COMING OUT

I know this isn't really about sex and disability but I'm posting it here because I think, some people in Canada, don't really understand what it means when we say, "COMING OUT." It's an email, in response to a friend that emailed me some questions.

Questions:

1. Yeah, I didn't understand why ABC got so defensive, saying you were in the "Oppression Olympics." 2.Devil's advocate: I think maybe sometimes you do tend to focus on it too much, but then, that's a pretty typical trauma reaction. After what you've told me about the dykes here, I think that people do need to speak out against them.

My long (as usual) Answers!:

1. COMING OUT:

You know, when women first go into women studies class and they experience for the first time their voices being listened to, their realities being validated, etc. They experience what I call the Grief of Oppression. It's like a massive, massive flooding and flashback, of every single time they've ever been discriminated against, in any single way, because of being born female, from the littlest slight to sexual assault, loss of promotional opportunity, etc. You get a wave of your past rising up inside of you, but now, you aren't seeing it as "your fault," all the feelings, problems, etc. you've had, you're seeing is "their fault," for treating you differently, and as inferior, simply because you were born female.

Generally, most "baby femininists," will spend a period of two years in what looks, from the outside as "angry all the time." They seem to be hyper focused, (and in a sense they are) with the realities of their oppression. They throw themselves into it with almost frantic and frenetic "zelous," energy. This is a normal aspect of them Coming Out as Feminists, going from being what is known as "male identified," (his needs, desires, goals, realities, definitions take precedence over mine) to "female identified." (my needs, her needs, goals, dreams, realities, are just as important as his. "SHE,"....matters.)

The same thing happens when you 'come out," gay in places where government sanctioned and society sanctioned oppression still exists. It doesn't happen so much now, and I think maybe this is why people of your generation and under don't understand or "see," it as clearly, but historically, you'd have people, 25, 30 who have never had sex, have never had a girlfriend, have thought for fifteen or twenty years that they are "the only one," and deviant, wrong, disgusting, and the cause of all the negative behavior directed towards them.

Then, they go to their first ever gay bar, and they are safe to let down their guard for the first time. They can look at female bodies without shame, they don't have to protect themselves from the police, they don't have to "play the pronoun game," etc. Then...they leave the bar. And the very next day, once again, they must begin living a lie, saying "he," when they mean she, pretending to be straight to keep their job, their safety, etc. So now...

They've had a taste of what life SHOULD be like for them, 24/7, what it would be like if gays weren't oppressed. What it IS like for heterosexual people ALL the time. They experience the same type of massive flooding, massive flashback. All of a sudden they understand every single joke, rejection, beating, loss of job, in a different way, through the awareness of homophobia. "It's not ME. It's because I'm...GAY!" ((to qualify, all these examples are based on white folk. It's a whole different ball game for people of color, for similar reasons I discuss slightly below. I simply am too ignorant about the experiential reality of them dealing with being gay, etc. to write about it but I do know that race and racism change everything, and difference of experience should be assumed not sameness, until told otherwise.))

They too, go into what looks like an "anger stage" for a couple of years and get really political as well. What is really happening, is that they are no longer accepting the shame, self hate, etc. that is piled on them by the homophobic society, by understanding it's "not personal," it's "political," it's happening to every single gay person in the country, they take the hurt and anger, and move it outword, into challenging, changing, fighting the homophobic structures, the homophobic system, instead of, for example, taking it out on themselves. It's part of the Identity process and the "coming out," process.

The person might look like they are fragile, vulnerable, hurt and angry all the time, but it's actually signals an increase in self-esteem, an increase in strength. They begin to not blame themselves, to put the blame where it belongs, on those actually doing, or supporting the community structures of oppression, now loving themselves and others like them enough to say, "Enough! I will not accept this treatment any more!" And start fighting back.

It's a trial by fire, it's growth through extremities of pain and grief. Loss of denial, loss of the bliss of ignorance - hurts. But, as those kinky dykes know...just because someone is hurting and is in pain, doesn't mean they are being harmed or victimized. It can mean they are being healed. Wounds hurt more when they are healing then when they are initially created.

COMING OUT: Disability Pride and White Trash Pride

I thought, for the last ten years or so, that my problems with the lesbian community were almost all because of my own social skill problems, and mostly because I was feminine. I had problems in all areas, with straights, at jobs, etc. I worked really hard to learn all sorts of new skills, etc. I came back, and in every area of my life, with all people, straights, bisexuals, gay men, work, volunteering I was doing phenomenally well. I'd worked hard, taken responsibility for my shortcomings and it was blatantly obvious the impact it had. And yet still....

I was treated the same way in lesbian circles. No change. Then I went to Chronically Queer and found out that ALL queers with disabilities were experiencing similiar problems and treatment. And then I learned about Disability Pride, etc. from the Internet.

Finally, I went to that BIO volunteer party, and that night and the next day, was like going into a gay bar for the first time. I was given a taste of what it meant to be "inside," the community instead of marginalized from it. A couple of hours, but, when your starving all it takes is a crumb to have you perking up and coming out growling for more food. (that's the Coming Out and INside post)

I started Coming Out, not simply as "Kinky," but as a Kinky, Poor, Femme with Disabilities, as a Dyke from the Margins (political identity) and as a Leathercrip! And then I learned about the Disability Pride Movement from the Internet and realised I'd finally found my "community," people who would accept me just the way I was, the Queer Disability community.

