Monthly Archives: June 2014
Most Prized Possession
Things we treasure is the topic of the Writing 101 assignment from The Daily Post here on WordPress.
I’ve wracked my brain for what single item it is that is my most prized possession. I’ve looked around my house, and thought about what if I were to have a major fire and would lose everything but what I could carry, what would it be that I would juggle out the door on that single trip?
One answer is quite simple. My beloved dog Nola. For obvious reasons; like she’s my daily companion, and she loves me as unconditionally as I love her. Her support to me in times of struggle over the last 6 years that we’ve been together has been enormous. This Butch has definitely got a very soft heart when it comes to animals!
I have said before I thought that you could only get one “once in a lifetime” dog in your life, but I was very wrong, as I have had TWO! Before Nola I had a dog for 17 years named Jock. He was a Welch Corgi cross with Beagle I believe, and he was the most intelligent, loyal and affectionate dog. His bravery and loyalty were bar-none the best in a dog I have ever seen. There were times with him that I had that were just incredible. At Lake Altus in Oklahoma he would swim into the middle of the lake in search of me as I was out there tubing with my friends in the 30 foot deep water. He was left at bars, and found his way home, and he was always there for me, right to the bitter end. I sent Jock over the Rainbow Bridge in 1999, before even my first summer on the farm. Seventeen years after finding him in a shelter in Lawton Oklahoma when I was stationed there with the US Army. He was the only dog who did not bark when I entered the enclosures. That was the dog for me. He was well groomed, nails trimmed and healthy, so someone in the military probably had to leave him at the shelter for some reason he probably did not even understand. That first day he jumped right into my Chevy pick up truck and took up his residence next to me for the next seventeen years. I loved that dog so very much.
At the end of his life he could not see or hear very well, and he tried desperately to stay very close to me for security. It was very hard making that final, kind decision to let him go and it gives me chills now to think about it. But there was a peace in me after it was done, I knew I had done right by that dog. I adopted him, cared for him, loved him, and fished with him endlessly. In the end I stayed with him until he was ready to go and let me know it, then I made that hardest of all decisions that a pet owner has promised to make one day. When you adopt a pet you vow that you will do what is always best for them, and the end decision is done with that in mind. Yes, he’s probably still waiting on Rainbow Bridge for me along with Susie, the Westie that I had in high school who was also a very devoted dog.
Yes, Nola is my most prized possession, although I don’t really consider her a “possession” as much as a companion, a cheerleader and a dog that just lives to make me happy.She asks nothing more from me than to be with me constantly, watching over every move that I make. If I move from one room to another in the house, that dog follows and settles in to a new spot from which she can watch over me. I am just so lucky to have her and to get another “once in a lifetime” companion dog.
So, besides the dog what would I save? I have a teddy bear that I have had since I was a baby, and he’s my most prized material object. He’s traveled with me around the world and back (much like both my dogs!) and he’s done duty in some harsh climates in the USA and Europe. When I was stationed in the European theater I played softball for the Army. It was lucky and very easy duty and I loved it. Playing ball at that time was my life. (My shoulders are paying for it today!) And that bear would accompany our team to every away game, and would sit the bench in the home games. My grandmother, who I lost when I was 10 years old, had sewn silver metal button eyes on him when his assigned plastic eyes fell off from over-loving. I drew a paint mouth on him at around the same time. He has notches cut out of his ears from being “tagged” in recreations of episodes of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, a game and a show that I loved as a child. All of my stuffed animals had shaved spots for tags on their ears. Teddy still has his. He has a voice box at one time, but his tummy is sewn up thanks again to my Nana, and his legs are of different lengths, as are his arms from where the padding wore out. Teddy is worn and patched; loved and cherished still today.
Other than Nola and Teddy, I would grab the envelope of important papers out of my dresser draw, my address book and my laptop which is full of vital information and is my lifeline to my writing. Everything else can be replaced or has no significant value. Sure there are things like photo books and little significant items, but remember it’s a fire and I have one trip in to gather everything I can carry. I am counting on Nola running herself out of the door as I follow with the above items. I would make sure she was out before I would even hold on to the other things. Sometimes in life it’s not a significant item that is your most treasured, but a significant soul. I feel that I am responsible for Nola’s soul and because she has given me that privilege I will always protect her first.
Stop the Stupid In-Fighting!
