Of Concerts and Rainbow Stickers and Dead Transgendered Teenagers

[queerbychoice]

Tomorrow I'm going to my first David Bowie concert ever! And it's all thanks to Sean, who directed me to the ticket-buying website a few months ago when I'd otherwise have been far too absent-minded and out of touch with the world to get tickets in time.

It will also be the first time I've ever driven to San Francisco myself. What fun! I feel like I should do other stuff too, while I'm there. But I only get off work at noon (I just took the afternoon off), and it's a two hour drive each way, and the concert starts at 3:30, so I guess I won't have a lot of time.

David refuses to ever play in Sacramento. He's mean like that. If he ever came here I'd have managed to see him play long before now.

. . .

I affixed a rainbow stripe sticker to my car bumper this morning in a sudden spontaneous fit of wrath after pure_shite informed me that I should not be allowed to "brandish" the rainbow flag because I'm a disgrace to it. I've decided I need to "disgrace" it a lot more now, until all idiots under the impression that it represents their values cease wanting anything to do with it. TO ALL THE QUEERS WHO HATE ME: Once upon a time, I too used to be flooded with instant joy and feelings of profound soulmateship every time I saw a rainbow flag anywhere. But that was naive of me, and I soon found that quite a lot of the people waving those rainbow flags said hateful horrible things to me, even that they liked Ralph Reed and Jerry Falwell and Fred Phelps more than me. Now when I see a rainbow flag, I no longer feel so reassured. But you know what? You're just going to have to outgrow that same naivete yourself, the same way I did—because from now on, anytime you see a car with a rainbow stripe across it, IT COULD BE ME IN THAT CAR. MY CAR HAS ONE OF THOSE ON IT TOO.

The horror!! The sacrilege! Rainbow flags being disgraced by Gayle's touch! Be properly horrified, all of you.

. . .

The dialogue on my Queerchoice mailing list is making me extremely happy today, though. Every time new people introduce themselves on there, I go right back to being flooded with instant joy and naive feelings of profound soulmateship.

. . .

But sadly, I still have to interact with an awful lot of people who aren't anywhere near as cool as the people on my list. And some of the uncool people are going around killing the cool ones. These kids certainly sound (and look!) like very cool people. And damn it, that's exactly why somebody went and murdered them before they had a chance to grow up and save the world.

Comments

[rampling.livejournal.com]

I have a rainbow stripe (cool diffractive one) on my purple car, and *I* like you! Of course, to some I'm probably disgracing it too.... Oh well -- I say it's for *all* us queers! :)

Wow, what horrible stuff some folx say to you! Hang in there!

[curare.livejournal.com]

hehehe i always have to jump into a good fray.

[sweetprince.livejournal.com]

why? odd.

Rainbow sticker!

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm glad you did! I've said all along to "rainbow critics" that the symbol is what you make of it. The symbol is a reminder of diversity, so don't let others co-opt the symbol for values that don't reflect that.

Re: Rainbow sticker!

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Well, you could already tell from the design of my journal that I was pro-rainbow. ;)

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

there's no need to force yourself. for one thing, that person doesn't even need anyone arguing against him to lose an argument; he does an entirely thorough job of making a fool of himself without any help from anyone else at all. like with the incredibly accurate lj username - it was so obvious i didn't even have to bother pointing it out.

i'm actually staring more in utter fascination than in wrath. arguing about queer by choice issues hardly ever really gives me that overwhelmed i-can't-take-any-more-of-this-shit feeling that arguing on other issues (especially pacifism) does anyway; i've just heard every one of the anti-qbc lines so many million times by now that the shock of it has sort of worn off. more than anything it just makes me laugh. like when you were here, when i checked my counter one day and found a message board post where some had said my website was "just as worrisome as the ex-gays, only from the other side" - it made you angry, and a few years ago it would have made me angry, but now i've heard that line so many times that mostly i just giggle and point and exclaim to whatever intelligent person is nearest to me, "ooh look, here's an entertaining idiot to laugh at!"

this pure_shite person really takes the cake, though. what's with all the "dyke army" references? the thought of me running a dyke army certainly took me aback. the dykes would kick me out of it! i'm just a femmy fairy boi with breasts and a cunt, that's all. and since when do supposedly queer males ever refer to a "dyke army" as though that would be a bad thing? and better yet, when he perceived you as a dyke in my dyke army, and told you that "if you got some cock once in awhile, you might not be such a bitch" - what self-respecting non-heterosexual could possibly make a remark like that???

but clearly the adjective "self-respecting" does not apply here. it's that, really, that most inclines me not to yell. it doesn't accomplish anything at all to inform someone that they're pure_shite when they've already said it themself loudly and clearly for all time. if a discussion here is to be useful, it has to be predicated on some sort of blind faith that this person can be helped instead of just squashed, because this person was already fully suashed two-dimensional before any of us ever showed up.

