Quick Post: Talking Without Training Wheels

I haven't posted anything in much longer than I'm comfortable with. Such is the power of the magic of finals. Beltane, May Day, and Pagan Coming Out day all fell by the wayside since my last post, and while I thought about sitting down to right something related to them if I didn't handle school first it would have put at risk my future prospects for school, housing, and insurance. None of this is what I want to talk about today, though. I'm picking and poking at some more important posts but today I have positive up-beat news for once.

I'm in a relationship again. It's been quite a while since this has been true and I'm all warm and glowy about it, even though most of the interaction between us occurs at a distance. I also have metamours (people that are dating my partner but not myself) for the first time and it's a unique kind of experience. As it happens my partner seems to draw in Queer loves like a magnet, and I can't blame them for pursuing zir.

Over the last weekend I had many incredible experiences as my now-partner visited and we formalized our relationship. I don't have zir consent to discuss some of them, although I will say they were revolutionary praxis at its best. What I can talk about is how amazing it is to talk to someone at a similar level. Not to suggest that most people I know are lacking in intelligence, nor to suggest that the conversations I do have involve someone that knows less about most subjects than I do (often quite the opposite) but rather that most people I speak to do not have the particular range of experiences and knowledge that I do. This isn't a value statement, most people just don't have the privilege to be able to spend six hours in a day delving into sex worker blogs to make up for not knowing what the views of actual sex workers are. All I can claim to be is incredibly well read and fairly well spoken. My partner shares these traits, which was a large part of our coming to connect with each other.

When the two of us talk we touch on a variety of subjects, but being activists most of them have to do with queerness or other maligned identities. Normally when either of us discusses these subjects we bump into some problems. We're often speaking to people from outside our respective communities that don't have the background on issues we feel passionately about. Other times we're speaking within the community but about subjects that aren't on the radar of the average (if there is such a thing) Queer student just trying to get by. Why more people don't spend their time thinking about ways to clarify concepts of privilege and oppression in their daily lives is largely beyond me, but it's the sad truth of the matter. This all means that when we bring up complex ideas put together from a dozen different sources we're more likely to spend the conversation explaining background than diving right into things. I'm thankful to know a lot of people for whom this isn't the case, and when it's not we get to do something my partner playfully referred to as "talking without training wheels."

It's amazing to talk to someone that self-analyzes and self-corrects. Someone that doesn't need to hear zir argument is ethnocentric because there's already a clarification of the limits to which the argument would reasonably apply. Someone that says things like "not that that isn't also valid" and "because clearly that makes a difference" and knows just why I'm smiling in response. Someone that not only has a broad understanding of zir own identities but of the needs and identities of others. These aren't things we get to take for granted in a heterosexist, racist, classist, tranphobic, and otherwise oppressive world. They are not givens, even if they should be. So when we talk with someone like ourselves, someone that knows that anger is justified and when a phrase is problematic, it's an incredible thing. It's beautiful. It can cause a deep and abiding connection over the simplest of topics. It's something more people deserve to feel.

While it's not easy to explain the value of abstract learning until you've actually had it, this is definitely one of those things more people need to do. When you realize you've spent so much of your life talking with training wheels, bumping into people with your words and crashing awkwardly against concepts, the freedom to converse down mountain trails and through shaddowy woods with someone you love is intoxicating. I highly recommend taking the time and learning how.

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.

Labeling the Boxes

Words are important in activism. It's not just about saying the right things, or explaining things in the right way, it's also having the right words to describe what it is you're talking about. That's why I made the (probably futile) effort to coin the term gnostivism. Words can be harmful but they can also be helpful in mitigating harm. Identity labeling is considered by some to do more harm than good, and I really disagree with that. So I'm going to try to explain why I see it as beneficial, at least for right now.

The main argument against identity labeling is that it only serves to divide people. There is a certain notion amongst particular groups of progressives that by eliminating all distinctions between people we'll be more likely to treat each other equally as human beings. This is a fairly positive idea all by itself, and isn't a bad thing to want to work toward, depending on how one does that work. I would say that, in fact, I do believe that in an ideal world identity labeling will be de-emphasized and people would be allowed to just be people, in whatever way they happen to express that. However, jumping to the elimination of labels in any situation short of an ideal world can lead to a lot of problematic responses to real world issues.

What My Queerness is Not

Trigger warning: some homophobic language

I'd like to take a moment to clarify, because sometimes there can be confusion.