“Significant problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking which created them.” Einstein
I read the most horrible blog yesterday here on WordPress, and was stunned to see such a waste of time and space on here. I’ll give you the general gist of the blog: it was hateful. AND the blogger was ranting and raving about how she is hated upon as a woman – which she spells ‘womon‘ for some weird reason unbeknownst to this Butch (but it makes me think of the word worm). Now, this bloggers blogging name indicates that she may also identify – I use the word lightly – as Butch as well. Because she ranted and raved about ‘identity’ over and over. She wants to see the world, and for everyone to see the world in black and white. That there are only 2 genders that exist – male and female, girl and boy, or man and woman – take your pick of words you like. While I agree that the world has generally been seen in this very binary way, you are either born with a penis or a vagina and thus you are either boy or girl, I think that humans are evolving – as they should be – and we have the capacity mentally to understand things are not always black and white for everyone.
I am a trans ally. I get crap about it from my lesbian counterparts quite often. I get accused of wanting to be trans myself. My name and photo has been ripped from my own personal pages and plastered on websites that promote hate against gender variant people. I’ve been called all kinds of names. Ya know what? I don’t fucking care. Anyone who has that kind of hate for me or any other person – male or female, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, gender-queer, gender-variant, etc etc. can kiss my skinny white ass. By pointing at someone and saying you hate them because _____ just remember, there are 3 fingers pointing back at you from your own hand. Look inside yourself, find love and compassion for all human beings. That is our common denominator, we are all human beings; beings of flesh, blood, bone and brain, who can think and feel and do and say, etc. We need to find a common love and respect for each other, and that common respect does not come from wanting to separate individuals because you don’t care to acknowledge their self-chosen identity.
I have grown into my own identity as Butch. I don’t see myself as male or female. I see myself as Butch – a cross between the two. Does this mean that because I have chosen to self-identify as Butch (like so many others do as well) that I am not worthy because I don’t hold up my female body in some kind of cult style worship? And because I don’t think I am male, that I am less than either? No, it means I am a far more complex and deeper thinking person than someone who only sees things one way; who only accepts text book notations of words, definitions and binaries.
“To choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances is to choose one’s own way”
Viktor Frankel, Holocaust survivor
The outside of every one of us changes over time no matter what. Some choose to change their bodies to suit how they feel internally, despite being affected daily by society’s gender pressures. I commend anyone who has this courage. It’s taken me many years to finally decide that I have the power over my own destiny and over my own body and can do with it what I please. And this doesn’t make me any less of a person than anyone else.
The name calling, the monikers used to describe one or another ‘clique’ of individuals is just plain stupid….stupid…stupid…and it needs to just stop. Just stop acknowledging the words, ignore them, and they will fade away. Don’t pay attention to the haters, the people spewing resentment and ignorance from their mouths or finger tips tapping on keys. Rembember the old “sticks and stones saying…words can never hurt you – if YOU do not allow them to hurt you. You are the master of your own ship, commander of your destiny so to speak. What you allow to affect you will affect you, good or bad.
Nothing in this world is purely black and white. For centuries in other cultures there have been 3rd and 4th genders recognized. Things have changed, they are continuing to change every moment that the earth spins. Get used to it. Accept that you can be a part of the change, or you can be left behind to stew in your hateful thoughts. It’s purely up to you as an individual what you choose to do here. I say make a change today, stop using words that inflict verbal insult on others, and start respecting them for who they are and respect yourself at the same time; respect who you have evolved and become over your lifetime and realize you are not that same person that you were 10 years ago either.
The LGBTQ community can just plain be catty. There’s no way to couch that statement. Catty as all hell. Nit picking goes on all over and people love to think that their way is the only way to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, or whatever you want, just fill in the blank. We need to just stop and see each other for a change. Love one another, know that we are in this battle for equality together, and for reasons! Until all people are equal, no one is equal. The in-fighting is just not becoming or very smart on anyone’s part. We need to be united and we need to learn that our differences can unite us, not let them separate us. Rock on.
Moods and Transformation
Flannel Files is a blog that I read regularly. In a post concerning her own personal metamorphosis she asks these questions…
“”What about you? Are you a moody butch or in a relationship with one? Are you still a work in progress or is your transformation complete?”
