Reality: the Latest Logical Error

For starters, I’m writing this post in response to the article which can be found here:

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/83/slow_revolution.html

Specifically, I opened up the editor to start writing when I read the lines

… an instance when an intellectual breakthrough suddenly changed reality. But applying this structure … is to imply that the world really is equivalent to our knowledge of it and the moment we change the principles upon which our knowledge is based, reality changes too. This is the sort of erroneous logic that developmental psychologists say we’re supposed to overcome in early childhood….

I will give due credit to the author. Much of what the article says is agreeable and an intelligent rethinking of the common ‘revolution.’ Generally writing, it’s not a bad article or message.

The statements I quoted above, however, are just plain wrong. The world (‘reality’) really is equivalent to our knowledge of it, and the moment we change the principles upon which our knowledge is based, reality changes too. It is the same fictions and oversimplifications which he goes on to discuss later as a necessary part of human knowledge which make up the reality of the world. Perhaps a listing of real things will help:

• War
• Poverty
• The USA
• Market-based Economies (capitalism)
• Discrimination
• Oppression

If, tomorrow, everyone everywhere woke up thinking differently (that is, each had a radical paradigm shift in his or her sleep), these could all vanish. Soldiers could simply lay down their arms without consequence; the poor could be fed and given opportunities for a better life; countries could be renamed or split or abolished just by popular agreement; capitalism could be replaced by a different economy; discrimination could be forgotten; oppression could end. These are all facts of our reality that could change in very real ways with only a ‘revolution’ of thought.

Perhaps more concrete things are still real though, and not products of our understanding. Sex, for instance, seems to be a very real, physical thing that we project a lot on to socially. If one reads enough Foucault, however, this seems less apparent (sex for him, is an artificial unity of pleasure, biology, physiology, and a number of other things. That is, sex exists as a construct that helps us understand things in relation to each other). Or maybe guns. Guns are real, right? They even have tangible physical effects and are built by labor in factories. Not so fast. Guns can be flower holders, too. All it takes is some re-thinking (mental revolution), and the reality of what a gun is has changed. Moreover, if we rethink politics and conflict, the idea of ‘shooting each other’ would never come up, and guns would cease to be a part of political reality. And in the most real sense of all, people would stop getting shot. The principles of physics might not change to prevent shootings, but if the principles by which we understand the world do, then the reality of war can change or vanish altogether.

Our understanding of the world is the most powerful instrument of change we possess. Shifting paradigms are The Revolution, its cause, its success, and its reality.

~ J. William Lockhart

“I’m not oppressed.” On the female anti-feminist

Some people who read this may recognize themselves quoted or cited. Good.

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear people, particularly womyn, reject all feminisms. “I’m not a feminist,” “all they do is complain,” “but I’m not oppressed- it doesn’t apply to me!”

Of course it doesn’t apply to you, honey (a term I probably use for too many people). Look in the mirror: you go to a pretentious/expensive school, you live in a wealthy and safe(ish) country, your last coffee cost $5 and was “just alright,” your mac book pro lets you express your feelings on tumbler and facebook. You’re not oppressed, you have everything, right?

Look again. Your nails are painted. Your clothes accentuate your secondary sex characteristics (…curves, bare skin…). Your ears are pierced. Your heels are high and you complain about how uncomfortable they are. You wear a skirt.

“But I choose those things! I like them!” you say. Why do you do and like those things? I’m not saying that you cannot or that you should not. Instead, I hope that you see those are things our culture expects of womyn. Many of them objectify your body. Your “willful participation” is a choice that happens within conditions. Those conditions were established without your consent, without mine, as a product of an oppressive and sexist culture. Every Disney princess has form-fitting dresses, and often bare shoulders, among other things. Girls are flooded with images of ‘beautiful’ womyn who meet society’s expectations with their high heals, long hair, and other adornments. You grew up (as did boys and intersex children) being told that those were the things which were attractive, desirable, and good for a womyn. You can’t honestly say that these images had no affect on what you like- surely you would like different things if you had been raised in a different place or time.

