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.

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.

[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.

;)

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...

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.

[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. :)

[curare.livejournal.com]

i'll be in your dyke army gayle!!! ;D
wait i guess i'm not technically a dyke either. hrm.

[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.

[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. ^_-

[curare.livejournal.com]

ooooh nifty thanks!
you have good taste in rainbow stickers!

[subtlyironic.livejournal.com]

glad to be of service, yo.

[princesswitch.livejournal.com]

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.

This is exactly why I didn't respond to the fucking idiot. I've said for years that we have the same proportion of smart people and morons as any community, and now I have proof. Sorry you had to go through this.

And thanks for posting that news article, sad as it is. I'm sorry I never got to see what those kids could've grown up to become.

[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.

[(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....

[(Anonymous)]

He couldn't just be bi-sexual?

Of course he's self-respecting. He just happens to be able to joke a hell of a lot better than you stuffy folks can. I wipe my ass with people like you.

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

Sure you are.

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

You never got to see what they would grow up and become because they were constantly changing their gender or because you knew them personally?

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

He never personally attacked her. He posted HIS OPINION in someone else's journal, and everyone got all snooty over it.

Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Or does that not apply here in Snobsville?

[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.

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

I wipe my ass with people like you.

[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. =)

[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.