Unsolicited queer opinions are everywhere. And that makes the holidays tough. Seeing family brings back old relationship patterns, behaviors, fears, traumas, and with a healthy relationship of love confusing everything – it’s a stirred up a mess.
You are successful, talented, respected, gifted, beautiful and the best queer you can be. Remind yourself. And ask people you surround yourself with to remind you to. Hopefully they do this naturally. But I hear a booster is a great remedy to stave off a virus like all the phobias (homo, trans, bi, queer, all of them).
There have been a lot of people who’ve felt the need to have an opinion on our lives. Celebrities. Friends. Journalists. Authors. Parents. Preachers.
Projecting Fear Via Queer Opinion
So, early in the morning I heard a news story about Rev. Wally Carlson giving a speech at the commencement ceremony for Millikin University in Decatur, IL. He pretended to take a call from God and took it upon himself to share what God had said about “the gender issue.”
He was transphobic, dismissive, discriminatory, and exclusionary. His words were harmful and judgmental. They’re dangerous. They’re alienating without a queer community.
And without diversity of thought or insight he delivered a judgmental queer opinion based off his own fears and projections.
Homophobia On Display
I went home to Oregon recently and spent some long overdue time with family. When I shared with my sister-in-law that I had brought a tea with me my father overheard. He asked if it was…and the real words are lost to time…”special” tea, while quickly relaxing his wrist.
In the moment he realized his mistake and tried to stop the gesture. But it was too late. Besides, queers are too aware. I felt that gesture before it even happened.
I recognized his continued Homophobia. And the cis-male patriarchal experience that he continues to surround himself with.
You’re not Their Fear Or Homophobic Opinions
Then I realized my pattern of falling into being smarter than the bully. I explained the history and process to make the tea. How it was the predecessor to the tea that accompanied the Hudson Bay Company. And I ignored the pain of the moment.
I also realized my own internalized homophobia when I tried to avoid how gay the tea could be. These are both parts of me that are holistically me.
My queerness is what gave me the opportunity to be everything I am and his response is to belittle that success, talent, and respect?
Claiming your pronouns has propelled you into new avenues, deeper personal awareness, and a fuller expression of self. And a pastor full of fear imagining all that you can be – that they are not – belittles the powerful being that you are?
Not today.
A new queer opinion: You are successful, talented, respected, gifted, beautiful and the best queer you can be.