“But I can break them! I can wear pants and drop the makeup and do anything I want! I have that right.” Of course you are able to. You can refuse makeup, cut your hair short, and wear flannel. But at what cost? Will it be harder to get a job? Will people take you seriously? Will new people brand you a “butch lesbian,” “ugly,” “unfashionable,” or “pathetic” before you have a chance to even say hello? And if they do, will it hurt your relationship with them? Some things require playing the game and performing your gender according to expectation. Many feminists want people to be more free, want to remove the consequences from doing ‘unpopular’ things.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of what you have the right to do, did you know that you can vote, own property, be educated, and get a divorce? Womyn didn’t always have those rights and in some places, they still do not. FEMINISTS helped to win them. The same feminists you now disown. If you lived before these rights, or if someone attempted to take them away from womyn now, would you fight for ‘your’ rights? Would you believe you deserved them? A feminist would.

Rape is popular (unfortunately, in many ways) as a topic for pointing out how crazy feminists are. So think: last time you were on the subway alone at night, or coming back from a bar alone at night, did you worry that some man would attack you, or that the attack would be sexual? Or do you go out alone at night? Do you instead travel in groups, and avoid the subway/city late at night? Is that because you’re afraid you might be sexually assaulted? Have you ever stopped to think that this is total bullshit? You shouldn’t have to fear rape. Your nightly plans should not have to avoid places and activities because they risk rape. I’m not suggesting that anyone endanger herself. I’m suggesting that you shouldn’t have to fear and plan for rape, because our culture should not allow and even tacitly condone rape. You may say “no one supports rape!” but take a second and think: if this were true, why are people afraid of it? Why does it happen so often, and why do only 6% of rapes result in a prison sentence? That’s what the “angry feminists” mean when they say we live in a “rape culture.” They mean no one should live in fear of sexual assault. They want our world to change so we all are safer. Don’t you agree? A feminist would.

And kitchen jokes! Oh the myriad of jokes about a womyn’s ‘proper place.’ Surely you’ve heard these. If not, spend more time around male students and/or the internet (or don’t, they can be repulsive). Surely they don’t mean anything, right? After all, the guy sitting across from you doesn’t actually expect you to deliver him a sandwich and spend your whole life in the kitchen, right? He’s not lobbying to have you thrown out of your job or school. But when does he make these jokes? Chances are they work as a deflection. That is, when the subject of a womyn doing or saying something is mentioned, a ‘kitchen joke’ is likely to follow. What does this scenario show? It shows that rather than taking the issue seriously, he would rather laugh it off.  A feminist thinks that’s bad.

“But don’t feminists burn bras and hate men?” No. The infamous bra burnings never happened. And while some feminists may hate men (or, more likely, some men or the ideas about what a ‘man’ is), the vast majority do not. In fact, many feminists (like me) are men. If we’re more upset about things than you are, if we’re so ‘angry,’ it’s because we see terrible, frustrating things all around us. Sure, we might seem happier if we’d just “lighten up,” “not care so much,” and “take it easy.” You may ask why we care so much. I hate to respond with questions, but How can you NOT care? It is precisely the apathy of “not caring” because “it’s not so bad” and “I’m not so oppressed” which allows bullshit like rape and kitchen jokes and income disparities to continue. We must care, we must say something, we must be Feminists, if we want these kinds of things to end.

~ J. William Lockhart

N.B. There are many different kinds of feminist, and many feminists have very different ideas about many things (hence the term “feminisms”). If you disagree with something one of us says, it’s no reason to reject all feminisms. If you still care about issues like those I mentioned above, you’re still a feminist.

A Grave

“If the good citizens of Arcadia, Florida, could chase from their midst an average, law-abiding family, it is, I would suggest, because in looking at three hemophiliac children they may have seen – that is, unconsciously represented – the infinitely more seductive and intolerable image of a grown man, legs high in the air, unable to refuse the suicidal ecstasy of being a woman.” ~ Leo Bersani discussing HIV/AIDS in “Is the Rectum a Grave?”

This article rocked me more than once. The author, Leo Bersani, is rather fond of rhetorical shock tactics, and I suppose that I am as well. It forces an audience to engage with a text by defying their expectations and interrupting their ‘interpretive flow’ (i.e.  by forcing them to pause and consider rather than skim across). It is somewhat humorous, too, that he writes of people like Catherine Mackinnon coming across as radical or even insane for their rhetoric. He is certainly familiar with the perception and effect of this kind of rhetoric, and his decision to use similar shock tactics and radical rhetoric is, doubtless, an informed one.

