Coming Out Versus Sticking Your Head in the Sand (or Elsewhere)

© WafflesAtNoon.com

Thursday, October 11, 2018 marked National Coming Out Day, a recognition and celebration of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer) community. Hard on the heels of that comes proposed legislation to define citizens as either male or female based entirely on their genitalia. Here, friends, we have manufactured division, stoked hatred, and utter ignorance of the realities of our times.

Originally, I had intended to write about my own reaction to Coming Out Day, which would have been friendly enough, but with some trepidation about getting personal pronouns wrong and the embarrassment of unfamiliarity with a whole new vocabulary of categories from the LGBTQ community. While I will share those struggles here, I have absolute disgust for the news that our federal government administration wants to....relieve us of this terrible societal burden of adapting to a new gender landscape.

When I was single, I would sometimes be hit on by gay men. I was not appreciative of that and firmly communicated such, though often the other person would smile in a "knowing" way that I found offensive. I do not consider myself homophobic in any sense, but I did find those episodes a painful reminder of how unsuccessful I was at initiating my own relationships with women. That is where my anger came from. I have also hit on lesbian women in the past and found that to be a demoralizing experience, too. In retrospect, I admire the courage it took for all of those people to communicate their own orientations at a time when it could be life-threatening to do so.

Flash forward to today. I'm glad we have Coming Out Day, and I completely respect however you choose to identify yourself. I think identities of all sorts are a HUGE deal, and I can understand if someone feels the need to assert theirs, especially if it has been oppressed, repressed, or simply unrecognized for so long. Hell, I finally identified myself as "writer" after decades of self-denial.

That said, I hope you will be patient with those of us who grew up in a time when there were still only two recognized genders, and we pretty much assumed everybody was straight. In many ways I feel I have suddenly landed on a completely different planet with all of this non-binary, a-gender, asexual, cis-....vocabulary that I have frankly not given time to learning. I am deathly afraid that if I address someone by an incorrect pronoun that I will be viewed as a bigot, or otherwise insensitive. The one thing that provokes me to anger more than anything is looking like I'm stupid.

I say all of this to be honest, and possibly preemptive. It turns out I have a lot of friends who fall into these "new" categories and I feel like I am now walking on eggshells. Doesn't change the fact I love them all. After all, I tend to make friends based on the person's behavior, values, non-sexual interests, and ability to communicate honestly and unambiguously.

There, I feel better now.....Wh-a-a-a-t?! Our U.S. President wants to draft legislation to define our identities based on our genitalia at birth? In the context of my current understanding of "freedom," this is about the most limiting legislation I could possibly dream up. It is totally political and has zero place in an evolving society. It is wishful thinking on the part of some unenlightened parties who long for "the good 'ol days." I think they call these people reactionaries.

You cannot stick your head in the sand when the cat is out of the bag. Sorry, didn't mean to mix metaphors, but you get my drift. We should be standing united in the face of such manufactured social divisions. They are all designed to distract, so that we fail to see the Wealthy White Male Privilege behind the curtain stealing our money, our freedoms, our rights, and our dignity. We are not divided, but we let them TELL us we are, and then we go and believe it in the face of all the contrary evidence. That is the ultimate fake news.

We Need A Love Gun

I was still in bed when my wife told me that maybe I shouldn't bother getting up. That's when she informed me of yet another mass shooting, this one at a gay nightclub in Orlando the night before. I felt my heart and stomach drop, even though I was already lying down. I moaned and rolled over. It was an all-too familiar pain for anybody with a heart. You cannot ever steel yourself against these tragedies if you have an ounce of love for humanity.

My first thought was a memory. I was living at home when my mom opened my bedroom door and told me through tears that the Challenger space shuttle had exploded shortly after launch. That was the one that the school teacher was riding, and it was really the first mission I had paid much attention to. I seem to recall I was already depressed about my own life, and that disaster didn't help any. I am frightened as to whether this shooting will push somebody to suicide in the face of a world that shows so much hate and violence that it is not worth living in, especially if you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered.

Ironically, and perhaps naively or comically, the very next phrase that entered my mind was "we need a love gun." I could literally hear that inside my head, like someone else whispered the idea. Surely, it was meant figuratively, but my imagination suddenly painted a picture from a bad 1970s or 1980s movie where a cartoonish weapon wielded by a colorful character shot rainbows and glitter at the villains. That actually sounds appropriate given that Orlando is home to Disney's Magic Kingdom, Universal Studios, and other theme parks where we flock to get away from the horrible realities of....well, reality.

Maybe we need to get right on this new invention. I cannot think of any group of humans better suited to creating something powerfully good than the LGBT community. There is a reason that the word "gay" also means "light-hearted, lively [and] given to social pleasures" according to my pocket-sized The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, copyright 1973. Funny, back then the word did not even apply to homosexuals.

Isn't that how we stereotype that population, though? Flamboyant, colorful, mischievous, dancing through life footloose and fancy-free. Somewhere, our envy turned to jealousy, to ridicule, to hate. It should have turned the other way, to joy, and to embracing the positivity of a movement that celebrates itself in pride parades. Instead we are offended? I'll save my fingers from pointing at the enemies of positive possibilities, but you know who you are.

Some people already have love guns, or, more to the point are love guns. They may not passionately advocate for entire populations of different lifestyles, but they fiercely defend the individuals they know. Love guns fire words of praise and support to those struggling with gender identity crises and hurtful personal and social experiences. Love guns are a symbol of solidarity because, you know, there but for the grace of God and genetics, go I. They have empathy, not pity. They have true love, not condescension.

I have not even turned on the television, or gone online yet, as I write this. I didn't want the storm being unleashed to cloud my vision, to make my eyes rain any more tears, to send bolts of anger and hostility through my intellect. That is not what being a love gun is about. No, it is not all rainbows and roses, either. Love guns can separate fantasy from reality.

Go, architect a new reality, design ways to change the world for the better. Start with the man or woman in the mirror. Strive. Reach out, there are so many people in need that you won't have to look far. Stop endorsing or accepting hate, including the passive, implied, institutional kind. Share your ammunition of hope, compassion, empathy, and affection. Be a love gun.