194/365
20/10/2010
Casual things first. It’s twenty-ten, twenty-ten, and that’s pretty cool.
Also, the purple is pretty self-explanatory, but in case you didn’t know, it is to symbolize the part of the LGBTQ flag, which represents soul, or spirit. It is in memory of the 6 boys who killed themselves over bullying for being gay - or for being suspected of being gay.
Do you wonder why people dress in purple today? What does it achieve? I’ve read someone’s wondering at why we don’t just donate money towards organizations that help and support the youths who are being bullied, instead of wearing purple.
Money may fund organizations, yes, but it doesn’t create acceptance. It doesn’t stop the world from seeing gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transexuals (and the Q which I’m sure stands for Questioning) as an Other (here’s my Self and Other ramblings coming in). It doesn’t stop people from thinking that gays choose to be gay, or that it’s a disease, or whatever weird conceptions anti-gays - or even non-anti-gays, just, people in general - have.
So, in this case, wearing purple to show that you support gay rights (and to show commemoration for the deaths) means a lot more than emptying your wallet, right?
I had a thought today about what it would actually be like if gays had the same rights as straight people. I guess it could never happen, because real acceptance would be a world that is something like this:
When a child (let’s for the sake of cohesion, call the child Sam. It’s a unisex name, but I will make Sam a girl) grows up, and reaches the age when she starts liking people, the other kids will tease her. The malice in their words only exists because Sam now has cooties, not because Sam likes another girl
When Sam is a little older, her parents will let her go to the movies without an adult, but only if there an older sibling chaperoning. Sam will beg her older brother or sister not to tell their parents that she’s really going out with a crush, because her mom will pinch her cheeks, say “my little baby is growing up” and making her feel embarrassed, not because her crush is also a girl.
When Sam enters high school, she starts dating officially. Sam and her partner will have people stare at them, because everyone thinks they’re a really cute couple, and not because they’re both girls.
When Sam is about to graduate, and her relationship with her partner is getting kind of serious, the other parents will gossip behind their backs, because they think the two are too young to really be that serious, and not because they’re both girls.
When Sam enters university, she won’t be inundated with fliers asking her to petition for gay rights. Gays have the same rights as straight people in the same way that left-handed people have the same rights as right-handed people (a little pun there).
When Sam starts working, and there is an office party, she will bring her partner. When she introduces her partner to her boss and co-workers, there will be a moment of awkwardness, because the partner had just recently quit the job before Sam started, and not because they’re both girls.
When Sam is getting ready to be married, her mom sighs in exasperation and stress, because Sam insisted that the wedding happen next month, and not because they have to move to a certain country just to be able to get married.
When Sam wants to be a mother, there is a huge problem which reduces Sam to tears, because she realized that her body is not fit for mothering a child, and not because she and her wife are having a hard time being accepted for IVF treatments and adoptions.
When Sam’s child goes to kindergarten, and both Sam and her wife go to pick the child up, the parents of one of the other children warns them to not play with Sam’s child, because Sam’s child has a habit of hitting other people, not because Sam’s child has two moms.
And, not once in her life, will anyone ask her who the “man” of the relationship is, because a relationship was never defined as between a man and a woman.
The fact that real acceptance lies in a reality where there is nothing to accept, because it’s all normal, means that it can never really happen, because in our current world, even if we’ve reached that level of full acceptance, we’ll constantly and consciously be thinking, “this is fine, this is normal, go with it, don’t act any differently”.
Still, that’s better than what we have now, and what have now is better than what we used to have.