I had a strange urge to share this passage (and several more) with others, to thrust it into the world and force people to engage with it as I was forced by it to engage with the article. But it wasn’t quite right. People wouldn’t understand without the context (I doubt I completely understand even with it). The quote is a part of my desire to be ostensibly radical (simply being radical seems inadequate, if it is even possible to separate from appearing so). It is difficult to pinpoint how these words (or the characterizations of sex as violence, money as oppression, &c.) are different from attending a pride parade or decrying victim-blaming. All are political speech acts, and all are in the ideological minority in this country. Initially I thought perhaps the more acceptable ones were simply more well-known, that the reason “radical” feminism, anti-capitalism, and queer politics were poorly received was their lack of exposure. But this isn’t really true. The passage I began with would go over terribly with many people I know, but its point is already endorsed by the same people.

The point Bersani is angling at is simple: the situation shouldn’t have happened. He is referring to the ostracization and eventual arson committed against a family whose three sons contracted AIDS from blood transfusions in the late 1980′s. The transfusions were medically necessary (i.e. not the result of homosexual contact or drug use), and the disease was fatal for at least two of the brothers. At the time, however, the boys (still in their early teens) had been barred from attending schools because of the stigma surrounding AIDS, and the family finally had to move away when their home was torched. Most people here today would likely agree that that was bad, and probably also that it had something to do with the homophobia tied to HIV/AIDS. But many of those same people would still find Bersani’s word’s objectionable, or at least unsavory.

And he has a deeper, more critical (and fascinating) point to make with the diction in the final phrase, but that other function, that discussion of active and passive sex roles, is also not why people object, I think. Frankly, I don’t think there is enough in the quote to communicate this second (yet primary) function. Instead, it seems that the very jarring nature of the rhetoric is the turn-off, not its content. It is graphic and shocking (“suicidal ecstasy,” “being a woman”). It offends people’s sensibilities. It is offensive. While I am not offended by it, I can recognize its offensive nature. That’s what stopped me, shook me, and forced me to think. That’s why I fell in love with the passage. And that’s also why I fear that it would be rejected by many of the people I know; they would be offended. The mode of communication which makes it successful with one audience makes it objectionable to another.

I don’t know a way to reconcile that tension, and this attempt at appeasement with watered-down, under-thought prose doesn’t seem to be even the right direction. Bersani’s writing needs no apology, it draws its strength from being unapologetic (thus forcing a reader to make the apology and adjust his own position). This is my fascination with the offensive, the obscene and the objectionable.*

~ J. William Lockhart

* It should be noted that other things are offensive and objectionable in a different way. I do not mean, here, to suggest any support for acts of violence and hate. To these things, the objections are as intellectual and moral as they are visceral.

Titles

Of the over 50 chapters and articles I’m supposed to read for a class on gender, several of the titles stuck out. I think entertaining titles are always good, but they’re relatively rare in academic literature. They’re listed here for entertainment.

• Michael Messner “Barbie Girls versus Sea Monsters”
• Emily W. Kane, “No Way My Boys are Going to be Like That”
• Fatima Mernissi, “Size 6: The Western Woman’s Harem”
• Adie Nelson, “The Pink Dragon is Female”
• Porochista Khakpour “Islamic Revolution Barbie”
• Calastani and Kin “Firming the Floppy Penis”
• Barbara Ehrenreich, “Bonfire of the Princesses”

~ J. William Lockhart

I’m Not Wrong; the Rules Are

I wrote this a year ago and never finished or published it. Reading it now, I think it’s interesting enough to post. I don’t necessarily disagree with it, but I do know it makes me seem rude.

I like being an exception (or having one made in my name), though it seems that the rest of the world is split on the issue.  Some love the feeling of specialness and power that comes from being outside the confines of routine (and the struggle of getting there), while others desire to fly under the radar and conform, living their own lives without conflict with rules. “Get away with it, get away with it, we Americans love to get away with it!” a song by Guy Forsyth goes, and it’s true.

And it makes sense, given my ideological tendencies toward Nietzschean thought, that I would desire to evaluate the situation myself, and then impose my decision upon the rules, rather than allow them to dictate how I function. It might be best to see what I mean through examples. I managed to excuse my way out of literally 25% of class periods in my junior and senior years at high school, and almost no one in administration or faculty thought twice about it because I kept a 4.33 GPA both years, got my assignments in on time, and legitimately had better places to be. The attendance policy was strict, 6 excused absences and 3 unexcused before significant sanctions, no matter what the circumstances, yet somehow it was never enforced. On move-in day last year I called ahead and got permission to ignore my late afternoon time card by virtue of the fact that I came up by train. I was able to turn in a midterm paper several days late due to the goodwill I had built up with the professor. I use my IT ID to get into buildings without signing in. I was exposed to alcohol, drugs, and pornography before age 18 (not that the last is particularly interesting given its shallowness).