[sweetprince.livejournal.com]

why debate at all in the first place? let him have his own opinion... thinking that something is 'stupid' is nothing more than a mere opinion, and is only worth debating if you find it threatening... and i don't see how an opinion could be threatening to anyone unless they had some sort of insecurity...

[freeze-dried.livejournal.com]

Ha-HA! @ that thread about QBC.

I don't know if I agree with QBC or not, mainly because I haven't read your manifesto, and secondly because pink backgrounds make me curse. ANYway, my point is, who the fuck cares who wears a rainbow sticker? Your mom could wear one and I wouldn't give a fuck. More importantly, who cares who you fuck? Or who you choose to fuck? Or not choose? Or whatever? Little goth boy/girl/whatever needs to get over him/herself, and stop taking shit so, so seriously.

Personally, Cynthia, I think you should plaster your ass with rainbow stickers, moon your webcam, and tell Gothy to put THAT in his opium pipe and smoke it.

While cutting himself to relieve his angst, of course.

;)

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

I suggest you read all that has been posted so far on this because you obviously don't have a fucking clue about what is going on. If you had read this from the beginning, you would know that he stated his opinion in a journal OTHER THAN QUEERBYCHOICE's, and she and her brood attacked him from there on out. He merely defended himself and made a mockery of it while he did it.

Y'all have no sense of humor.

[pure-shite.livejournal.com]

I don't cut myself you idiot. But if I did, what kind of cruel person would even make jest at such a thing. Perhaps, you need to do some self-evaluation... I don't know you, you don't know me. And yet you shred me to pieces, as if we've known each other intimately. Which, I thank my lucky stars, we haven't.

And I agree with you wholeheartedly, Gayle should plaster rainbow stickers all over her pale, cyst ridden ass...and moon the webcam. Let's see how many people she can frighten and drop into fits of hysteria.

[sweetprince.livejournal.com]

if he's goth, then you must be marilyn manson...

believe me, pure_shite is not goth. wherever you got that notion, i have no idea... but trust me. he's not goth. you'd better pay more attention to what you're writing about.

[candy-kisses.livejournal.com]

For someone who claims to not give a shit about much, you have a lot of opinions about pure_shite. First of all, calling him "gothy"--have you read his journal? Any of it? What gives you the idea he's a goth? And who cares if he is?
This whole debate started over a post which was put in a journal having nothing to do with QBC. If she needs to be on dyke partrol scanning the internet for opinions to disagree with, seems to me she needs to get more of a life, or a hobby or something.

Yay for Gayle!

[transliberation.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you went ahead and slapped a rainbow sticker onto your car, even though it represents to some people some things I would assume you're not big on (like consumerism, assimilationism, etc.). I, myself, have a rainbow sticker on my car with "Teach Tolerance" emblazoned on the front of it, even though I have problems with the whole "tolerance" idea (we only tolerate things we basically disagree with, and I want a radical queer-affirming culture)...oh well!

About the murdered transpeople: I am seriously saddened, but I was pretty amazed that the issue was covered by the mainstream press at all (especially when the victims were poor people of color), and that they were identified as "transgender", not as drag queens, transvestites, etc. But I'm still waiting for the Matthew Shepard-like outcry for these two lost beautiful young people...

[curare.livejournal.com]

i've been looking for one of those
long rainbow stickers...
you know the ones that stretch
all the way across the bumper
with wide bands of color?
would you happen to know
where i could get one?
they are so snazzy. ;>

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

yes. that's exactly what i have. mine is from www.northernsun.com - which, by the way, carries a great many other deeply cool leftist political trinkets as well. :)

[djm4]

I have no content here except to say that I painted my fingernails rainbow for Brighton Pride last weekend. Oh, and that while pure_shite is talking ... well, pure shite, I can see why the notion that one can choose one's sexuality is theatening to some people (as distinct from the notion that you chose yours). It moves the burden from persuading society to accept people who are different by their nature to persuding society to accept people who've chosen to be different. Society generally has a worse track record at doing that, more's the pity.

But you've heard all this before, so I'll shut up now.

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

I wipe my ass with people like you.

[elfbabe.livejournal.com]

pure_shite is a nut, IMO.

I'm probably going to be taking this (http://www.jhu.edu/~registr/changesfa02/ADDITIONS.HTM#070.204) next semester! Expect much mooching of paper topics, author names, and ideas. ^_-

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping that by typing IMO after stating that you think about Pure_Shite's sanity, you realize that he was stating his opinion, also. =)

[subtlyironic.livejournal.com]

glad to be of service, yo.

[marcelduchamp.livejournal.com]

What seems odd to me is that he would play defender of who is or is not properly homosexual. I'd say his efforts to make the exchange as draining as possible belie how thin and reactionary his stance was/is. If you were to tell him that people have *no* choice in their sexual orientation, he'd have probably cried bullshit all the same and fought just as hard for the other position, when what he simply needs to do is realize that simply having had sex in no way renders him educated on matters of human sexuality.

