Owning The 'H' Word

The "H" word. 

 

We all know it. 

 

We have all felt it. 

 

Sometimes we use it to describe traffic jams, the stuff we find on our sandwiches, the work we do, or getting up on a Monday morning. 

 

We use it so easily, but sometimes things happen to us that we can't control - things that are done to us by other people who for that moment, had control over our lives and made us feel powerless, insignificant and small. 

 

And then it is that we redirect the injury done to us by others back at them - and make it all worse.

We own the "H" word, and we eagerly claim it with both hands - not realizing that it is not us who wields it, but it which wields us.

 

The word I'm discussing here is, "hate".

Hate is bad for everybody.

Rainbow Unity

Last week I noticed for the first time that people refer to the rainbow flag as "the gay flag". I have often heard it referred to as such, but for the first time I really thought about it. Is it really?

We have quite a diverse community, consisting of gay men, gay women (or lesbians), bisexual people, transgender people (including transsexuals, drag queens, transvestites, she-males) and intersex people. There are also other sub-groups such as pansexuals, panromantics, the gender-queer and asexuals. And if you think that's all there is to us, you're mistaken. There are also some lesser-known sub-cultures within our community, such as the bear and leather groups.

And yes, while we may be gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex, we can also be part of more than one of these groups at the same time. 

What's Your Handicap?

Today I want to talk about handicaps - such as religion. And when I say "handicap", I mean in terms of driving with the handbrake still on. That's right, like having lead weights put in your pack to slow you down. Or your golfing handicap. Yes, that's a better description - because without that handicap, you could score so much higher. In fact I think that describes exactly what I mean.

Ulterior Motives

Why do South Africa's law enforcement agencies not seem to be curbing or preventing violent crime incidents plaguing us of late?

Two likely reasons come to mind:

1) Because they are really unable to curb or prevent violent crime and don't want to admit it, or

2) Because they want the country to be or at least appear to be becoming ungovernable.

Of course, one would have to really wonder why the second reason might apply... except if, for example, they might later need to "justify" a reactionary crackdown on societal or democratic freedoms.

Surely I am exaggerating? I don't know, am I?

Asking myself this question, I am confronted with several interesting facts.

At the top of the list of these interesting facts, is the detail that something like this is beginning to happen right now with the pending reintroduction of media censorship.

Rainbow Flag = Cohesion

It is a simple fact that if members of a community stop socializing together, we soon stop co-operating and standing together as well. Pretty soon we stop thinking of ourselves as being part of the same community - and not long after that, we start acting like rivals - or worse yet, enemies.

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.

Is There Something We Can Do? Yes. There is.

There are groups in South Africa which are claiming to be able to "cure" gay people, as though human sexual orientation and gender identity is some form of disease or "lifestyle choice". Their attack on human rights and freedom of expression comes ENTIRELY from the perspective of religious conservatism and fundamentalism and has no basis in fact, reality, science or medicine whatsoever.

They claim we are "broken", burdened with "unwanted SSA" (that's "Same Sex Attraction") that we are somehow in need of their intervention, and so they believe that the same God that made us gay, bisexual or trans, has duly appointed them the moral guardians to rush to our aid and to save us from our sinful natures.

I find the fact that so many people actually fall for their nonsensical prattle rather disturbing. In fact, I think it is because of a lack of education on what we are as opposed to what they say about us.

22 Things Heterosexual Couples Take For Granted When Getting Married

Lists have been on my mind lately, so I thought I would run with it. Today's list is about things heterosexual couples can expect or take for granted when getting married:

40 Myths, Busted

I thought today I might make a short list of things that expose the shaky foundations of most stereotypical anti-gay myths being peddled by anti-equality groups. In doing so, I found a list, upon which I based my list. (You can view the original here.)

Duck Blind

It was Constantine, the false Christian and Emperor of Rome, who founded the Catholic Church. According to Catholic tradition, he supposedly saw a message in the heavens, a blazing cross in the sky, which was said to be a promise from god to give him victory in his battle for political power in the Roman Senate. "In this sign conquer" it said, and so he went off to quickly 'convert' his thousands of soldiers with a flick of his wrist and a quick sprinkle of water - and conquered his own country by violence in what was essentially a coup. 

 

It's funny how sometimes we miss the blatantly obvious, but it finally occurred to me today that "conquest" is not a Christ-like value. Neither is "evangelism" since the word literally means "waging war".