Thinking back on how to move the needle forward.
Me as a kid. On a summer’s day in Greece. Non-conforming.
On Clubhouse, in the Greeklgbtq+ support club, we reflect on the past paying tribute to those who came before us paving the way for the gay rights movement. We celebrate current-day advocates and allies. We recount our own struggles and stories (past and present) sharing advice and lending support to one another. But most importantly, we discuss what needs to be done next to help move the lgbtq+ needle forward.
In every one of our talks, a common sentiment persists: yes, things are better. But if we’re to continue making strides, we need to do now what was unthinkable for us to do then—challenge homonormativity.
Somewhere along the way, as we fought for inclusivity, representation, and equal rights, we—perhaps overcome by adversity—conformed, or rather started to mimic heteronormative standards of sexuality and family structure.
Somewhere somehow, in our desperate attempt to be seen, understood, and accepted, it was assumed that queer people wanted in on the dominant, mainstream, heterosexual culture. And naturally, in our quest to gain ground, we welcomed the love crumbs to some degree—after all, it’s expected that people will seek similarities to help pacify differences.
It might’ve been the price we had to pay to get through the door to claim our rightful place in society. But this price, paradoxically, has come at the expense of true self-expression. Imagine wanting something so bad that you’re willing to lose yourself to have it.
While we fought to make our message known that love is love and that we’re well within our human rights to—without legal repercussions— love who we want, fuck (consensually) who we please, be out loud and proud; and also legally marry, divorce, have/ adopt children, buy a house with a white picket fence where we can live with our neo-nuclear modern family and pedigree pets...we blurred the lines between queer and straight. And naturally, the media did what it does best: it stereotyped the homosexual lifestyle. Even worse, it “normalized” the bits that most resemble gender-normativity: the mostly white couples nesting quietly on the sidelines. As if to say to the world, “they’re just like us, except they’re the same sex. They have kids, a dog, they bbq, and make Costco runs.” And that may hold true ...for some. But the issue with this is—as anyone differing from the dominant culture has intensely experienced in their lifetime from the beginning of time—that what society deems as normal is anything but. It’s toxic, shortsighted, racist, sexist, and classist, to say the least.
So While I welcome the common denominators between gay and queer lifestyles, it’s important to be mindful of the fact that the problem that had society reject lgbtq+ people in the first place still lingers. And the battle the transgender community continues to face today is a painful testament to this fact.
Homophobia, racism, sexism, and the likes, all stem from an acute aversion to difference—people feel threatened when their biases are challenged. It’s not easy letting go of the very beliefs we’re raised to overidentify with—especially when these are subconsciously rooted in shame.
This to say that we may be seeing homophobia slowly decline, but we’re simultaneously seeing homonormativity incline—could these be two sides of the same coin? Suddenly, the chino-wearing gays that don’t look gay are preferred over the flamboyant or effeminate types. The wholesome conservative soccer moms are preferred over the non-binary single bisexuals. Those who have kids and are married are favored over those who don’t and aren’t. The cisgender are favored over the transgender. It’s almost as if progress keeps exposing the forever hovering social dilemma: how can I relate to this so that I can accept it—enter labels and confirmation and desirability biases (people see what they expect or want to see). The problem with this myopic perspective is that not everything is about us personally and we can’t always relate to another’s idiosyncrasies, therefore making it difficult to accept and most importantly respect the differences between us. The only similarity that should matter is that we’re all human, and we all struggle with human nature.
In one of our Clubhouse chats, I asked, “have we in the last few years given rise to more lgbtq+ communities, neighborhoods, clubs?”
One of the other moderators responded, “I think it’s time we stopped segmenting ourselves. We should just belong and feel free to be as we are amongst our straight fellow humans”.
I agree. That is the ultimate goal.
And yet, I still believe that until the system corrects itself, our kind needs to continue to stand out from the crowd. At the same time, this doesn’t mean that we need to stand apart. It simply means that the dominant culture still has much to learn about our community. This requires we stand out within healthy proximity so as to not get overshadowed before we’ve had the chance to teach dominant culture more about diversity and inclusion. And we can only do that in unison and by standing out as opposed to fitting in.
We can only do that as every lgbtq+ person slowly musters up the strength to stand up and show up. Not everyone is as portrayed in mainstream media--we're not either camp or butch (although the media is actively making progress on this front). There are plenty of queer voices still waiting to be heard and faces to be seen. We may have come out wearing pearls, heels, wigs, or Birkenstocks and plaid shirts shouting "We're here. We're queer. Get used to it", but it’s time we evolved the rhetoric and steadfastly corrected misrepresentations, and biases dominant culture was quick to associate with lgbtq+ people. It’s only by allowing ourselves to continue to expand above and beyond the limitations society by default imposes on each of us, and that in turn, we impose onto ourselves, that we’ll shake off the gender and sexual shackles. In other words: be out, be proud, *but be you*—not some idealized lgbtq+ version of you. Within the rainbow there are endless shades—shine your light so the world can see better. Shine it so that others can follow it. Take pride in your true colours—it’s one way we’ll continue to move the needle forward.