My queerness is not homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, or just plain sexual. It is not dependent on who I am attracted to, who I am in a relationship with, or who I am married to.

My queerness is not based on genitalia, chromosomes, hormones, gametes, musculature, broad shoulders, long legs, body hair, deep voice, or sex assigned at birth.

My queerness is not my long hair. It is not my black-painted finger nails. It is not my eye shadow, the way I shave, or my desire to have my facial hair permanently removed. It is not dependent on whether I'm wearing a skirt or jeans. It does not come off with my clothes. It does not come off in the shower.

Fighting For Polyamorous Marriage

My favorite podcast, the excellent Polyamory Weekly, just had a show on the subject of polyamorous marriage (so nice, I linked them twice) and whether or not it's something we should be fighting for as a movement. I always enjoy these kinds of discussions and I actually have strong feelings on the subject, so I was planning to just call in when I realized that I have one of those fancy blog things now. Suddenly I'm able to comment on things soapbox style, so I thought I would do that instead.

Most of Cunning Minx's points on this show come from an article by Mistress Matisse (Poly bloggers have the best names) called You May Now Kiss the Bride and the Other Bride and the Other Bride and the Other Groom so I'll be discussing those first.

I Will Not Go Quietly

I was planning to put together a post today discussing the formation of a coalition. I actually have about a third of it put together already, but I'd hoped to finish it later tonight. Then someone told me that I should go back into the closet.

It doesn't matter who it was. It doesn't matter that they probably meant it as honest advice with no actual malice. If anything that makes it worse. Quite honestly it also doesn't matter that they eventually tried to apologize. It happened.

I am a Polyamorous, Pagan Queer. I am a man and I wear skirts. I march at rallies, I vote, I speak, I protest. I have strong feelings about the society that allows homelessness and foreclosures to exist in the same nation and I'm vocal about them. I am also white, fairly well off financially except for my crushing debt burden, and fairly young with no dependents. I have more of an opportunity to be out than most people in the oppressed categories I'm in, but I still face all the prejudices and oppressions that coming out brings. I walk my campus in femme cut clothing along with masculine. I wear things associated with women: makeup, nail polish, skirts and leggings. Pictures of this are already online and there's not much chance of getting them off now, not that I'd want to. I've peppered the internet with essays, blogs, posts, and for several glorious seconds I've even appeared in Daily Show footage for speaking at a rally. I am out.

To be out to me means to be free. To have cast off my closets and my broom closets and my men's section clothing racks and women's section clothing racks. To have sat across from my parents and said "I love both of these women, and they love me. This is because of who I am" even knowing we wouldn't last beyond college and even knowing they might not understand. To have stood in front of hundreds of people, sat on panels, stood before classes, and told them I'm Queer. To have stood up before professors and said "I'm Queer and I am NOT okay with what you said."

To me being out means to be watched. To know that only one police officer needs to be the wrong one to come across me walking at night in a skirt and make an assumption, and so to fear all of them at least a bit. To know that my employment and my housing are always in a tenuous state because of a lack of legal protections, and no will to back up those that exist. To know that a gendered bathroom is never an entirely safe space for me.

For someone that has never had my experience, someone apathetic to activism, to tell me that because it might be safer for me in the short run I should go back in the closet is an absolutely heinous act. Closeting someone is an act which dismisses all of their identities as being secondary to the ones they are expected to have. It is an act of intense violence, stripping someone of their autonomy and acting as an apologist to their oppressors. Pushing someone back into the closet is no less than a dismissal of the entire movement that spawned a response to the AIDS epidemic. If someone wants to be closeted, or needs to be closeted out of concern for their own well being, they should never be condemned, but to tell someone that is free of the closet that they would do better to go back embodies the force of all subtle oppressions, microaggressions, and assumptions into a phrase. "This world is better than you. Your place is where it put you. It's better if you just see that."

If I lose my home, if I cannot be employed because I raised my voice for the thousands of people that cannot raise theirs, I would rather live on the streets like Sylvia Rivera than to allow myself to be silenced. If I am subject to violence I will face it as has every activist before me that refused to be moved, to be pushed away, to be quieted, to be closeted. Let my name be sung in a hall somewhere like a hero, shouted out like a demand that violence be addressed, that suffering be addressed, that oppression be addressed, and that the apathetic not sit idly by because I went out with my head up and out.

