![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Stop, it's meme time
Stealing meme from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xturncoatxiii cuse it looks like fun.
Post one-to-two sentences of every unfinished piece of writing you have, fic or non; maybe it will motivate you to finish.
He looks dead when they bring him in. [Katekyo Hitman Reborn]
On the final day of celebration of the old year passing, the new king was chosen. I didn’t go to the ceremony. [original]
It was midday when Rowan’s world went to hell. [original]
“Samantha?”
Tam stood up from his plastic seat. The nurse looked up from her clipboard, frowned, and checked it again. [original]
Edit: Posting this particular snippet made me really uncomfortable and I couldn't get that feeling to stop nagging me as I went on to do other things this evening. I think it is because this story and its character are oddly personal to me. I actually have next to nothing in common with Tam. This story isn't even about his trans-ness, it just happens to show up early because of the necessity of placing this bit in a clinic. But I did come to a lot of personal realizations whilst I dreamed up and set Tam loose in my imagination.
And then I have this weird feeling like I have no right to write about him; as if I have to keep him secret. I think it's for the same reason I often feel like I have no right to speak about LGBTQ issues. Because I haven't really suffered outside the machinations of my own brain. Because I'm just some teenager that been sheltered and petted my whole life and I don't know "what it's really like". Which I already know is bs and a stupid way to think.
And because I won't identity myself with any of these groups (I am simply me and I don't want a box or a label or a definition) I feel like I'm not in with the "in crowd". The way you can't tell Jew jokes unless your a Jew. So I guess that makes me feel like other people are going to jump on me. Or like I'm breaking some sort of rule. So there. I'm not sure if figure out and then confessing has helped the problem, but perhaps it has.
“Dawn, if I ask you a question, can you just give me a straight answer?”
Dawn opened one eye and peered up from where his head rested in Gabriel’s lap. “Well that depends on the question, doesn’t it?” [original]
Some others not worth mentioning because they're so old. Should delete those. That is all.
My college has a new program called "conversations in context" where professors speak on a topic and then engage the audience in a conversation. The topic this month was gay marriage. The conversation kept on coming back to the question of whether or not marriage as an institution is flawed. A lot of people wondered why queer people, or anybody really, might want to get married aside of the legal benefits. A common opinion was that marriage privileges certain citizens over others and enforces a very particular kind of "family". Hence, why should queer people want to join the sheep to start with?
My answer: Because it's less about marriage and more about other people putting laws on my body. Because it's about fighting the idea that somebody else can decide what I am allowed and not allowed to do in my personal life. It's about having the choice to decide whether or not I want to participate in all the things marriage has to offer, good and bad.
Plus, saying "you can't be in our marriage club" is necessarily excluding and alienating queer people. It's making them second class citizens by way of denying them things that are allowed others.
I think that simply the knowledge that the law is standing behind the right to your relationship is reassuring. Maybe someday we will get to the point where nobody is homophobic. Maybe some people don't need anybody to reassure them in the face of hatred. But most of us want to feel like there is somebody, somewhere, that is going to back us up. I think it's comforting to be able to say, if you have a problem with me, you can take it up with the government. Good luck. (Though apparently, many people have and the government... sided with them. But that is a different story.)It's comforting to know that if something (or somebody) happens there is a massive institution there to protect your choice. (And once again, whether or not it will is a different story, but people in this country are huge believers in owning bits of paper signed by other people which they can then show to yet other people. For whatever reason this ritual convinces people of things.)
Bottom line is that questions about whether or not marriage is obsolete are certainly relevant, but not central to the issue.
So that's my two cents.
xturncoatxiii cuse it looks like fun. Post one-to-two sentences of every unfinished piece of writing you have, fic or non; maybe it will motivate you to finish.
He looks dead when they bring him in. [Katekyo Hitman Reborn]
On the final day of celebration of the old year passing, the new king was chosen. I didn’t go to the ceremony. [original]
It was midday when Rowan’s world went to hell. [original]
“Samantha?”
Tam stood up from his plastic seat. The nurse looked up from her clipboard, frowned, and checked it again. [original]
Edit: Posting this particular snippet made me really uncomfortable and I couldn't get that feeling to stop nagging me as I went on to do other things this evening. I think it is because this story and its character are oddly personal to me. I actually have next to nothing in common with Tam. This story isn't even about his trans-ness, it just happens to show up early because of the necessity of placing this bit in a clinic. But I did come to a lot of personal realizations whilst I dreamed up and set Tam loose in my imagination.
And then I have this weird feeling like I have no right to write about him; as if I have to keep him secret. I think it's for the same reason I often feel like I have no right to speak about LGBTQ issues. Because I haven't really suffered outside the machinations of my own brain. Because I'm just some teenager that been sheltered and petted my whole life and I don't know "what it's really like". Which I already know is bs and a stupid way to think.
And because I won't identity myself with any of these groups (I am simply me and I don't want a box or a label or a definition) I feel like I'm not in with the "in crowd". The way you can't tell Jew jokes unless your a Jew. So I guess that makes me feel like other people are going to jump on me. Or like I'm breaking some sort of rule. So there. I'm not sure if figure out and then confessing has helped the problem, but perhaps it has.
“Dawn, if I ask you a question, can you just give me a straight answer?”
Dawn opened one eye and peered up from where his head rested in Gabriel’s lap. “Well that depends on the question, doesn’t it?” [original]
Some others not worth mentioning because they're so old. Should delete those. That is all.
My college has a new program called "conversations in context" where professors speak on a topic and then engage the audience in a conversation. The topic this month was gay marriage. The conversation kept on coming back to the question of whether or not marriage as an institution is flawed. A lot of people wondered why queer people, or anybody really, might want to get married aside of the legal benefits. A common opinion was that marriage privileges certain citizens over others and enforces a very particular kind of "family". Hence, why should queer people want to join the sheep to start with?
My answer: Because it's less about marriage and more about other people putting laws on my body. Because it's about fighting the idea that somebody else can decide what I am allowed and not allowed to do in my personal life. It's about having the choice to decide whether or not I want to participate in all the things marriage has to offer, good and bad.
Plus, saying "you can't be in our marriage club" is necessarily excluding and alienating queer people. It's making them second class citizens by way of denying them things that are allowed others.
I think that simply the knowledge that the law is standing behind the right to your relationship is reassuring. Maybe someday we will get to the point where nobody is homophobic. Maybe some people don't need anybody to reassure them in the face of hatred. But most of us want to feel like there is somebody, somewhere, that is going to back us up. I think it's comforting to be able to say, if you have a problem with me, you can take it up with the government. Good luck. (Though apparently, many people have and the government... sided with them. But that is a different story.)It's comforting to know that if something (or somebody) happens there is a massive institution there to protect your choice. (And once again, whether or not it will is a different story, but people in this country are huge believers in owning bits of paper signed by other people which they can then show to yet other people. For whatever reason this ritual convinces people of things.)
Bottom line is that questions about whether or not marriage is obsolete are certainly relevant, but not central to the issue.
So that's my two cents.