I Was NOT Born This Way

Every time I come back from a queer space I'm stuck in a particular mindset. It becomes incredibly hard for me to interact to the rest of the world with anything except disdain. This mindset makes it hard to do school work, to talk to people that aren't Queer, and sometimes to feel anything other than anger. Basic functions of the world like money and clothing take on a sickly look. My social cohesiveness breaks down completely. I want to spit at people and deface billboards.

Every single person in the world should feel this way.

This is a fury that the world beats out of oppressed people on a daily basis. It denies the validity of our anger. Mainstream US society maintains that there is something disruptive about an angry black woman and something natural about being sexually assaulted. That it is unnatural to be Trans* but natural to experience "Trans Panic" and murder a Trans* person. Debt resistance is against the law but there have still been no prosecutions of bank CEOs that approved illegal credit default swaps and left millions homeless. The United States is claiming more indigenous land in Guam to facilitate a new Korean War, food prices are low because of slave labor, and it's illegal in more cities every day for homeless people to sleep anywhere other than too-small, underfunded, often-abusive shelters. We are expected to live with these realities because they serve the status quo of the privileged. They determine what is right, natural, and acceptable. All resistance is ridiculed, infiltrated by FBI, beaten by police, and derided by capitalist media outlets.

Quite frankly I'm sick of being spit on, and I want to spit back. 

To that effect I need to address a gross discourse that gets bandied about by the last people that should be embracing it. Let me be absolutely clear: every time someone says "born this way" a Queer person dies. They curl up into their closet, certain that if they were "really" Queer they would know it by now, unequivocally, and the fact that they have doubts is evidence of their simply being the straight, cisgender person everyone always told them they were. All of their feelings are chocked up to the same feelings of same-sex attraction that evangelicals claim everyone feels the first time they're caught having a gay affair. The lack of "acceptable" narrative from their birth ("I've always liked boys/girls", "I've always felt like I was really a man/woman" are the only "acceptable" narratives) means that someone questioning their sexuality or gender identity must be wrong. They're not just hearing the messages from the homophobic preachers, they're hearing the homophobia and transphobia from themselves and from the Queer community telling them their fluidity is problematic. We are actively culling our own ranks by regurgitating -phobic discourses to people that may well BE us if only they knew there was an option open.

Why I'm Not Excited About Same Sex Marriage

As a Queer identified person I've found my romantic and sexual attractions range a fairly wide gamut, including some people that would be identified as being the same sex as me by the state and/or federal government. With this in mind same sex marriage sounds as though it could have a major impact on my life and open up all sorts of possibilities. Additionally I largely see same sex marriage as a foregone conclusion even if it may take a while. So why aren't I more excited?

As people that know me have gradually realized I'm a marriage resistor. I see the institution of marriage as unnecessary to create stable families and view the insistence on marriage promotion amongst politicians as a method to subtly control individuals. I also see a number of the every day acts of violence and oppression perpetuated against Queer people as being more important to focus on than, and in many ways unrelated to, the legal status of same sex marriage. Naturally this has caused a lot of conflict with the mainstream Gay rights movement that seems to be all about marriage as a way of obtaining legitimacy in the eyes of straight society.

Quick Post: Intentions and Bad Cookies

Depression is horrible. I know this is a pretty controversial sentiment, right up there with bee stings aren't fun and Boys Don't Cry is "not a feel good movie." Depression is so horrible that when combined with a persistent illness it's very difficult to drag one's self out of bed some mornings, or even some afternoons. However, things are expected of me. Health and mental well-being are great concepts and all but they don't serve the capitalist machine or help me fulfill my get-a-piece-of-paper-to-signify-my-intelligence plans so I need to prioritize. Since that's hard to jump right into from a position of "if I lay here all day and don't move, maybe I'll feel better tomorrow" I'm doing some blogging first to get warmed up for the important things like journal entries that aren't graded on content.

Here's a slightly more controversial fact: intentions don't matter. It's kind of depressing when you think about it (or maybe that's just me) because intentions are given so much importance in our social interactions. "It's the thought that counts" may be as well recognized for its passive aggressive implications as it is for its honest sentiment but it's still a cultural standard for our feelings on intentions. In America, at least, we've really embraced this concept that well-meaning gestures are much more important than shallow but practical ones. When a surprise goes wrong because your partner turned out to be allergic to the chocolates you bought it's still supposed to be better than if you had ruined the romance by asking beforehand. Romance is a good intention, surprise is a good intention. Here's a better cultural standard: "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

We treat intentions like some kind of magic spell. Simply by informing someone that our intentions were good and pure there's some kind of expectation that the mistakes we made in the actual implementation should be less painful to us. Imagine if surgeons used this logic. "I only meant to cut out the cancer, I didn't mean to lacerate all those internal organs. Hey, there's no call to get upset, I didn't do it on purpose!" The well-intentioned speakers expect to get away with their mistakes, in fact they will actually be upset if something that they didn't intend to be harmful is called out when it actually causes harm, simply because they're well-intentioned. Consequences aren't nearly as important as disposition for the person that doesn't have to receive the consequences.

Would someone ever forgive a drunk driver for causing a loss of life solely on the basis that their only intention was to get home before the police caught them? It's absurd to imagine.

So what does this mean for those of us in oppressed groups? We're continuously bombarded with messages about who we are, what we want, what is expected of us, and some of those messages are harmful. Actually, I would say the vast majority of what oppressed groups hear in the world is constructed in a way that causes harm to their sense of self and well-being. That's part and parcel of being oppressed, it is itself an aspect of oppression. Some of those messages are aimed at us by people that honestly just want to help. The concerned uncle that's sure just telling you to "suck it up" will help beat back the depression, the police officer that tells a group of young women to watch what they wear when they go out at night, and the politician that tells an African American audience that the best way to reduce gun violence is to have stable monogamous marriages are all probably genuine in their desire to help produce a solution to problems they see. They're still wrong to say it, the effects of their words can still lead to incredible suffering for the people that they're unconsciously disempowering. They ARE at fault for these words.

My point is simple: you are judged based on what you actually say, not what you mean to say. Your words are harmful based on what people hear, not what you think they SHOULD hear. If you are striving to be a genuinely good person this means you have to take responsibility not just for your words but for the effect they have and respond in kind. Don't be defensive, don't try to shift the blame to how the other person perceives what you said, just accept that they have had a reaction and you now need to operate from that situation instead of the one you envisioned. This applies to everything: misgendering, racial insensitivity, slurs you didn't know where slurs.

There are no rewards for trying not to be a horrible person and not making it. There's no way to request that reward in a well-intentioned manner. No one wants to give you a cookie just for trying, and if someone does it's probably full of salt.