I refuse. I reject. I deny. Unequivocally, without exception and in no uncertain terms: The Closet. I am burning my closet down, right here, and right now. Here I stand for all the internet to see.

-Thorin Sorensen

MBLGTACC part 3: Identity Caucuses and Allies

Part 1 is here
Part 2 is here

"I hate it when allies talk," is something I was told by a close friend after MBLGTACC was over and we were discussing our experiences in different identity caucuses. For the first time in my life I've been able to understand this sentiment, and it's a heavy one so I'm taking a whole post to break down what it means to me and potentially what it should mean to allies. The first part of this post is largely based around experiences at MBLGTACC, and so it's related primarily to the LGBTQ community, but in relation to the allies themselves it doesn't matter what group they're allies of. This is important content to understand.

MBLGTACC part 2: Polyamory and Politics

 Part 1 is here

A few more days out from MBLGTACC 2013, the Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Ally College Conference, I'm ready to took another look at the conference and assess feelings that aren't just longing to return. It wasn't a perfect conference, as much as I loved it, and although it was the most inclusive of Polyamory of any MBLGTACC I've attended that also left more room open for things to go wrong. So with a queer movie night behind me (Watched "Together" and apparently Scandinavian comedies are based around the idea that if as many people as possible are miserable it must be funny for SOMEONE and romances universally mean always going back to the man that hit you) I'm ready to tackle the Polyamory workshops and caucuses, how they worked, how they didn't, and what they could have done. 

I've started adding handy labels to posts to designate the level of understanding you'll need to have of a specific community to jump right into a topic. This way I won't have to be as extensive with providing definitions for terms I've covered before in each new post. If you're coming here for a Socialist perspective for example (which I really am going to get to extensively once the MBLGTACC stuff is properly wrapped up) but aren't really familiar about Queer identity or Polyamory, there are some articles you should check out before others will make sense to you, and vice-versa. So introductory posts that explain issues entirely from scratch get labeled as "Basics" while in-group topics will be labeled with "Intermediate" and theory that is deep in-group will get an "Advanced" tag. If you don't know much about Polyamory feel free to check out my What is it? Polyamory article (now updated to include more readings on the subject) and some of the linked websites before trying to understand this post.

MBLGTACC part 1: Unpacking MBLGTACC

At the moment I am recovering from an incredible weekend at the Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Ally, College Conference otherwise known as MBLGTACC. This is one of the largest annual conferences in the country, certainly the largest in the Midwest, that is specifically about queer issues. Over 2000 people of all different identities, some of them far beyond the scope of the included acronym, converge on a college somewhere for a single weekend of discussions, workshops, networking, learning, teaching, and in some cases having conference sex. I hope that explains the delay in posting this. People don't sleep at MBLGTACC so much as they close their eyes briefly between late night events and early morning ones, and I've been thrust straight back into normative society and homework without processing time. Expect several posts in this series but don't expect them all right away.

I want to spend some time unpacking my own experiences at the conference, and the conference in general. As amazing as the conference was for me there is still a barrier of entry that includes monetary requirements, college attendance, and travel. There is a value to sharing some of the insights gained in this setting with people that couldn't access it, and allowing additional processing opportunities for the people in attendance. While I hope that much of my blog will be easily accessible without needing to locate a ton of outside readings, some posts are predominantly aimed at those that have an understanding of a specific community already. While I will try to provide some links for “obscure” terms my expectation is that people already in the LGBTQ community will be the ones most interested in MBLGTACC.

If you're utterly lost this may be a post to explore again after I've had the chance to elaborate on more topics.

What is it? Queer

What is it? is one of several types of posts I have planned for Polyamorous Paganism. I hope to use it to outline the basics of an identity, concept, practice, or act that not everyone floating around the internet may be familiar with. These aren't 100% comprehensive posts, and they aren't infallible. I can only explain my personal views on what a subject is, and I don't speak for the entirety of any community. Additionally, I'm still learning. In many of these communities I'm still a student and in some of them I'm still new. What is it? is only meant to be an introduction to a subject and an invitation to start learning along with me. 

There are only two days left before the start of MBLGTACC, the Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Trans, Ally College Conference. While the word Queer doesn't make it into that title it is one of the largest queer events in the Midwest. It's also one of the two big events I look forward to every year for reaffirming and enhancing my identity (the other one is Pagan Spirit Gathering in the summer) so I want to include it as part of my blogging experience.

So what is Queer? How is an event or a space queer? Why am I so inconsistent with capitalization?