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

He isn't defending "proper or unproper" homosexuality at all. Of course, almost every one of you has their heads stuck so far up your asses that you couldn't tell the difference.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, your best friend is waiting on the other end:

http://www.eminem.com

He's got a word or two dedicated to you....

[lalenalefay.livejournal.com]

grr to queers that hate you!

i've become so paranoid that gay people hate me on principal because i'm in the territory but am with a guy, but really they mostly dont hate me and i'm so surprised. I always have been the one to initiate lj friendships with people more actively gay than me, today i had a hardcore lesbian add me, i'm SO happy, i don't suck, yay!!! :D

[sweetprince.livejournal.com]

a stranger online voices an opinion about you that you don't appreciate... and that fires you up enough to slap a sticker on your car? wow. well, i guess you're a boon to whatever cause you're fighting for...

let me ask, though, what if you didn't have any perceived opposition? what if your life was tranquil and peaceful and not a single creature ruffled a single one of your feathers? then would you still feel motivated to display a rainbow on your bumper? would you still feel a need to express your multicoloured pride?

personally, i'm all for sexual freedom and freedom of expression and so on, and i think that these social movements are bringing things forward in a wonderful way. but when someone gets upset over such a petty thing as the opinion of a stranger on the internet posted in someone else's journal... doesn't that cheapen everything else that you get riled up and impassionate over?

if you want to increase the tolerance in the world, then fight intolerance. if you want to increase the peace and understanding in this world, then reach out with peace and understanding. don't waste your energy on petty squabbles that only make everyone involved look bad. you're much better than this, and you know it. the more people allow themselves to sink into juvenile immaturity (and allowing one's feelings to be hurt by a stranger's comment is the epitome of juvenile immaturity indeed) the more you compromise yourself. you know it.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

You and I appear to have an LJ friend in common, or rather a whole collective of them, by the name of soulmyst - who, for the record, like me very very very much. Any quick scan through soulmyst's journal will bring up mentions of how much they like me (Gayle). Or ask them yourself what they think of me.

I am, in fact, a perfectly nice person. I challenge you to make a complete list of all the worst comments you can find that I've made anywhere in this thread, and compare them to an equally complete list of all the worst comments your friends have made. I think you'd find that I've consistently been the most polite and entirely uninsulting person involved in the entire thread.

I care deeply about certain issues, and that's why I bothered writing a website about them. Recently I happened to find a comment on another person's LiveJournal which called my website stupid. I replied to that comment quite simply and seriously, not rudely. The comment I got back in return voiced a great many of the very attitudes (that a person who dares to say they chose to be queer should be excommunicated from the entire queer community and banned from waving a rainbow flag) which drove me to write the site in the first place. This made me angry enough to place a sticker on my car because it brought back all the anger of earlier times in my life when others said such things to me, and all my anger on behalf of other younger people who've had the same things said to them - that's why I wrote the site, to try to help protect others from the attitudes that hurt me when I was younger. That you seem to think my issues do not merit having strong feelings merely indicates that you have not experienced what I have do not understand what it was like for me to grow up in a queer community so hostile to my own brand of queer experiences and beliefs.

I'm in the habit of using my journal to chronicle events and bursts of strong feeling in my life which feel signficant to me. Putting the sticker on the car felt like a significant event to me and that is the sole reason I chronicled it in a journal entry. It did not even occur to me when I posted the entry that anyone else would feel a need to join in the discussion taking place in the other journal, and I certainly did not ask for anyone to do so. When people did, I specifically suggested that they not approach the discussion as a war in which the goal is to squash the other side with ridiculous irrelevant insults. I have no interest in squashing pure_shite. I do not understand why pure_shite feels a need to hurl random completely irrelevant insults at me. I randomly mentioned in a previous entry that I have two small cysts, but why does he now feel such a need to make fun of them? My cysts have never done anything to him and I have never made any similarly irrelevant comment insulting the quality of his physical appearance. I would not want to attempt wanton injury of his ego like that.

"(and allowing one's feelings to be hurt by a stranger's comment is the epitome of juvenile immaturity indeed)"

This is the only statement in your comment that I really disagree with. It's the nature of humans to have feelings, and for those humans' feelings to be hurt - by strangers as well as by friends. If a random stranger started yelling homophobic remarks at you on the street, or similar insults about any issue or piece of your identity that you feel strongly about, would it be so unheard of for you to come home and post an angry tirade about it in your journal, or be motivated to add a sticker to your car because of it? I don't think that's so unusual. Having one's feelings hurt is not a sign of immaturity; responding to having one's feelings hurt by shouting random insults irrelevant to the subject at hand, with no possible purpose other than attempting to hurt someone else's feelings, is the epitome of immaturity. Again, please do feel free to count up all my worst remarks and place them side by side with your friends'; I'm confident that you'd see a very marked imbalance.

[candy-kisses.livejournal.com]

How about the internet rule "If you don't want people commenting on your sites, don't make them viewable to the general public?"
If you put things on the web for the world to see, you are inviting comments, good and bad.
Don't want the comments? Stay off the internet.