I certainly have been told that I am moody at times in my life. And I know this is true, because I take medications to keep my mood on an even keel; keep my depression at bay and to keep me happy enough to continually participate in life. Although my more somber moods tend to be less frequent nowadays, still I do have them.
Butches seem to get a bad rap for mood swings. Not saying we don’t have them or deserve a rap on the noggin occasionally, but when a Femme has moods we blame it on PMS conveniently, and when a Butch gets a bit growly it’ s like “wtf is wrong with you?” Personally, I live alone so it is not so much of an issue for me, but I do feel for my Butch brothers, ya’ll got it rough.
Ah, and our transformation. Yes, we can call it that, just don’t call it transition please. People are confused enough about us Butch figures. We come off rough and tough and then we get accused of wanting to “transition” to be male. No, that’s not the case with most of us. We are completely confused enough transforming to being just plain old Butch. It’s a lifetime fight; a lifetime transformation and a lifetime of learning to accept who we are and convince others to do the same.
I went from this gawky short kid who was trying to survive high school, and did by the skin of my teeth) into a slow transformation over the decades to the Butch that I am today. I’ve talked and written about several of the “episodes” that I’ve experienced along this journey; from the funny to the mundane. Even again today I had another ‘dressing room dilemma’ at Walmart. I wasn’t even binding, yet the lady directs me right into the guys dressing room. I shrugged my shoulders, grabbed the jeans I was trying on and headed in. She never saw me past my haircut evidently. Not saying the rest of me was any less Butch, but I wasn’t trying to ‘pass’ by any means.
I am not sure any of us as human beings ever are finished with our transformations in life. Every day that I wake up is a new challenge. Every day is a new learning experience or chance to learn if I open my eyes and see it. As I have gotten older, past that 45 mark I feel like I have definitely gotten more rooted in my ways; I’ve become a creature of beloved habit.
Now not all habits are bad. I have a habit of getting up every morning and slugging back 3 cups of the darkest roast, strongest coffee I can get, before I can even speak. The bad part is the couple of cigarettes that I inhale with the coffee. I also have a habit of wearing a white t-shirt under just about everything I wear – even my polo shirts. It’s just something I do, maybe from watching my father don a white t-shirt for years when I was young. Maybe just because I love the feel of the cotton against my skin. Some habits just stick with us over our lifetimes. Some come and go and if we are lucky don’t return ever.
My transformation from soft Butch to more Stone Butch came after my LTR of 14 years ended. It was then that I realized that I had been untrue to myself for a very long time. That I had been trying to be someone who I wasn’t. I tried to be softer for the woman I was with, not for myself. At heart I am Butch to the core. I live and breath a rough kind of deep masculinity only confined to a female body. It’s a masculinity that I was born with, that genetically I have always had – or so I feel personally. I have never known a day in this life that I did not feel Butch. And as I have said before, Butch to me is my gender.
Today I identify as a Butch. While some call me a Stone Butch, I never quite know if I can put that word with Butch or not. While I am a Butch lesbian I know that I have capacity for deep feelings and a softer side. I can be compassionate and caring even though maybe I don’t look the part. I understand my masculinity in a feminine way. I don’t take things for granted like a guy would, possibly because I feel that I have more to lose. And I don’t want to ever be considered misogynistic. I treat people with the same respect with which I wish to be treated.
I thank Flannel Files for the inspirational writing prompt! While I didn’t relate to the butterfly “metamorphosis” type of transformation, I think it was more like going from puppy-hood to being a big dog! What do you think?
My 12th Year…Where I Was…Growin Up
From “The Daily Post” “
Tell us about the home where you lived when you were twelve. Which town, city, or country? Was it a house or an apartment? A boarding school or foster home?”
I was a rather lucky kid. I grew up in a rather complete family; Mom, Dad and two younger brothers, and two younger sisters – 7 of us total. We were lucky as kids, we had terrific parents and we weren’t abused or living with alcoholics -like many of my friends tell me of their childhoods. I had a pretty typical lower middle class childhood, living in a small rural town in southern Maine that hadn’t yet reached it’s hay-day of strip malls and outlet stores. My parents worked their asses off to support and raise us, and I thank them for the childhood they gave each of us.
