I’m tired.
I’m tired of having the same debates and handwringing on whether or not trans people really have a right to the gender they choose, or whether the “love” and “sin” aspect of LGB relationships cancel each other out, or how we’re going to decide whether or not same-sex couples have a right to a wedding cake.
How long, exactly, do we need to embrace this controversy, listening patiently to people who make others’ lives a living hell?
How long are we going to tolerate opinions from people so arrogant that they feel licensed to void any claims to gender people make?
How long are people going to insist on their rights to delegitimize the love two people share?
I guess that’s the most upsetting thing for me — this nauseatingly anxious constant hand-wringing over “what we are going to do with LGBT problem” asked constantly…it feels like I’m undergoing Chinese Water Torture.
Because LGBT people are not problems.
Arrogance is a problem. A book written 2000+ years ago is a problem. Theology based on fairy tales that intrusively control our lives and relationships is a problem. The fact that some reading this are offended by my reference to fairy tales while they insist on the right to misgender people and deny expressions of love between consenting adults is a problem.
That’s what I’m struggling with. I’m tired of entering the umpteenth, “What are we going to do with the LGBT community?” discussion. I think many of us are past that, and if we’re not, we probably should be.
Maybe our question should be, “What are we going to do with us?” As Leelah Alcorn put it — how are we going to fix society?
The problem of the LGBT community is the religious right’s boogeyman. It’s their mirror, their reflection, their projection.
That boogeyman is not anyone’s problem but the people who created it. So I guess…what I’m saying is that people are trying to dig for the problem in the wrong place.
It’s your complex, your struggles, your fears, your desires, your insecurities that created this problem, this obsession with denying someone the right to their sexuality or gender.
No, I’m not saying that to make you feel guilty. I am saying that as the psychologist leaning back in his chair after his client complains about a person that isn’t there. It’s a projection of your mind, and it says more about you than it does about the other person.
I suppose what tires me is that these phantoms so many Christians (though not all) seem to chase just aren’t synonymous with the LGBT community. And I just want to get beyond people’s imaginations of what’s sinful and so on and talk about the world of humanity we’re actually living in.
I guess that’s a major part of why I left fundamentalism for secular Humanism; I just noticed people who thought it was time to stop talking to the mirror and to God and to ancient texts and start talking to each other, and I identified with that.
It was not easy. It’s a frightening thing to love beyond your demons, but it’s also the most beautiful thing I know.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZZHaVIxUfA[/youtube]