I didn't "come out" as a kid, in part because there were bigger crises in my childhood. I just was, & later found my "people" among those who grieved the limits of so much LGBTQ+ activism.
Queerness asks big questions about why society is the way it is. Why can't we choose who's with us in hospital? Why does a certificate decide so much? Why are human rights contingent on label status?
*Society* still needs to come out (of its old shell).
And we will welcome it when it does.
@MLClark I never considered there was an actual word outside of insults for what I was until I read my dad's medical textbooks when I was 11
I grew up hearing jokes, and being bullied. F*g was the preferred insult before they'd beat the hell out of me
I didn't know what to do, didn't have the language to define what I can easily define now, but somehow the kids saw it, and there was nothing but hatred
Now, after seeing slow progress for years, I see things coming back around to hatred again.
@MLClark I'll never forget when I came out to an old friend from college. He's twenty years my senior, and a real character, degreed in psychology. He laughed and smiled... "Took you long enough to figure it out"
I was flabbergasted, and asked how he knew. "Everything about you back then, you were trying to hard, it was obvious."
It wasn't to me. After all this time, and all I've lived through, I still don't understand what is so terrifying about people being themselves.
Please do! I'm out for a walk, but I'll pop back in on my return. 🤗
@MLClark When I was mired in Evangelical Christianity, I often found heaven a more terrifying prospect than hell.
Going from the bible, which my little branch of faith was quite keen on, it was a place where there was no night, or day, and no difference. Everyone gathered around a throne singing Holy Holy Holy forever.
No more individuality, nothing more to discover, nothing to wonder over.
I say this, because I see people seeking the same kind of homogeneity in the here and now.
@MLClark I don't think its being prideful, to only want to be yourself. I dont need to be lauded, or set apart or anything like that. I just want to be able to be me.
It seems so simple yet all that hatred and ugliness conforms around the idea of "Why cant you just be normal?"
Because I'm not within a normative range, and to force me into one, is to destroy myself, and I tried to destroy myself, and all it left me was wounded and broken.
@NiveusLepus @MLClark It's funny you mention this, because I had a similar line of thought in my youth group (for which I was roundly mocked, because apparently unquestioning acceptance of dogma to fit in is what I "should" have been doing). If heaven is pure perfect unity with God, where is free will? Where is the beauty of the spectrum of human experience? Where is choice?
I would rather be free in Hell than a drone in Heaven.
@lenaoflune @MLClark That is remarkably congruent with my own thinking, indeed!
@MLClark Would it be ok if I rambled a little bit more? I don't want to steal your thread.