What do these have in common? First, no harm comes of them. Second, there’s advantage (real or perceived) to me. The conclusion? The rules are too narrow, and the exception is justified.

~ J. William Lockhart

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, we were all normal. Seriously. Children don’t really have abnormalities; they few they have are absorbed by the playful image of childhood. That is, even if something about them is abnormal for us, it isn’t for them, because they are children.

Andrea Gibson wrote that 5-year-old “Jessy isn’t white yet,” and she isn’t. (It’s a great poem, I encourage you to go find it/listen to it.)

I did have a little something more specific in mind when  started writing, though. I was looking through a photo album on facebook, trying to get an idea of who a male friend’s boyfriend was. In his recent pictures, those which come up first, he is fairly flamboyant: tight, v-neck shirts, limp wrists, etc. but as I dug further back in time, I noticed a shift. He wasn’t always ‘visibly gay’ (that is, he didn’t always look like what most contemporary white people in the US would label ‘gay’). Instead, he was a ‘normal boy,’ even up to about age 16. The same t-shirts, hair, jeans, poses and activities as straight boys (at least, in the pictures I saw).

Of course, I know nothing about him or his past, so it really isn’t possible to comment on the reasons for his shift toward ‘visibly gay.’ I can comment on mine, though I’m not as ‘visibly gay’ as he appears most days, and people still frequently mistake my for heterosexual. I have pink-heart earmuffs and dress more fashionably than my peers sometimes, but I’m perfectly comfortable in sweats and sneakers, too. There was a time, however, when I was afraid to look too fashionable, too ‘gay.’ I would hardly wear some of my favorite button-ups and sweaters, and wouldn’t buy things I’d love to wear now, not just because I was afraid of being seen in them, but because I legitimately didn’t like what they meant to me. They meant flamer, and I just wanted to be normal. Even now, I find things closer to ‘normal’ to be more attractive than ostensibly ‘gay’ things. Nevertheless, the longer I’ve been out, and the more experience I have had being proud of my identity, the more freely I ‘look gay.’ Capris, floral shirts, pink earmuffs, a swish in my walk, are all things I wouldn’t have fathomed several years ago.

It might be important to clarify motive here. I don’t act ‘gay-er’ because I’m trying to be ‘gay.’ Instead, I do so only when and if I actually want to do something. I don’t ‘act gay’ to ‘be gay,’ I just don’t avoid things that are considered gay because they are considered gay. I’m less ‘normal’ now, not because I openly admit my queerness, but because I no longer feel as much of that normalizing pressure which had constrained me before. I am, at least sometimes in some ways, less oppressed than I had been. (This all goes to shit, though, if I’m meeting with someone important whom I do not know.)

~ J. William Lockhart

Disjointed Thoughts on Exposure

My younger cousin listens to Alice in Chains now. I don’t object, but I was a little surprised to find out. He’s always been much more sheltered than I was, and I can’t help but think that his mother isn’t/wouldn’t be thrilled to know. (Ironically, his little sister can recite Ke$ha songs.)

A friend of mine has some experience with nihilist theory; people don’t always receive his rational for things well. Absurdist writings (like those of Camus) would probably feed his convictions, and enhance his abrasiveness to some.

Columbine was blamed on Manson. Sex and drugs were blamed on rock n’ roll. Goebbels probably contributed to antisemitism. It is not new to blame people’s actions on media they are exposed to.

Surely, effective censorship would eliminate most ‘radical terrorists’ and prevent the spread of other such ‘dangerous’ ideas.

Security by obscurity, however, has been a notable failure (at least, when it comes to intelligent and driven people). Teens won’t quit being angsty without angsty music, disillusioned people won’t cease their disgruntlement because they cannot find any literature to read.

Moreover, there is value to engaging with and examining these things, even if they are sometimes considered unsavory. “Dark arts” like metal music and racist propaganda can still often contain artistic value (as any film student should know, some of the most influential films for film making itself are also some of the most offensive, and metal often has intense amounts of technical skill).

Certainly, to soundly defeat an idea and eliminate doubts, one must first understand it well. I cannot argue that x is wrong without first knowing what x really says, and how x comes to that conclusion. I cannot reject absurdism without understanding it, at least, I cannot leave myself without doubts about it if I am to embrace something else.

