It's the last day of a good year.
This year I felt myself evolve as a person in ways that I haven't felt in years. I flopped between various levels of social privilege based on the gender of my current dating partner. I shifted from social organizer to activist. I adopted a new identity-label and quickly rejected that new label in favor of a anti-label, a representation of my total rejection of the separatism within a movement. I have begun to question my lifestyle choices, my major, my career goals, my priorities, and my flaws. I have recognized that though I am but one small person, I am gifted with the ability to make a large impact on those around me. I am internally conflicted as I consider the direction my future will pursue.
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" is the U.S. military's latest policy on how to deal with homosexual/bisexual service members. Under this policy, established by President Clinton, service members will not be asked if they are homosexual/bisexual as a condition of military service, but will be honorably discharged if it is discovered or revealed that they are homosexual or bisexual (as per the military's suspicions/definitions).
A year ago, this policy meant a few things to me:
- As an individual that values integrity in my self-identity, I could not consider myself to be eligible for the ROTC program. As an individual receiving no parental financial support, this was especially meaningful to me, as this would have been a realistic way to fund my education. The cost of the scholarship would have been lying about my identity (be it a lie of omission) for 4-8 years and remaining silent about the injustices that continue to face queer people. It was a price I was unwilling to pay to a college education.
- This is/was another representation of the way that queer people are institutionally marginalized in ways that other social groups are not, purely because of an identity that does not affect a situation directly.
- This policy is/was an example that those who would oppose the queer rights movement point(ed) to in order to exemplify the idea that the American people are not ready for the equality of LGBTQAblahblahblahXYZ people.
This year, ROTC turned into a mechanism that I could use in my favor. When UMBC announced that it was considering an application to become an ROTC host site, I knew a few things:
- From the tone of the email sent to the student body, it was clear that a decision had already been made, be it in principle and perhaps not yet in practice.
- The town meetings being held to discuss this issue must include a discussion of the fact that the military's DADT policy is in conflict with the USM's non-discrimination policy, which guarantees students protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation.
- I had to be a part of that discussion. I had to speak up. I had to. I was not perhaps ready, and I did not know what I could possibly say that people would listen to, but I had to go fight this looming injustice. I had to.
- I was angry. I was hurt. I had chosen UMBC because here I saw few barriers to feeling some semblance of equality. The non-discrimination policy... it had promised. It had promised that my identity was held equal to well-protected identities such as race, ethnicity, and sex. It had promised that UMBC would be a safe place where no authority could tell me that my identity should be kept in the bedroom. It had lied.
As I went through the process of speaking at those town meetings and participating in the aftermath: considering and rejecting protests, meeting with administrators, shaking unfamiliar hands, doing news interviews, memorizing a lot of names and faces, and becoming recognized as a young activist; I always wondered, Why? Why are we even having this conversation? Why do I, as a student who just wants to be treated with respect and dignity, have to convince you that my identity is worthy of protecting? Why am I still defending my right to not be treated like a second-class citizen? Why here, where I was promised that I would not have to do that? I was confused and angered, but that only fueled my passion. For the first time in my life, people were really listening to me.
15 minutes of fame later, I am reflecting on the role that I will take up on this campus in 2009. DADT is still in place, but that specific policy was never THE issue. The real issue was always that I am not truly protected or equal on this campus. Beyond that, the major issue is that many groups are not truly protected or equal on this campus, and somebody needs to speak up for them.
I am afraid of being overly-political, and I am afraid of not being political enough. But despite these background fears and my overt consciousness of my pivotal position on this campus, I am doing. I am not just blogging about my woes on this campus. I am doing. I am changing. I am making noise.
Last year I was bisexual, and if you asked me about my gender-identity, I probably would have hesitated before making up an answer dependent upon what I thought you wanted to hear. Throughout the year, I toyed with with words like "transgender" and "genderqueer". I had never truly felt like a "woman", but I had also considered that I might be FTM (female to male) transgender when I was younger, and had decided that I was not. I never felt like or identified with women, but I also didn't want to be a man. I didn't need to shift to a different category to be who I was. I just needed to stop thinking about myself in terms of a societally-defined category. As a matter of fact, fuck societally-defined gender categories! I reject that system. I will not define myself or others based on arbitrary biological assignments. Gender is not a binary, and I refuse to participate in a system that defines it as such! is pretty much the gist of what went through my head.
The word transgender, as an umbrella term for anyone who does not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth, did indeed describe me, but another battle altogether against separatism within the queer community was taking place inside of my. I was tired of having to redefine the labels I identified with and therefore shift categories withing the community. Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Questioning. Intersex. Asexual. Ally. Pansexual. Polyamorous. Curious. Crossdressing. Straight. Pink. Orange. Short. Fat. Elephant. Pancake. Scribble. Lint. I was tired of the incessant need for categorization. I decided that on principle, I truly identified with the word Queer, which is, in my eyes, an anti-label of sorts. Queer means different things to different people. For me, "I'm queer," means, "I'm human, and please don't assume that my sexual orientation or gender-identity match the norm. Thanks." The use of this word removes the need for me to constantly question the current state of my identity in order to explain it to others, and also envokes solidarity whenever I meet another person of queer identity. It matters not what that person's sex, gender-identity, or sexual partner preference are, only that we are both queer. In that aspect, we are in solidarity.
I am in a frightening position because I feel as though I can do anything. I am afraid to discover that I am not, in fact, capable of changing the world around me. I fear complacency and silence. I fear failure, even though I know that I have the courage to pick myself back up.
But I am excited. I am filled with passion. A new year is dawning, and I am at the edge of a cliff with my wings tucked behind me.
This is the first year that I have not continued my tradition of reading through old blog posts on New Year's eve. What is done is done. The past is... over. My past has tethered me to the idea that I can't for too long now.
Last year, around this time, I was staying in some friends' apartment over break, and on their refrigerator were those word magnets that you can move around and make sentences out of. On the bottom of the freezer part of the front of the fridge was a sentence I will never forget: we may choose our family. I have never felt much support from either of my parents, especially in relation to my activism. My parents' religious beliefs dictate that I should not have the rights I am fighting so hard for. At this point, I have not seen or spoken to my mother in over a year (for largely unrelated reasons), and my relationship with my father is minimal (for largely related reasons).
The concept that I can surround myself with people who care about me to some extent or another and choose my own support network has been key to my success this year. So to those of you who have been there for me, who have let me bombard into your office to vent or rant, who have held me tight when I needed a hug, who have not been afraid to challenge me when I am wrong: Thank you. You know who you are. It is only with your continued support, mentorship, love, guidance, and faith that I will be able to take the next key steps into not only my activism, but fully living my life. I know that you will be there to help me dust myself off when I fall (because I will).
And to you that read this blog silently without my knowledge, thank you for listening. Sometimes that's all it takes.
[...thus far]
3 days ago