My Awareness of Oppression, as a PWD and as a Poor Person, and my Political Identity as a Person with Disabilities and White Trash, is only about 1.5 years old. It's not fully formed yet, I'm still in that "initial awareness," stage of "it's not ME, it's THEM!" They are treating all of US the same way!

One of the problems I've had is that, there isn't a true Queers with Disabilities community in vancouver, there was no elder Queers with Disabilities to help me ride the rage wave, and there were no Elder Leatherdykes, or Leathercrips. How do you come out as a Leathercrip when there isn't even a group of Leathercrips community yet? LOL

Thus my reaching out, the attempts to connect other queers with disabilities together with the email lists, the lj journals, etc. That's what I've been trying to reach out and create. Yelling and screaming and making all sorts of noise so other's like in the margins would hear my cries, and Come Out Too so all of us would realise that it's not "just us," but it's happening and been happening to ALL of us, that we truly are not alone.

Obviously, those who no longer remember what Coming Out feels like, the experience, or looks like, who can't even recognize themselves of twenty years before, can't recognize their own anger, their own marginalization, their own oppression of the past, are not going to be able to help me or others like me.

This is of course why we have Coming Out Groups, to help deal with this rage, as historically, Coming Out can be one of the most dangerous times as you are wide open and raw, an animal in severe pain, and if someone isn't there to show you how to direct all that rage covering decades of wounds only now being felt, to direct it into political action or creative artistic action....it leads to suicide thoughts, attempts, self destructiveness. I've struggled with the suicide aspect definately, all this year. It's a good thing I've been through thousands of trials by fires in my life. Okay...not thousands, a few. *grin*

You, on the other hand, have been a "person with disabilities," in your own life, for most of your life. You have never "Come Out," as a person with disabilities, because yours, being physical and visible, have always been right there, you've lived with Ablism and Disablephobia your whole life. Like People of Color are aware from about five years old (or less?) it's because of their skin color so are people born/young with disabilities aware of their oppression, etc. They might not have the political words, but they are aware, that they are being treated differently due to Ability/DisAbility. They simply can't deny it or be ignorant of it, its too in their face 24/7. This doesn't mean you won't experience Coming Out, what it does mean is that you won't experience that shock of awareness, that flooding and emergency stage aspect of it, but will move more from simply being a PWD to a PWD - Political Identity.

You will have less of a "hot," reaction then I, because you've dealt with this your whole life. Your Coming Out as a PWD Political Identity will be quite different to mine.

In the Gay rights movement, as with many other rights movement, there are generally two kinds of People in the political fight. The Activists and the Advocats. The Advocats are the Disability Rights fighters, do the law cases, fight inside, work the system from the inside. The Activists are the street fighters, they go screaming down the street, "come out, come out, wherever you are!" *pause* I am definately NOT...an Advocat. *blush* diplomacy is not my strength. LOL Being loud and noisy? Well...uh..Hello? ADHD! I can do that quite well, hell, in my sleep! Ha, Ha, Ha!

Yes, I do focus on it, No...it isn't too much if you understand the Coming Out Process. It's a necessary step to becoming more physically and mentally and politically identified as a PWD. Anger, aside from what everyone here in the land of no emotions says, LOL, is actually a creative emotion. It is what social movements, civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, are created from. It's Anger, that made the Drag Queens stand up and say, "No More,!" and fight back against the cops. Anger...is what births Pride, it births songs, stories, paintings. It is destructive to Oppression, those in power, that's why white english folks probably feel so scared of it. Because it IS a birth emotion. Birth through the destruction of oppression. Powerful, Transformational in it's Power. And then...

There are the Advocats! LOL Who are the calm ones, the "brains to the Passion." Both, in a movement, are needed. (and of course, there are some capable of playing both roles.) Many argue that this is why the Disability Rights Movement isn't farther ahead, considering it began in the sixties or seventies. It was almost all Rights focused, paper, advocacy, laws, and not Culture focused. "Pride," movements are the culture: the songs, paintings, writings, the parades, the protest marches, the values, etc. They are, by necessity, loud, noisy, raucous, OUT in everyone's face.

You notice I don't want to play hardly at all with people who aren't PWDs right now. That's normal. Baby Feminists, they go through a stage where they won't have anything to do with men, gays who just come out, they go through a period where they won't have anything to do with straights. It's all a normal aspect of Identity Creation, in regards to being gay, going from what is known as "Heterosexually Identified," to be "Homosexually Identified." *smile*

Re: Talking to Newbies. I'm going to post that in my Ms. Pet blog as it's really, really not necessary here, but it might be more relevant to dykes and queers coming out BDSM.

3. Oppression Olympics: The "Oppression Olympics," that's an American Term. What she means by "Olympics," is the dynamic that happens in the States where you have "my oppression is worst then your oppression," one-upmanship. I've never seen many groups who are marginalized or oppressed in our country "compete," for status of Oppression, the way it apparently happens in America. We are a Socialist country, with universal health care, education, etc. So, our realities are completely differnt from theirs. "We're all in this together, when one hurts we all hurt," THAT is, in truth, "The Canadian Way. " Needless to say, some People just don't 'GET," that this is the Internet and they are talking to people from different Countries or Cultures. AKA "Culture Clash."