Musings on SCA & Harassment
Asim's post on harassment in the SCA got me thinking...
When I was still a protege I had a few conversations with people who asked me if I thought being gay would be an obstacle to being elevated to the peerage. The first time I was asked, I stopped dead in my tracks as it never even occured to me.
I suppose I have been lucky... to the best of my knowledge, I have never been discriminated against because I am gay. Friendly teasing from friends, yes. But outright discrimination? Not that I am aware of. (I am talking about direct and personally focused and not the generic 'no gay marriage' type of discrimination.)
The question about homosexuality and peerage got me surprisingly paranoid for a short period of time - I found myself asking others what they thought of the issue when I had never even contemplated it. I did not get one negative response. I did get a few 'well, you are so straight acting...' type of responses. And I also got one that really surporised me and made me think - "No, and in fact you will help other gays who are not as straight acting by making it more acceptable.'
Dont get me wrong, I know there were openly gay peers elevated long before me, even here in Atlantia. But this was one of the few, if not the only, times in my life where I saw my homosexuality as a potential road block to a goal. To the best of my knowledge it was not... there might have been a few people who the fact may have colored their watch list commentary or polling responses, but I view that as their issue and not my own.
No real point to this, just some musings based upon the aforementioned post.
Originally published at atlow.org.
When I was still a protege I had a few conversations with people who asked me if I thought being gay would be an obstacle to being elevated to the peerage. The first time I was asked, I stopped dead in my tracks as it never even occured to me.
I suppose I have been lucky... to the best of my knowledge, I have never been discriminated against because I am gay. Friendly teasing from friends, yes. But outright discrimination? Not that I am aware of. (I am talking about direct and personally focused and not the generic 'no gay marriage' type of discrimination.)
The question about homosexuality and peerage got me surprisingly paranoid for a short period of time - I found myself asking others what they thought of the issue when I had never even contemplated it. I did not get one negative response. I did get a few 'well, you are so straight acting...' type of responses. And I also got one that really surporised me and made me think - "No, and in fact you will help other gays who are not as straight acting by making it more acceptable.'
Dont get me wrong, I know there were openly gay peers elevated long before me, even here in Atlantia. But this was one of the few, if not the only, times in my life where I saw my homosexuality as a potential road block to a goal. To the best of my knowledge it was not... there might have been a few people who the fact may have colored their watch list commentary or polling responses, but I view that as their issue and not my own.
No real point to this, just some musings based upon the aforementioned post.
Originally published at atlow.org.