KT: Phone Home
I spent Sunday night racking up minutes talking to strangers in Boston under the auspices of a MassEquality effort to shortstop a DOM amendment in Massachusetts -- the only state where a same-sex marriage is at this time actually legal. I mostly left messages for people, seeing as how queers and other hip folks in Massachusetts generally have better things to do on fairweather autumn evenings than hang around home and watch "America's Funniest Videos". But, combined grit and optimism have so far cautiously rated the evening's effort a success. Won't you please help?
This was interesting for various reasons, in no small part because I work daily under the subtle, water-torture-like influence of fundamentalist Christians (who are really very nice people, when it comes down to it; we just see things differently.) It was nice to specifically work for something that could let people like myself be, well, no worse off than anyone else. And some of my friends reading this live in states which, while currently prohibitive of any legal benefit to your marriages, may one day depend on Massachusetts case law to rectify that.
Mostly what was interesting were the bunch of young and very earnest queer kiddoes working this gig. Laugh now, you bastards, but I have never felt older -- or straighter -- IN MY LIFE. I sat alongside a 19-ish self-identified "asexual" who was there with her boyfriend, and role-played scenarios with a fun gay-boi fashion designer who knows his own dress sizes but couldn't tell I was wearing a man's shirt. I shook the hand of a professor who might just be a year younger than me, and who was shy enough about making phone calls to go seat himself in an adjacent room. I was recruited by a friend of mine -- a bi-girl, with a long-time boyfriend -- whose commitment to activism, joie-de-vivre, and general brass backbone school me in every possible way.
But let me tell you about the person who ran this horseshow. KT is almost 10 years younger than me, and in some ways (that I hope are better than wishful thinking) reminds me a little bit of the Magic-man as she was before Catholic University, before the Exodus of Curio, and after I got over worrying whether I was man enough to stand up to the rest of the boys in my band. KT plans on making a career out of activism, and bless this dude for for having the faith and determination to do it. Joshua 14:11, yo. I remember when I thought I might do that. vegansoprano, thanks for all your support at that time. I wish we could have done more, but I learned from that effort. I learned that sometimes you just have to be yourself, in the place where you are, and let that be enough.
Just this one night, though, it was. . .heartwarming, to be a little more myself than I usually get to be. And to sit in a room full of crazy shit-kicking teenagers who've probably spent very little time pursuing a career where they had to worry about exposure compromising their employer (let alone their job); who, even if they know about this reality, and get righteously angry about it, don't live in it full-time. College is an interesting space: you can get hurt there, but a lot of people work very hard to make sure that for the most part, the students are pretty safe. And because they're safe, they can be very brave. I consider myself to be pretty much out, but I really had lost sight of just how far "outside" I've been living.
Those were my people, and I've missed them. Sunday was a little bit like looking back, and a little bit like going home.
Help Us: If any of you readers know people who vote in Massachusetts, please get in touch with them and let them know they should pick up the phone, call their state legislator, and tell this person to vote negative on the proposition that would de-legalize same-sex marriages. Tell them to do it today or Wednesday, since the proposition will be voted on Thursday. (That's right, the day after tomorrow.)
This was interesting for various reasons, in no small part because I work daily under the subtle, water-torture-like influence of fundamentalist Christians (who are really very nice people, when it comes down to it; we just see things differently.) It was nice to specifically work for something that could let people like myself be, well, no worse off than anyone else. And some of my friends reading this live in states which, while currently prohibitive of any legal benefit to your marriages, may one day depend on Massachusetts case law to rectify that.
Mostly what was interesting were the bunch of young and very earnest queer kiddoes working this gig. Laugh now, you bastards, but I have never felt older -- or straighter -- IN MY LIFE. I sat alongside a 19-ish self-identified "asexual" who was there with her boyfriend, and role-played scenarios with a fun gay-boi fashion designer who knows his own dress sizes but couldn't tell I was wearing a man's shirt. I shook the hand of a professor who might just be a year younger than me, and who was shy enough about making phone calls to go seat himself in an adjacent room. I was recruited by a friend of mine -- a bi-girl, with a long-time boyfriend -- whose commitment to activism, joie-de-vivre, and general brass backbone school me in every possible way.
But let me tell you about the person who ran this horseshow. KT is almost 10 years younger than me, and in some ways (that I hope are better than wishful thinking) reminds me a little bit of the Magic-man as she was before Catholic University, before the Exodus of Curio, and after I got over worrying whether I was man enough to stand up to the rest of the boys in my band. KT plans on making a career out of activism, and bless this dude for for having the faith and determination to do it. Joshua 14:11, yo. I remember when I thought I might do that. vegansoprano, thanks for all your support at that time. I wish we could have done more, but I learned from that effort. I learned that sometimes you just have to be yourself, in the place where you are, and let that be enough.
Just this one night, though, it was. . .heartwarming, to be a little more myself than I usually get to be. And to sit in a room full of crazy shit-kicking teenagers who've probably spent very little time pursuing a career where they had to worry about exposure compromising their employer (let alone their job); who, even if they know about this reality, and get righteously angry about it, don't live in it full-time. College is an interesting space: you can get hurt there, but a lot of people work very hard to make sure that for the most part, the students are pretty safe. And because they're safe, they can be very brave. I consider myself to be pretty much out, but I really had lost sight of just how far "outside" I've been living.
Those were my people, and I've missed them. Sunday was a little bit like looking back, and a little bit like going home.
Help Us: If any of you readers know people who vote in Massachusetts, please get in touch with them and let them know they should pick up the phone, call their state legislator, and tell this person to vote negative on the proposition that would de-legalize same-sex marriages. Tell them to do it today or Wednesday, since the proposition will be voted on Thursday. (That's right, the day after tomorrow.)