The Opening And Closing Of Doors

2018 - and indeed, October 2018 in particular marked a turning point in my life, where I closed a few doors behind me on past endeavors, and opened a door ahead of me.

My activist past in terms of belonging to organized groups and associations is a lengthy convoluted one, and if you'd been following my blog "Sour Grapes: The Fruit Of Ignorance" since I started it in 2009, you'd probably be aware of some of this.

New Release: "The Pink Community - The Facts" Second Edition!

New release: "The Pink Community – The Facts" - Second Edition! Back in 2009 when I was in full swing of my human rights advocacy and running two LGBT rights groups (SA GLAAD and ECGLA), I put together an online information resource which mainly consisted of useful quotes and links to articles online.

As an activist who campaigned a lot on social media against bigotry in form of homophobia and transphobia, these links came in handy to post as replies to enraged bigots, rather than typing out lengthy replies each time! Instead, the link would manifest with a reference to a useful scientific or medical article that would invalidate the bigot's viewpoint, and they would be left there, seething, embarrassed, with egg on their faces!

Gradually this list grew until it migrated from a text file I kept on my PC, into a Word document - and then, when I started my blog "Sour Grapes: The Fruit of Ignorance", I dedicated several pages to it there. Later, in about 2012, I migrated it to my official author site, where it still lurks, as a free resource for human rights advocacy. This allowed for page hierarchies rather than just a huge cluster (or clutter!) of pages on a site!

Reja-vu

The "Protection Of Information" Bill (or POI) is getting a white-wash from the South African government, and from figures who think it is a good idea to censor the free Press. 

 

Some say it will redress the wrongs under the still existing (yet hardly enforced) Apartheid-era secrecy law. (Of course they are hoping that by using the "A-word" the lemmings will leap to a knee-jerk decision in favor of the POI without bothering to think further than - "oh it must be better then".) 

 

Instead of just scrapping the old law, or using the original draft replacement law from three years ago, which was more in line with democratic values - they want to replace it with an "upgrade", a V2.0 - no doubt soon to be followed by an "Apartheid v2.0". 

 

The working title for this little exercise in retribution could be something on the lines of "the Formerly Oppressed Strike Back", and we all have a pretty good idea of who the main characters will be, and how it will play out. After all, we've seen it all before - just across the border in what used to be a fairly prosperous neighboring country.

Are Militant Homosexual Activists An Extinct Species?

Back in the day, opponents of equality and human rights for us Pink folks used to call anyone who dared speak out against them or shoot down their ridiculous arguments "militant homosexual activists". Typically, they used to show their blatant ignorance by calling transgender activists the very same thing as well. But regardless of the details, today I have to wonder where all those "militant activists" have gone?

Wolves In The Fold

It's pretty hard to deny that a lot of the world's problems have roots in the activities of organized book-religions like Christianity, which are less matters of personal faith and more systems of control.

Hoax = Bad Business

The recent report of the Ugandan gay rights activist, whose severed head was discovered in a latrine, and his dismembered torso in a field, has now been reported as a hoax. 

 

This discovery inflamed the international Pink Community because - well, hoaxes are more than just trickery and lies, they are damaging to our cause of GLBT human rights. Yes, at first those perpetrating such hoaxes seem to generate lots of sympathy and support - but when people realize they have been "played" they become very bitter and angry, and who can blame them? They also tend to evoke that common childhood parable of "crying wolf".

 

With much of Africa (and including South Africa) currently a hot-spot of homophobia and transphobia, we see a future in which a Pink genocide looms over the horizon - and in more than one country. 

 

These days, our worldwide communications are so good, reliable and quick, that reports like this can span the globe almost instantaneously - making timeous verification virtually impossible. Often, by the time what seems to be a very credible report turns into a hoax, it is far too late.

 

This gives very poignant credence to the Twain-ism “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

Broadening The Support Base

It seems that advocacy groups always leave somebody out somewhere. 

 

All these groups names just say "gay" and "lesbian" but few seem to include "intersex", "bisexual" or "transgender" in the name. I know the GLBTIQ etc. acronym is an ever-changing and expanding, evolving and growing royal pain in the butt, and even that omits several other emerging groups such as asexuals. We need a global name to describe the community as a whole. And we need to make sure no group gets left out - or feels left out.

For some time I have been using the term "the Pink Community" to describe us - because to me, that is all-inclusive, no matter what sub-part you belong to, if you are not strictly heterosexual or are in any way gender-variant, you can be sure that you are included in there, somewhere.