At twelve, I was living on a beautiful rural road, with sparsely dispersed houses, in a very historic area of town. We lived in a huge old house, the first floor being over 300 years old, the second floor added in the 1940’s. At one time the place had been a large farm, complete with two large barns that each burned long before I was born. There were the remnants of ancient apple orchards, even a pear tree and lots and lots of grape vines gone wild. The property was up against land that had been left to the town, thus it was called the ‘town forest’ – tons of acreage of wilderness with trails, old dumps, old foundations and even a couple of very old grave yards…ooooo….that we as kids would think were haunted by the old sea captain buried in one of them.
Along one edge of the property, just over the line into the town forrest, was a swamp with a small stream that ran harder in the rainy season. We played in that swamp for hours and hours. We built crude bridges, caught frogs, tried fishing and manhandled turtles. My mother would buy us tall rubber boots for our excursions into the swamp land. I recall that we had a name for the swamp, but cannot recall what it was now…but it was a beloved place to play, get dirty, find adventure and live out fantasy life as sea captains of small boats we would try to build, or as army guys crawling through the swamp grass and muck in search of the ‘enemy’ neighborhood kids.
Toward the back of the property, behind the house was a small field where there were eight or ten old apple trees. These afforded us plenty of tree climbing to pick apples. Mom would make pies for us out of them. They were old Macintosh type apples. We would have “apple wars” throwing rotten ones at one another as we scurried for cover behind the piles of old stones used to build crude stonewalls along the border of the property between us and the town forest land. Farmers would build the old stone walls that are found throughout New England when they would clear land to plant. They really had nothing else to do with nor other way to dispose of the rocks and stones unearthed when plowing. So up went stonewalls to mark borders, pen cows and horses, and to keep out the villains. Our property had stonewalls on all three sides, and was fronted by the road on the fourth.
We had one neighboring house next to us, and one kind of diagonally across the street. Next door was the home of the two elderly people who sold my parents the home for under $8,000. back in 1972 – when I was 10 years old, and we had returned from living for a short time in New York. These two became our adoptive grandparents as we had none of our own grandparents living at that time. The only grandmother I had known had died when I was 10 just after we moved into that old house; the house that would be in our family for 44 years and would be the center of family activity all that time and would shelter a million memories.
Gram and Gramps were awesome as neighbors, and they especially were sweet on my youngest brother, who went there daily for homemade cookies and some hugs from Gram. One time Gramps even got out and rode the little guy’s bike around the driveway, which was quite comical! Old man on BMX bike, knees up to his chin…you get the picture I am sure! He had a big wide grin on his face too! Gram and Gramp were killed in a head-on collision on their way to camp one weekend when I was 20 and in the US Army in Germany, sadly. I’ve always missed them. They always said they would “go together” and by golly they did. Bless them.
To the left side of the property, as standing in the road looking at the house head-on, we would play baseball, kickball and football in the field there. Gramps usually kept it mowed, as his property bordered it along that side. He loved to see us set up our baseball diamond, even though we did break his garage window once with a baseball hit foul. I think it may still be broken today even. It’s a downhill slope on that side and we would roll down the hill, wrestle and play for hours there. A few years Mom and Dad tried growing vegetable gardens on that side. The deer and bunnies would come and mow down the rows nightly. But we did succeed with some stuff once Gramps showed us how to put down dried blood around the garden to keep out the critters. Evidently they think of death and dying when they smell dried blood and avoid the area. It worked and we did have a nice crop of corn one year.
So, when I was 12 living there at the homestead I was just coming into my more rebellious years. But I was generally a good kid. I loved to read. I would find hiding places on the property, a flat stone at the far corner along the stonewall where I would lay and read. The lilac bush out front would get so huge that you had paths and tunnels through the center. It was near to the road along the front left corner, and there was a rock cliff that fell off to the road below; the lilac grew right on that cliff. I spent hours laying at the top of that cliff reading Nancy Drew mysteries, Harriet the Spy, and anything else that I could relate to.
Around this time I found a book on the roadside one day, a porn book…which piqued my interest but had to be hidden like crazy! I had a place in the old tin garage where I hid it, a platform up in the rafters where I could climb up and be out of sight to read the really nasty stuff. Until someone told on me and I got caught…that ended my porn reading career until I was 18 and could get it myself! 🙂 Ah, what a memory!