But maybe not. For most people it seems sufficient to point at the conclusions and say “oh how terrible!” Sure, there is no explicit basis for those assertions, but they work very effectively, and require much less effort than understanding does. This way, there is no need to consider seemingly awful things as possibly good or correct. There is no danger of accepting them.

But what if that seeming evil isn’t evil? I made an (apparently) compelling argument about the need to reject the concept of work and the commodification of labor last semester in a class where one of the most vocally conservative students expressed his total agreement with me. I had strategically left out the need to reject global capitalism, markets, and the entire economy paradigm, things he strongly supports. If I had made those connections, I am fairly certain that he would have rejected my position because it lead somewhere unsavory (if he wouldn’t, many others would). I attribute people’s rejection of my positions to less experience with them (although I admit that someone with more exposure to them and others than myself could well and legitimately reject my positions, I don’t believe that this is a majority of people).

The point I’m coming to is that we need more information, more thought, more exposure, not less. The problem I encounter is that this is empirically improbable.

~ J. William Lockhart

Pegs

Students with the chance should participate in academic research. No where else that I have found allows for such rapid skill and knowledge growth. Perhaps this is not a novel concept to graduate students or students with graduate degrees, but it still impresses me nearly every day. Prior to joining my research team (and even after that, really until I began trying to publish) I had no concept of how far I actually was from what I wanted to be. Do not mistake my point-  knew I was far from the academic quality of the authors I looked up to, but I did not really understand that distance.

My adviser manages to demonstrate my inadequacies at every turn. I do not just mean in terms of field knowledge or experience, either.  Yesterday we were editing a joint paper at the same time, and then we each emailed the other with our changes. I found one grammatical flaw; he found nine, including the one I had found. My computer science adviser, who frequently types as he speaks, showed me that I didn’t even have the level of proofreading skill I wanted. Every change or suggestion I make and every idea I bring up are answered with several more salient and considered ones. He shows me that there is always more I could (and desire to) be doing.

It is not a demoralizing situation, however, as one might expect it to be. He manages to be very accommodating and encouraging, and to avoid making my shortcomings seem blameworthy. Really, I’m in awe of his ability to not destroy my psychologically; it would be very difficult for me, in a similar position of superiority, to preserve my student’s motivation and sense of worth. Beyond his way of presenting criticism, his general manner is very open about the things we are doing. When he seeks my advice, he legitimately wants it, and when he explains a situation, he is very direct. He treats me as someone working “with” rather than “for” or “under,” even though the latter is probably more accurate.

Of course the work itself is also very educational. Sure, I learn about the particular field of research, but I also have gained an absurd quantity of secondary skills. I’ve had to pick up the languages BASH, Perl, Java, and MySQL, gained a much more functional understanding of Fedora-based terminals, worked as an (albeit bad) software engineer, learned to frame and present work for publication, acquired a major appreciation for executive assistants, and experienced a truly collaborative work environment, in addition to countless other little things I would never have done otherwise.   Being on this project is, honestly, the most valuable use of my time.

~ J. William Lockhart

The Community

Someone posed the question last night ‘what can/should the LGBTQIA community do?’ The goal was to foster a discussion about what direction we thought the community should take, particularly given the previous conversation about what we as individuals can do to better love ourselves. The discussion that followed was interesting and valuable, no doubt, but it is not why I’m writing.

That question got me to wondering what we really meant by “the community.” I don’t believe that “community” is an inaccurate or problematic term, but I do think that people often misconceive of “the community.” We are not a community in the way that the GOP or a bird watchers association are a community. Nor are we a community like an office, dormitory, or union are communities. We, (i.e. “the community”) do not go to meetings or elect leaders; we are not forced into contact with each other by our living or working arrangements; we do not come together for a common hobby. (Of course, there are communities of LGBTQIA individuals that do all of these things: electing leaders, sharing living and working space, attending meetings, socializing, &c. These are not what is meant when people say “the community.”)

When discussing “the gay community” (and all of its less common but more inclusive phrasings [e.g. "the lgbtqia community"]), people tend to mean all people that have queer sexuality or gender (or, in some discourses, all homosexual males, as opposed to all lesbian females, &c.). In all of these scenarios, people are grouped by sexual identity, much like terms such as “the black community” are used to group by racial identity. It should not be forgotten, as it sometimes is, that “the community” is comprised of very many and very diverse individuals (why else would I use so many letters in the ‘LGBTQIA’ acronym?). These people rarely make the decision to ‘join’ the community (although some, not just allies, do make it a personal choice), and they have very different conceptions of what it means to be queer. There is no world council of queer individuals. We are not a solid voting block, structured organization, or single consciousness. Each of us has a unique identity. (e.g. I am more closely aligned with many heterosexual individuals than I am with some queer ones to whom I am radically opposed.)

