This time last year if someone had asked me how gay I was I’d have probably just said ‘Very Gay’ and not really thought much more about it. Back then I thought Queer was a useful generic term for LGBT folk- a handy passive aggressive reclaiming of an abusive insult.
‘My God you’re soooo Gay!’ can mean so many things. If it’s being said by a 14 year old school boy then you’re being homophobically insulted because, as every schoolchild knows these days, anything described as gay is-well total crap. If you’re Graham Norton it probably means you’re being seen as somehow fabulously camp, witty, superficial and flippant.
If you identify yourself as Queer however then calling someone Gay is a political jibe with the suggestion that the person has sold out or assimilated into straight society.
Back in the days when homosexuals [as gay men then referred to themselves] were fighting for civil rights as a persecuted minority, there was a split between the assimilationists and radicals. The assimilationists argued that the only way to win the same human rights as ‘normal people’ [as most straights then referred to themselves] was by asserting that we were no different from straights other than our sexual preference, and that we could prove this by joining mainstream society, settling down into monogamous relationships, getting a mortgage, acquiring a couple of cats and dreaming of adopting children someday.
The radicals on the other hand -who subsequently became known as the Faeries- took a different view. They maintained that we were not the same as everyone else, that the difference was significant and meant something and that our purpose was to discover and develop this quality of different-ness. The Faeries believed that this was what constituted our usefulness to a mainstream society overburdened with child bearing and capitalistic preoccupation. We had the gift of prizing subject- subject relationships [ie person to person love not tied in with material possessions] that for us existed happily outside of the prevalent subject-object relationships rife amongst our straight brethren. They even went as far as to say that because of our unique ability to look like everyone else whilst being dramatically different inside, we were blessed with a special healing and spiritual power which enabled us to understand two sides of conflicting perspectives making us well placed to excel in roles as therapists, shamen, diplomats and teachers.
The faeries have, over the years battled to hold on to their Queerness and have joined with others forced into the margins by virtue of their sexuality and gender differences. Queer encompasses LGB and T with an anti-assimilationist agenda.
Twelve months ago I was one of those assimilated gay men until I met the Faeries. Three faerie gatherings later I’m a lot clearer about how an unquestioned patriarchal society attempted to batter the feminine aspects of my nature out of me and although failing to process me into a closet case turned me into a straight acting gay man with a good helping of internalized homophobia desperate to be accepted by adopting monogamy and mortgage servitude
Nowadays I’m ready to accept embellish and celebrate my queerness and I can tell you it’s so much more fun than trying to fit in.
So how gay am I? 0%
How queer am I? 100%
What a great post. I completely agree. I like being a faerie, as you say, because being a faerie is what makes us so unique and USEFUL to society. The world is terrified by new solutions deviations of thought, style, and approaches to matters. The gay guy wants to avoid differences. He wants to join the army, buy a house, adopt kids and live the straight life style. This is wonderful and o.k., and this undoubtedly has lead to social acceptance of homosexuality. As you say, it is not the whole story. J.M. Keynes, a faerie in economic thought, created modern modern economics. Turing (sp) invented the computer. How many people hated the computer when it first made its appearance. Where would design be, etc.
ReplyDeleteI am an 80 year old psychologist/statistician who got fed up with the stagnant American Psychologist Assoc. just rolling along with its partner, the American Psychiatric Association in declaring homosexuality a mental disease. No one in these clubs had spine enough to use their tools to prove them dead wrong. I did a review on 300 gays, gave them the MMPI, used the beloved standards they had used since 1937 and showed that they were wrong. There are is no significant difference between normal men and gays. Of course they hated me and threatened to throw me out of "club". They were forced to change, using their own diagnostic tools. I was a faerie. I was a statistician who loved mathematics in a faerie like way. I challenged the old.
Hey Anonymous 80 year old ex-psychologist-statistician Faerie Friend!
ReplyDeleteWe have much to be thankful to you for. Your pioneering iconoclastic work truly changed the world for the better.
Revolutionary changes in society are often put down to changing whims and fashions. But if it weren't for heroes like you beavering away subversively at the cutting edge we'd still have aversion therapy clinics for the homos!
Thank-you for doing what you did.
I love you!
x
GS
The world needs both the gays and faeries.
ReplyDeleteWithout a significant degree of assimilation into the mainstream and without acquiring significant wealth to make us most desirable consumers, our civil rights would have never been granted to us.
Neither elites nor masses are really impressed by people walking around and demonstrating for their rights. Demonstrations are a dime a dozen...
Once the marketing establishment gauged the value of the pink pound, dollar and euro, and once the economic elite decided that pink or not, they WANTED our money, the politics of it changed very drastically.
Whoever wants those big campaign contributions knows what he needs to do in order to get them...
SC
Hi SC
ReplyDeleteNice to hear from you!
Wise words as always!
:)
I was a big fan of assimilation until very recently. I somehow don't think we would have made the great progress in lobbying for our human rights without a large swath of us fitting-in.
And I agree with you that there was a very powerful influence from the not insignificant Pink Pound/Euro/Dollar in this whole process.
It's just that now we're here, there's an argument to stop being so desperate to fit in. There is a downside to being just one more member of the card- carrying- mortgage- owing member of the capitalist establishment. Can we not now once more dare to be different?
Love
GS
x