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sereneI have bowed out of a discussion elsewhere, but I still have thoughts in my head about outness, and I'm putting them here. Feel free to argue with me -- I may not argue back, depending on my energy levels.
1) I think it's everyone's right to choose to stay closeted. While I think it's a suboptimal choice, I fully support the right of every human being to make choices I find to be suboptimal, given that I really don't have any faith in my own omniscience.
2) I think that if you're an adult, and you say you have no choice in the matter, and you *have* to stay in the closet, I'm not going to take you seriously unless someone has a gun to your head or has you locked in the cellar or something. It may be a difficult choice, but you're making a choice. Again, the fact that I don't like your choice shouldn't give you the impression I think you're bad/wrong/evil if you make that choice.
3) I think that if you're out to select people and not to others, [edit: and you think that no one will find out about it,] you're deluding yourself about the reliability of your closet.
4) I do not consent to helping people maintain their closets. This is not to say that I will go spouting off to everyone I know that you're queer/poly/whatever. If someone asks me if you're queer/poly/whatever, I'm likely to ask them why they're not asking you instead of me. However, if we're partners, I'm not gonna pretend I'm your pal if we're really licking each other's cunts. If we're seen in a gay bar, I'm not gonna pretend you're my straight friend along for the ride. If someone tells me something that makes it obvious they know you're queer, I'm not going to correct them to "cover" for you. I'm not going to enter into a don't-ask-don't-tell relationship. And so on.
5) If you say to me that you will lose your job if you come out, my response is likely to be, "Okay, then don't come out, but I want to let you and others know that many of us are out and still manage to put food on the table." This is not in any way intended to shame you -- it's intended to offer options to others who may be reading, and to perhaps let you know that your option field is broader than you may think it is. If you still choose to be in the closet, fine. If you still insist it's not a choice but an imperative, see #2.
6) I'm not sure why it annoys me so much when people say things like "Well, you're lucky you can be out of the closet -- I don't have choices like you have." But it *utterly*. *Annoys*. *Me*. I did not fall into outness because the luck fairy came and bonked me on the head with his magick wand and made my life consequence-free. I grew up in Navy towns. I lived in a conservative shit-kicker town with my wife. I worked for military contractors and other corporate weenies. I chose to be out, *knowing* I could get fired or even killed. If you don't want to do that, you don't have to, and that's entirely fine with me. But you insult me when you say it's just because I live in some magical world where being out is completely consequence-free.
Being out is both a personal and a political act for me. It costs me something. I don't expect everyone else to make the same choices I make, but dammit, I made the choice, and if you want to, you can, too.
Okay, rant over for now. Moving on.
1) I think it's everyone's right to choose to stay closeted. While I think it's a suboptimal choice, I fully support the right of every human being to make choices I find to be suboptimal, given that I really don't have any faith in my own omniscience.
2) I think that if you're an adult, and you say you have no choice in the matter, and you *have* to stay in the closet, I'm not going to take you seriously unless someone has a gun to your head or has you locked in the cellar or something. It may be a difficult choice, but you're making a choice. Again, the fact that I don't like your choice shouldn't give you the impression I think you're bad/wrong/evil if you make that choice.
3) I think that if you're out to select people and not to others, [edit: and you think that no one will find out about it,] you're deluding yourself about the reliability of your closet.
4) I do not consent to helping people maintain their closets. This is not to say that I will go spouting off to everyone I know that you're queer/poly/whatever. If someone asks me if you're queer/poly/whatever, I'm likely to ask them why they're not asking you instead of me. However, if we're partners, I'm not gonna pretend I'm your pal if we're really licking each other's cunts. If we're seen in a gay bar, I'm not gonna pretend you're my straight friend along for the ride. If someone tells me something that makes it obvious they know you're queer, I'm not going to correct them to "cover" for you. I'm not going to enter into a don't-ask-don't-tell relationship. And so on.
5) If you say to me that you will lose your job if you come out, my response is likely to be, "Okay, then don't come out, but I want to let you and others know that many of us are out and still manage to put food on the table." This is not in any way intended to shame you -- it's intended to offer options to others who may be reading, and to perhaps let you know that your option field is broader than you may think it is. If you still choose to be in the closet, fine. If you still insist it's not a choice but an imperative, see #2.
6) I'm not sure why it annoys me so much when people say things like "Well, you're lucky you can be out of the closet -- I don't have choices like you have." But it *utterly*. *Annoys*. *Me*. I did not fall into outness because the luck fairy came and bonked me on the head with his magick wand and made my life consequence-free. I grew up in Navy towns. I lived in a conservative shit-kicker town with my wife. I worked for military contractors and other corporate weenies. I chose to be out, *knowing* I could get fired or even killed. If you don't want to do that, you don't have to, and that's entirely fine with me. But you insult me when you say it's just because I live in some magical world where being out is completely consequence-free.
Being out is both a personal and a political act for me. It costs me something. I don't expect everyone else to make the same choices I make, but dammit, I made the choice, and if you want to, you can, too.
Okay, rant over for now. Moving on.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 05:23 am (UTC)You're welcome to think this of me, but I wonder whether it's based on inaccurate assumptions about what people hope to accomplish by being out to some people and not others. There are people I don't tell certain things to because I (or other people in my life) don't want to discuss those things with them, and all else being equal, I (or other people in my life) would rather those people not know. But I have no expectations whatsoever regarding the reliability of my closet. It would be very easy for the people I don't tell things to to discover those things, and I'm aware that it could happen at any time, and I'm comfortable with that possibility. In some cases, I would actually prefer that to telling the person directly; in others, it's an acceptable contingency, and the downsides to someone's finding out that way instead of directly from me (or finding out later instead of now) are outweighed by the immediate benefits of my not telling them.
On the "choices" stuff, though, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think there are people in the world who have no choices I can call meaningful about some kinds of outness (for instance, I'm in no position to expect people to martyr themselves in places where acknowledged homosexuality is likely to get you a death sentence), but the people I actually see claiming they have no choice do not tend to be those people.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 07:03 am (UTC)