At 12 I had a 2 year old brother who I just adored. I would spend a lot of time watching him for my hard working mother. She worked right up at the end of the road at a small motel where she started as a chambermaid and wound up as the general manager. We could ride our bikes the half a mile to Route 1 and be at her place of work should we need her for anything in an emergency. The summer of my 12th year we had chickens, as I recall. Mom has always loved her chickens and fresh eggs. We would sell the eggs to locals who would drive into our broken pavement driveway looking for them. Our coops were clean and the chickens happy. We had one that would always get beat up in the pen, so she ran loose on the property and we named her Henny Penny. (The sky is falling….) She was friendly. And in the fall when the chickens all became chicken dinners (and I cried on the cliff with my cat squeezed tight in my arms) somehow Henny Penny was no where to be found on that day. She reappeared the next morning as if nothing had changed. Eventually Henny went to a retirement farm to live out her days. Dad just could not do the beheading of such a sneaky chicken – after all she had survived the carnage, she must have been a blessed chicken.
Back then, 1974, you could leave your 12 year olds in charge of your other kids and they would all survive. Sure, bloody noses and cuts from fights happened and you held the victim down until they agreed not to tell Mom and Dad that you caused the injury! Kids fell out of tree forts, crashed their bikes without helmets, and stayed out til dark, but it was a much safer time and we didn’t have video games, colored TV or social media to occupy our brains. We had the outdoors and our imaginations. We had tree forts that we built with our young hands and Dad’s leftover wood and good nails. We held each other down and made each other drink lemon juice or hot sauce, just for fun. We had rope swings that we almost killed ourselves on at times. There were neighborhood BB gun wars, single pump only! And the occasional lawn dart in the head did happen, but you survived. You learned to swim whether you liked it or not, Mom’s rule. You took a bath on Sunday night, whether you needed one or not. And Walt Disney never dreamed of showing you Myley Cyrus! Yes, it was a different time, and much more fun in my opinion, I would not trade then for now ever!
At 12 I was also discovering who I was as a person, and knew I had secrets that I could never talk about with anybody. I was about to go into 7th grade. Kids were starting to have little boyfriends and girlfriends. I was mortified by the mere thought that I would have to be some boy’s girlfriend at some point. I never knew at that time that there was an alternative for me. That would come years later, long after a fun childhood of skipping rocks on the local beaches, and building sandcastles with my baby brother. And that would come just a short year after I would take him to the races in my 1973 Dodge Dart, and teach him to jungle pee because I didn’t want him in the porta-potties at the race track. I had plenty of time for my future self, I was too busy being a fun, countrified kid from Maine who loved lobsters, clams, sunrises over the Atlantic, Seapoint Beach and my awesome family.
Think About It Thursday
“This week for Think About it Thursday, I ask you to tell us what you thought you wanted to be when you grew up. Did you become what you dreamed of?”
This is a tricky question for me. There are things you, as a child, would say you wanted to “be” when you grew up…like I wanted to be an archaeologist focusing on anthropology. Yes, I was a brainy kid that way. I loved to discover things about history, anything old fascinated my young brain. Arrow heads were totems from the Gods to me! I still have my first arrow head, found over on Manson Road in Kittery at my Aunt’s house when they were putting in a baseball diamond on her property. It’s pretty cool and it’s still a treasure to me.
I still love that stuff today. I will read National Geographic magazines cover to cover. I am deeply interested in Anthropology, or the study of human beings. Archaeology is more the digging for the relics of old, and that is still something I love to stay up to date on as well. I never did go to college, so obviously I never became a college educated archaeologist or anthropologist. But I think I am an amatuer at both, and I still love both fields and am interested in anything to do with them.
The second part of that question “Did you become what you dreamed of?” Now there is the rub in this TBT theme for me. Yes, I became the person that I had dreamed of as a kid. See, when I was small, and growing up, I always dreamed of loving a good woman and having a life with women romantically instead of boys or men. I kept this a secret until I was an of-age adult to the best of my ability. Maybe there were a few I didn’t fool, but I damned sure tried. My self-imposed closet where I kept my secret sexuality was a place of safety, because I knew those I was growing up with would never accept or understand this part of me at that time. It was too early in the 60’s/70’s for that kind of awareness, tolerance, and acceptance to be available to me – or really anyone! Thus, I just had my dreams of a very different – yet kind of the same – kind of life for myself. I wanted to be in love like those straight friends and relatives of mine that I grew up around, just that I wanted it to be with someone who was female like me.
