Pride weekend - well, hell, the whole month of June - seems to bring intolerant people out of the woodwork. I have found this to be especially true this year, as on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. Since then, I have encountered an astounding amount of queerphobia*.
It is no secret that I have no patience for intolerance. Even before I knew of my own queerness - before I knew much at all about the LGBT+ community as a whole - I knew innately that homophobia, transphobia, and the like ought to be decried wherever they happened to be encountered. To me, queerphobia is a form of intolerance that exists in the same vein as ableism and racism, in that it is nonsensical, unacceptable, insidious, and those who perpetrate it often attempt to justify its presence in the world.
And having personally experienced ableism all my life, I know how much it can hurt to have someone say or imply that they cannot respect you because you are different.
I think some people who are not part of so called "minority groups" see themselves as vastly different from people like me, those of us whose identities are shaped by our belonging to certain clubs, if you will - clubs that we didn't ask to be a part of but nevertheless find as much pride and happiness in having joined as we do hardship.
I am not so different from straight people - I just happen to be romantically and sexually attracted to different humans than they are.
Nor am I so different from nondisabled people - I just happen to navigate the world differently out of necessity, and see it differently because of the things I have experienced.
To proclaim, in a public forum, that those who champion diversity are being just as bigoted as those who decry it - in other words, that those of us who advocate so fiercely for equal rights and refuse to give bigotry a platform are somehow displaying the same sort of intolerance and censorship as those who react to even the slightest hint of queerness with disgust and often go as far as to deny us our rights, livelihood, happiness, dignity, our very HUMANITY - is, frankly, misguided at best.
Those of us who are activists in any form - be it for the rights of disabled people, queer people, people of color, or anything else - are not "becoming what we profess to hate" as a commenter on a blog I follow so astutely** put it.
It is not bigoted to demand that intolerance come to a halt.
It is not bigoted to refuse to offer a platform to mindsets, words and actions that harm fellow human beings.
Combating bigotry does not make a person a bigot themselves.
Equating activists with the people whose beliefs they are working to combat doesn't do anyone any favors.
And for those whose first impulse might be to call me "rude" or "disrespectful" for refusing to censor my opinions regarding intolerance: as I said on the Facebook thread that was stuffed so full of hatred it inspired me to blog for the first time in years, "I am under no obligation to take into account the feelings of people who believe I am a lesser human being because I happen to be queer. If anyone...thinks I have to give them the time of day even though they're actively disparaging me and people like me, think again. If you don't see me as a human being deserving of rights, I owe you nothing".
I will not sanitize my feelings, my words, or my activism for anyone. I no longer have the energy to avoid saying what I really feel. I no longer have the energy to worry about whether I might come across as disrespectful - and even if I did have that energy, I do not have to respect opinions that actively harm fellow human beings.
In fact, I refuse to do so, no matter how "rude" I might appear to be in the process. If it's "rude" to stand up for what is right, then I don't ever want to be considered "polite".
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*queer has historically been used as a slur. some, but not all, individuals in the LGBT+ community have decided to reclaim the word and use it as a descriptor of their identity. I am one of those individuals.
**sarcasm
