Pride Month 2021

Quickies > 2021-06-18

My annual attempt at educating folks about Pride and why it matters. June 2021 was a particularly challenging year between my grandad passing away and my very quickly diminishing financial stability. Some of the effect of that may show in the writing. If so, well, so be it.

Day 1

Let's start Pride off with an interesting one.

"Why are you so worried about labels? Don't they just serve to divide us further?"

Second part first: no and yes. Our labels are for ourselves. It's one way that we're able to come to terms with our identities. But it's also how we find people who have similar experiences. In addition, it's a lot easier to use a short label than to use a longer verbal description.

Example. Is it easier to say that

I'm a mostly femme attracted panromantic demisexual trans woman,

Or is it easier to say that

I like women more than other gender types, but gender isn't super important when it comes to romantic attraction, and I find it very difficult to experience sexual attraction to people, and I was assigned male at birth but my gender is more aligned with women.

The ability to concisely express identity is super important in conversation. Because that longer description isn't particularly conducive, using my chosen labels allows others with similar experiences to more quickly understand me.

And while labels do give us a way to categorise things in general, meaning that they let us separate things into nice neat groups, they are far more useful as a tool for identifying connections between similar things. In this case, queer people.

So.

I'm worried about labels because labels unite queer people. Sure, they split us up into groups, but those groups are all united in the most important ways.

Or at least we should be.

Day 7

Okay. Time to talk about stuff.

My grandad passed away last week. The impact of that loss is why I've been quiet, and it'll probably keep bothering me for a while. But. This provides me the opportunity to share some stuff I wasn't intending to talk about.

My grandparents have always been super supportive of me in almost all my endeavours. When I wanted to join the military, they supported that choice. When I told them I wanted to be a teacher, they told me I'd probably be poor as heck, but they supported me anyway.

Back in September 2014, I ended up in the hospital and subsequently a crisis center for mental health and other issues. While there, it came to the point that I knew it was time for me to come out of the closet. Because the stress of that secret was a big contributor to me ending up there.

So the first weekend of October, after I got out of the crisis center, I went to visit my grandparents. They deserved a warning prior to my dropping that on everyone. It scared the crap out of me, but I was ready to accept whatever happened, even if they decided to disown me, like a certain other family member basically did.

What shocked me was that neither one of them was upset at all. They were happy for me. They were happy with me that I was able to talk to them about this issue. They said they loved me and would support me in any way they could going forward. They were the ones to ask about name and pronouns when the subject was being discussed. They wanted me to be happy, like they always had.

Sure, they weren't perfect when it came to specific things, but they always tried. And my grandmother still does, constantly making an effort to support me.

In the next couple of years after that conversation, I got to sit down and chat with my grandad numerous times, and it was just like it always had been. He was loving, and he enjoyed talking to me about the things we shared as mutual interests. He really was just as supportive as ever. And it made it very easy for me to spend time with him.

Anyway.

If my very old school grandparents could be solid allies, then no one has any excuse.

Day 8

I don't often hear it from my circles, but here's another interesting one.

"What's the point of Pride, anyway?"
And the related question
"Why don't we get a Straight Pride?"

The point of Pride as it exists today is to celebrate the progress we've made since the time period when the following were common practice:

sterilising queer men
jailing queer people on the grounds of being queer
letting violent crimes against queer folks go unpunished
sweeping an epidemic under the rug because it disproportionately affected queer men
much more

Pride is intended also to recognise that there's still a tonne of progress to be made if we are going to claim any semblance of equality or even equity. Because if you have a look at the list above, some of it still happens in various places around the world. For example:

in some states violent crimes against queer folks are forgiven because the perpetrators "panicked" when they discovered the victim was trans
in many countries, queer people can still be arrested just for being queer
it's extremely easy for queer folks to lose jobs simply because we are queer

A lot of things that queer people experience on the regular don't impact cis-het people at all. Those of us who opt to be public about our identity do it for any variety of reasons. Some examples include:

to give hope to queers who are not so public (for whatever reason) that things can and will get better
to help normalise the presence of queer folks in public spaces
to actively pursue positive change in the world

We don't choose to be out just to rub it in people's faces. For some of us, it's the only choice for survival. For others, it's the only practical solution to making change in the world.

The point is, we need Pride because it's our current way of trying to help make change for the better. If cis-het people really think they need such a thing, then they would be well served to take a step back and ask themselves if they've ever had to deal with the things I mentioned above SPECIFICALLY because they're cis-het.

Anyway. Happy Pride.

Day 12

Another thing.

"I love you, but I just don't like your lifestyle."
Or
"Love the sinner, hate the sin."
Or
"I don't hate [queer people]. I just don't wanna see it."

All of these have the same energy. If you're uncomfortable with someone being queer, then you are uncomfortable with the person themself. The two things are functionally equivalent. Because being queer is a part of us. It's not something we choose. It's just as much who we are as any other part of our identity.

My "lifestyle" as a queer person is largely just me being a trans woman and swooning over all the pretty people in the world, regardless of gender. It literally affects no one but me and the people I do relationship things with. So if it bothers you, you should examine why.

If my very existence constitutes "sin" in your worldview, that says more about you and whatever standard you use to identify sin than it does about me. As I said above, my being queer DOES NOT affect you. It does not hurt ANYONE. Period.

And that applies to ALL queer people. Our existence, of itself, is entirely harmless. So why devote so much energy to demonising queer folks?

Anyway. Happy Pride.

Make a homophobe uncomfy today.

Day 18

The following is a near verbatim copy and paste of a post from two years ago today. Hope you enjoy.

Content warning: discussion of transphobia and violence against transgender people.

The links below are a horribly sanitised approach to the topic, but they are an introduction.

Now.

It's not a secret that I'm a transgender woman. It's also not a secret that I am sometimes very vocal about how that affects my life. If I can talk about it, I will. A lot of people will get uncomfy with the notion of me discussing this stuff, and they can suck eggs. A lot of people will get tired of it, but it's gonna keep going as long as the links below are still actively a problem.

As I have shared in the past, being transgender and closeted feels kinda like wearing shoes on the wrong feet, or using your off hand to perform a complex task, or a number of other things that ought to be easily remedied but provide a huge level of discomfort if it isn't fixed. It's wildly uncomfortable.
"Okay, Terra, then come out of the closet. Great. But you're still a ..."
No. Fuck that noise. That just changes things from a looming discomfort to an active discomfort. No thanks.
"Okay, fine, Terra, you can transition, but you can't access any gender specific stuff except for ..."
No. Fuck that noise too. I'm just a woman trying to live my life. If you can't handle that, then you can just stay the fuck out of my way.

But here's the thing. Being openly trans is not just dangerous. It is fucking deadly. Hell, being trans and not open about it is deadly. It's not as simple as "Be yourself, Terra, and you'll be fine" because there are assholes who have literally killed trans people just because they met them on the street. There are horrible monsters who have killed trans people just for trying to live their lives. I'm not embellishing when I say that I'm more than twice as likely to die since I came out, and whether I'm open about it or not, that is still the case.

So when I say "I'd rather be comfortable than safe", and when I say that it is about Pride, I'm being sincere.

I know it's a lot to read. If you did read it, thanks. Everyone else can kindly go suck eggs.

Tags: --- queer --- pride --- june-thoughts --- sapphic --- fb-rants --- extra-long --- compilation ---

Words: 1718

Date: 2021-06-18