with this situation, and who have their own partners who they may have serious, long-term relationships with.
What do those things mean? Nothing. I mean, of course they mean something, but do they change anything else in my life? They're just pieces of who I am, like my devotion to Art Deco architecture, or that I fix computers for a living.
Private details are, for the most part, private, just as they are in most people's relationships, though I'd be more than happy to answer questions about these things in general.
That may be a big thing to associate with my real name. But just as there are people in a same gender relationship who may not be allowed to have their partner be with them in a hospital, there are people who've had to tell one of two people that they love with all their heart (because a heart doesn't have to be divided to be given multiple times; just ask a parent with more than one child) the same thing.
I'd just like people to understand that because someone doesn't love the same way that they love, or because they were born into a body of the wrong gender, or because they happen to love more than one person at a time, that doesn't mean they should be feared or pitied. They don't need to be saved from themselves. They're just people. Like you, and like me.
I've been telling people, on the rare occasions that people actually come to me for advice, that there are no such things as normal relationships. There are only ones that work, and ones that don't. Life can be wonderful, but it's short, and it can be hard, and in can be painful. Let's let people find their happiness where they may, ok? when someone is seeking for what is right in their life, be kind to them. When someone has found what is right in their life, be happy for them.
About life, a character in one of Kurt Vonnegut's books said this; "There's only one rule that I know of, babies. God damn it, you've got to be kind." Please, my friends. To all the people you know in the world, you've got to be kind.
----------
And I so wish Facebook would let me edit my post and fix my typoes. Ah well; the die is cast.