I didn’t fully understand my sexuality as a child. But I knew that it was definitely different, and different could not be good. Funny how a child can comprehend when something should not be told or talked about. Personally I kept my own secret locked away deep inside of me until I was 19 years old. By that time I had left home, left those I knew all my life and who knew me, and was far away in the military, serving my country.
That’s when I discovered that I was not the only “freak” who thought this way! I met other women who desired the company and love of other women. At first I had some serious homophobia about it. They talked about it, they acted on it and they seemed to enjoy it, which in my well trained brain was wrong. Like most in my era we had been brought up straight and to believe that homosexuality was wrong. I personally never heard the “God wrong” scenario back then, but perhaps that’s because we were not overly religious in my household. Church was something we did on holidays or when Dad got into it for a few Sundays. I could only dream of a life of living as an out-lesbian – a word I never knew until I was about 14 years old and heard it from other kids, then looked it up in my dictionary. I dreamed of it being normal that I would have a wife and we would live together in a little house with a picket fence and a dog.
Today is a different era. Today I do live as an out lesbian and without much fear. Sure, there’s always some fear, fear that you will run into someone who hates you for just being you, because they for some reason hate LGBT people. I think it’s more that they do not understand that LGBT people are just people with different sexual desires and practices than our straight counterparts. Although I think most of us are doing the same basic things in the sack, just in slightly different ways! *smirk*
I usually try to be considerate of other peoples beliefs. I know my lifestyle doesn’t always agree with their ideals or their religious convictions. I try to steer clear of those people and just live my life. And I have a damned good life. I have a loving family that accepts and supports me; that loves me as I am. I have friends who do the same. I keep a nice home and have a dog and I date women exclusively. So my life IS as I dreamed it would be for the most part. I also dreamed I would be a writer and one day write books…well, I write, but I have yet to put that book together. One day I do hope that that part of my dream will also be a reality.
So while I never became an archaeologist or anthropologist, I did grow up and find the dream of being true to who I am in this world. I was lucky to learn many trades, most having to do with construction of one sort or another, thus I have a knack for building and fixing things that I am always honing. I had military training that taught me focus, determination, and how to be a dependable, respectful person in this world. I have a Masters Degree in street education, learning the seedier side of life during my 20’s…learning about homelessness, addiction and the challenges that people face daily in life. I have learned about inequality in this world, seen it first hand, and have stood up to fight for equality for all people. I’v stared death in the face and chose life. I’ve buried friends and their dreams all because of a fierce virus that took us all by surprise in the 80’s. By 1999 I had lost 14 friends to AIDS and was living with HIV myself. But I chose life, I chose to live my dreams and to fight like a wildcat. Modern medications have been my friend and have kept me alive and healthy for many years now. I only wish they had been available earlier for my lost friends.
So my answers to the questions of today’s Think about it Thrusday, is yes, I am living life as I dreamed it could be for the largest part. I’m not rich or famous or some highly recognized anthropologist, but I am a good, honest, loving person who lives life every day, in the present, to it’s fullest as much as I can. I wake up happy and warm. I take care of business as it needs, and I tend to my relationships with other people with care and consideration. I hope I can continue to spread the love and continue to make changes in my life and the world that are good for both! Rock on.
Gay Pride and Homophobia
Next Saturday, June 21st, is the Gay Pride celebration in Portland, Maine, which is the closest large city to me and thus I will most likely head up for the day to enjoy the festivities. Gay Pride is a funny thing, we celebrate our victories toward equality and we protest our lack of equal rights as LGBTQ citizens of the state and of the USA.
I remember my first ever Pride event was in 1993 in Washington DC. It was massive, almost a million people showed up. Of course media at that time must have been ordered to downplay the event as they estimated about 250,000….but I was THERE and I know it was closer to 1 million or more. Today, in look-back history, even the media will tell you that a million people marched on Washington that year, in what was called The March on Washington. I made this really cool vest to wear especially for it, out of one of my old camo uniform shirts with the sleeves removed. On the back, using iron-on cloth I wrote “Lesbian Veteran” around a large pink triangle. It was my first protest for equality, and my first Gay Pride event. Although, then it was called a march, not Pride as we think of it today. I believe that has we used the word Pride back then for that event that we would have been ridiculed to death, thus internalized homophobia exists even in the organizers of our Pride events. I’m sure it garnered great discussion beforehand at the preparation meetings.