So then how is there any ‘community’ at all, if people are so different within it? Through a shared (but often radically different) experience. The reason, I believe, for this sense of community lies not in our own characteristics and choices, but in a shared oppression. I know, I know, the o-word isn’t popular (at least, not with lay-folk). Nevertheless, we do have a shared experience of pain, and this pain is a product of other people’s actions, and those actions are a product of our preconceived categories of queerness. That is, because we are queer, people act in such a way that we suffer. The particular pain and suffering I’m talking about, the oppression, takes many forms, but some examples can be given. Sometimes we choose our apparel to avoid judgment. We can be disowned by their family members and rejected by heterosexual love interests. We can hear hurtful and hateful speech. We can be forced to struggle with painfully pressing issues of our own identity in ways heterosexuals rarely are. The list could go on for an eternity- each queer person has a different set of experiences. What we have in common is that our sexual identity is a source of oppression.

Our community, then, is built around a negative event (“event” isn’t the most apt word- it implies a singular occurrence). We would not speak of “the gay community” if “gay” were as normal as “brunet.” A sense of solidarity, then, seems to be all that the community is. This is a very important sense, to be sure, but it is also important to remember that we are not an organization or voting block. We are individuals.

~ J. William Lockhart

Which ‘Left?’

It’s been a week since I heard someone I respect say something that made me wonder how I do. It still hasn’t settled with me how a very intelligent socially liberal person could say, without a second thought, “you know, that really faggy kid with the long hair.” But he did.

I didn’t call him out; I was speechless. I swore I’d try not to be, but I was speechless. Part of it, too, was that I knew and respected the person saying it for his very intelligent, if not always agreeable, positions- positions that I would place solidly in the ‘true left’ socially. How could this person I thought so much of, who routinely impressed me, say such a thing seriously?

I objected to the term. I objected to the categorization of a person I didn’t even know, particularly because he didn’t identify with the category. I objected to the use of sexuality to identify someone. I objected to the link between appearances and sexual identity. I objected to the fact that no one in the area (ostensibly) objected (myself included). Hearing the words “that really faggy kid” really bothered me.

He didn’t mean it negatively, it was not a call to hate or even to distaste. I suppose it was used somewhat like the way some black people in the United States (or at least in the US record industry) use the term “nigga.” It is an attempted reclamation of sorts, a taking back of the hateful word. And although “nigga” is controversial, the LGBTQ movement has made great progress with its own reclamation project on the word “queer,” (even though some institutions, including the one I attend, refuse to acknowledge that).

I began to think, in the last few days, that I had been overly sensitive. After all, he held my esteem in these matters and others had chimed in to support his statement. Maybe my community was just overly sensitive in general, falling victim to unnecessary paralysis because of its postmodern influences.

So then, can “fag” or “faggy” be reclaimed? It didn’t come from innocuous roots (like the Spanish word for “black,” or common 1950′s US English for “different”). “Fagot” has a diverse list of meanings, but cigarettes, sticks, and unpopular elderly womyn aren’t particularly constructive. I don’t think that it can or should be reclaimed: “fag” can do the movement more good as a symbol of a terrible past and better, but still terrible present.

But beyond the diction, I had more concerns. I do not believe that ‘gay people’ act/dress/speak/look/&c. any certain way. Maybe that’s because I’m “the straightest gay” some people have ever known. Maybe it’s because I’m sick of hearing “you’re definitely gay” for having seen some movie, or held some opinion. Maybe it’s because I’m sick of hearing people “revoke my gay card” whenever I don’t know the name of a play. Yes, some homosexuals met his definition of “faggy,“ but so do some heterosexuals. How one appears and interacts has nothing to do with sexual identity, and it is wrong and hurtful to perpetuate that thought.

Most disturbingly, no one objected. There were at least 3 openly gay persons in the room, including the speaker and myself, and I could count 3 more people I knew to be allies. Most of the people there were high-school students. We were there as coaches and role models. Yet none of us spoke out against his description. I don’t think standing there with a gaping mouth did much to prevent the kids from internalizing it.

~ J. William Lockhart

Post Script: I’m very willing to have discussions and debates about this topic, as I believe it it both interesting and worthwhile to discuss. No position I hold is ever final.