PRIDE

Brilliant as the film is, this post is not about encouraging everyone to go and see Pride right now. But, you could, if you wanted to. I’m just sayin’. It’s got Andrew Scott in it.

But no; what this post is actually about, is this:

LGBT kids, you have every reason to be proud of yourselves.

The fear, and the shame, and the self-loathing, and the defensiveness and the loneliness that so often define growing up queer are unnecessary. They’re wrong. The people, and the society, that teaches you to hate yourself and your community, are wrong.

The LGBT community has done so much – fought for the legalisation of same-sex relationships, had homosexuality declassified as a mental illness, enshrined the protection of its people into law, won back the right to marry and raise children – and, in 1984, without being asked and knowing full well they were probably going to get the shit kicked out them – raised phenomenal amounts of cash for striking miners with the Pits and Perverts benefit concert, getting one over on both Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch in the process.

This is not the queer history anyone will teach you in school. No one is going to tell you about Alcibiades‘ drunkenly sobbing at Socrates for not sleeping with him, or let you read Sappho, or Radclyffe Hall; Orlando is never going to come up on your GCSE reading list; most people never learn that Shakespeare was definitely probably bisexual when they’re studying Romeo & Juliet. The gay liberation movement is not part of the History A Level civil rights module. Tragically, no one discusses the founding of San Francisco’s first (openly) gay bar. But they should. Queer kids, you (and kids of colour, but that’s another post for another blogger who’s not whiter than skimmed milk) deserve access to your history. Because it’s so very important, when you grow up in a society that tells you you’re nothing, to know that that’s bollocks. You, like all the amazing queer people who came before you and who, for the most part, also grew up in societies and families that treated them like trash, can do anything.

I know you can, because you made it here to read this. Even if you’ve been taught all your life that God hates people like you, that you’ll forever be a disappointment for not providing grandchildren for your parents, that your life and your experiences are inherently sexual and therefore ‘inappropriate’, even if you’ve never been given a single useful piece of advice about your sexual or mental health, you still get out of bed every day and live your life. And it is worth living, believe me. It is worth living even when you’re closeted, and alone, and scared. It’s worth living if you’re the only queer person you know, and the people you know treat you like a token. It’s worth living when you feel broken and disgusting.

Your life is worthwhile. You are worthwhile. You always will be. No matter how much worse it gets, things do get better. If history really does repeat itself, then they’re bound to, and there’s no reason why it won’t be you that makes that happen.

Never forget that you are incredible, and that you have every reason in the world to be proud of yourselves.

But for fuck’s sake don’t make friends with anyone who talks about ‘Straight Pride’ or you’ll let us all down.

Love, Queenie

Positive Midweek Post

So, this is (because I am forgetful as all hell) the first of the positive midweek posts, designed to cheer you all up enough to get through to the weekend – or Friday’s blog post, at least. Shorter than Monday and Friday’s posts, I’ll be briefly discussing someone or something which will, I hope, make you all smile.

This week, it’s Gillian Anderson, who came out not too long ago for this post to be irrelevant in, appropriately enough, Out magazine. There are a whole load of reasons I think she’s inspiring, but her recent revelation is definitely one of the most important. After all, the media doesn’t seem to have such a great relationship with bisexuality. Take, for instance, Andrew Garfield’s desire for a bisexual Spiderman or Tom Daley telling everyone that he wasn’t monosexual. If you remember neither of these things, then there’s a good chance that you didn’t actually miss the news – both made the headlines with the word “gay”, rather than “bisexual”.

Out seems to have made a similar decision. Despite Anderson’s public relationships with men, they refer to her past relationship with a woman as “a lesbian relationship”. In fact the word “lesbian” is used four times in three paragraphs; bisexual, not once in the whole article, although Anderson refers to herself as “not 100% gay”.

Bi erasure aside, the article is good, and anything to do with Gillian Anderson is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Seeing LGBT people in the media willing to come out and be open about their identities is always great, particularly for younger queer people who might be struggling to accept themselves. To be honest, even if she’d never said anything about her relationship with another woman I’d still think she was excellent – not only was she a punk anarchist, she’s also my height, and I’ve been mercilessly teased for being short most of my life. And, she produced one of the best responses I’ve ever read in an interview, to the question “don’t you feel sorry for men?” Gillian Anderson does not feel sorry for men.

She has her own blog here, helpfully entitled The Official Gillian Anderson website.  I hear it was going to be called World of Tights, but you know how people are.