Ignorance and Justification

Someone said something stupid on Facebook, today.  I know…  Earth shattering news, right?  The thing is, it was someone I really thought was better than that.  And she is… in some ways… and not… in this way.  She chose to go into a topic that 1.) she really knew nothing about, 2.) she had a strong emotional response to, and between those two things, she did what… most everybody does about a topic they don’t know a lot about and have a strong emotional response to.  She said ignorant things.

Now her ignorance wasn’t just ignorant… it became judgmental.  Again, because she had misconceptions.  Again, because she had strong feelings.  And again… people do it.  I think it is one of those natural psychological conditions, that unless you’re made aware of it, you just do it automatically.  Like the bystander effect.

But I was disappointed.  I was disappointed that this person that I consider to be a level-headed and open-minded and thoughtful person suddenly said ignorant and judgmental things about an entire demographic of people.

I was disappointed that so many people responded with “Hell, yeah!” to her ignorance and her judgment.

A lot of people didn’t.  A lot of people latched onto the heteronormativity of her response (she basically acted as if the entire world consists of straight people and based all of her logic on that assumption.)  But a few people also responded to her judgment and ignorance.  And I should have appreciated that.  But I let myself get emotional in response and I got into an argument on Facebook.

I’ve been so good.  I’ve managed to pretty much avoid Facebook wars.  I used to not avoid them on Fetlife.  But Facebook I’ve been so good about…  Until tonight.

And for a while I was angry and my blood pressure was up and I could feel my pulse in my throat (without touching my throat) and I knew… I knew… this was bad.  And I tried to walk away.

Sir and sub brother were both out at that point, so I was alone and… my mania is running up, which is nice as a break from the depression, but it makes things… so hard… in different ways than depression… but… so fucking hard.

Eventually, I said what I needed to say.  I unfollowed the thread.  I unfollowed the person.  And I went out on the porch to draw.  And I mostly calmed down.  But then when I stopped drawing and just sat, I started to cry.

And I realized… it hurts.  It hurts to see so much… ignorance and judgment.  And in this case, of people who are… like me.  It hurts to be slapped in the face with it.  And so many people jumped to defend LGBTQ+ people… the poster even apologized for being heteronormative (sort of).  But she never apologized for being a fucking bigot about relationship dynamics… which was what her whole judgment was about in the first place.

And when I pointed that out, people literally said, “She just apologized for that!” they, literally, cannot comprehend that there are other sub groups that can be oppressed by this language beyond LGBTQ+…

And… I believe in advocacy for LGBTQ+.  I do.  I shout it from the rooftops.  And despite the continuing violence and bigotry and hatred, I am grateful that LGBTQ+ remains visible, remains a topic, remains a fight… and, in fact, in a sick way, the increase in vitriole is BECAUSE it is so visible…  The harder we fight for rights, the more violent pushback and awfulness there will be…  But at least the fight isn’t going away.  People aren’t giving up.  And the vitriole polarizes people, it politicizes people who might not otherwise take a stand.

But… nobody stands up for relationship dynamics…  Nobody fights for the rights of people who aren’t mainstream… and aren’t a highly visible minority.  And that’s what happened here.  A less visible minority got buried.

It isn’t unique.  Feminism and civil rights have done it to black women…  White feminists plow under the intersectional oppression faced by women of color, and trans women, and non-binary people, and all kinds of other sub groups…

Tonight it just hit another place close to home.  And a place I can’t even defend because I’m closeted.  I can’t even voice my own advocacy.  And… maybe that makes me a part of the problem…

I thought tonight, if I were out, at least I could fight.  I could speak.  I could write.  I could be a voice for my own allyship.

But I can’t.

I can’t be out.

Becase bigotry exists.  Even the most kind and thoughtful people have prejudice inside… because we all do.  And that prejudice can’t be addressed until it can be recognized.  And it can’t be recognized if it can’t be talked about.  It’s the only way that LGBTQ+ rights have made progress.  It’s the only way racial prejudice can be discussed…  It’s the only route to solutions.

But I can’t.  And there aren’t enough people who can right now, to make it visible.

And it hurts.

And I realized that… I’m lucky.  I can pass.  I can pass as straight, I can pass as monogamous, I can pass as vanilla, I can pass as all of the things that I would be subject to prejudice about.

Except being female.  I am forced to feel that every day.

But the rest of it, I can pretend to be “mainstream” and then I don’t have to bang into prejudice on a regular basis.  I can mostly avoid the topic and not have to feel it from others.  It comes up sometimes (like tonight) but most of the time I can slide by in life with just an uncomfortable existential sadness that I can’t share my life on Facebook, that I lie to my family, that… I live two lives.

If I were black, I wouldn’t get that privilege.  I wouldn’t be able to walk through life passing (probably).  I wouldn’t be able to avoid those sharp edges.  They would come out and meet me.  If I were a black woman, there would be even more…  And so on…

So I sat on my porch tonight and I cried.

I cried because I’m sad at the world I have to live in… the lies I have to tell… the silence I have to swallow every day.

And I’m sad that the prejudice I deal with isn’t as bad as it gets… that there are people dealing, every day, with so much worse…

And so many people who are so blase, so comfortable, so… wrapped in their cottony ignorance and justifications that they can see the oppressed bleeding in the streets and happily walk over them on their way to their next justification.

The world makes me sad.

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