Today, every year, we celebrate June as National Gay History and Pride month. My own internalized homophobia sometimes causes me to cringe a little when I think about all the freaking rainbow flags and banners flying across Facebook and around the country during Pride month. I think to myself, must we be so blatant? But then I am reminded that that is just me being nervous and being homophobic — even though I am a card carrying Butch lesbian and damned proud of it. Still, for some reason, whether it’s just left over engrained stuff from being raised in the 1960’s and 70’s during a period when it was not good to be LGBTQ at all, or what, it just makes me somehow uncomfortable even if just for a minute.
PiecrustKate, blogger who writes The Peace Pit blog did a great piece on this exact topic – internalized homophobia and she explained it perfectly, and I quote:
“Gay Pride celebrations exist because of the homophobia we face daily. They are a chance for us to say to the world that we are just like you, there’s nothing wrong with us, stop oppressing us, stop diminishing our value, stop bullying us, stop hating us.
……but this is what internal homophobia looks like. It’s the disconnect between what we know in our heads and what we feel in our hearts. It’s the deep-seated belief, nurtured by years of external homophobia, that we are less-than. That we should hide who we are so that everything goes along smoothly. We have been conditioned to believe that it is better for us if we don’t own our truth. We won’t be judged, bullied, alienated if we don’t do or say anything that illuminates our differences. It is a survival instinct. And that, my friends, is sad. ”
I read that today, and it’s made the conversation in my head just that much louder. Why are we still afraid and ashamed of who we each are as people? What is it going to take for us to all finally feel equal and comfortable in our own skin? I know in my head that I am normal and that I am equal to anyone else in my country, but the laws do not protect me from discrimination like they should. I can still be denied housing, insurance, Salvation Army assistance and a raft of other rights. My state has fought hard and won the right for everyone to marry who they choose. I am proud of that, but still when I am introducing someone that I may be “with” I am nervous about how to do that introduction and hesitant to just say the truth; although I most often do just speak the truth and let those chips fall where they may.
Then there is internalized homophobia within our community itself that has some very negative affects on us. I’ve faced discrimination from my lesbian peers because I present so blatantly Butch. I’ve even heard the stupid comments about Butches just wanting to “be men” being made by other lesbians, who you think would understand what it’s like to be disrespected and judged by others. I’ve been told it’s wrong for me to enjoy my masculinity the way that I do because that is me “worshipping patriarchy” and that is wrong. I am sure that every faction of the LGBTQ spectrum has some kind of stereotype that they are ridiculed about or judged by, even by other members of our own community and that folks, is just fucking sad.
Generations from now, when you and I are nothing but dust in the wind and fertilizer for daisies, the world will have changed and being LGBTQ will no longer be any different than being straight. Color will not longer matter, as the world’s melting pot will continue to co-mingle the genetic pool until everyone is a little of everything. Those future people will look back on the history books, see The March on Washington, The Stonewall Riots, and everything in between, before and after those events and they will wonder why all the fuss. They will one day know better; one day respect will be mutual hopefully, and differences will be celebrated and not pointed out to hurt in negative ways.
I won’t be here to see that time in the world, but hopefully future generations of my family will be, and they will have a connection to history in me and others in the family, who fought the establishment, and who fought against inequality and against homophobia and transphobia. They will read the verdicts of the highest courts of the land from their history books and they will perhaps laugh at how stupid some of the simplest fights have been along the way. I hope that day comes, and when it does we will all truly be free.
with the dogs
And I’ll enthusiastically push up another daisy in celebration, as my spirit soars above the clouds.
Gay Hide?
This is EXCELLENTLY written.
With June being Pride month, Facebook is filling up with rainbow-themed pictures (my own profile included) and the news is full of stories about transgendered actresses and marriage equality. I love this. I love Pride month and Pride celebrations, I love that we LGBTQ people are making such great strides in our fight for acceptance and equality. (I could wax poetic here about the need for people to vote on us, but that’s another blog.)
Gay Pride celebrations exist because of the homophobia we face daily. They are a chance for us to say to the world that we are just like you, there’s nothing wrong with us, stop oppressing us, stop diminishing our value, stop bullying us, stop hating us.
I personally don’t understand the fear that ‘gay’ inspires in people, but that does not mean that I haven’t internalized it. Every time I think about it before kiss…
View original post 540 more words
MainelyButch: Private Label 
You must be logged in to post a comment.