Baby, I done chose this way

[muckefuck]

Am I the only one who finds the whole Cynthia Nixon brouhaha absolutely depressing? Even her defenders strike me as being essentially reactive and confused in their thinking. A typical example:

As a member of the gay community, I knew what she meant all along. I was never angry at her. What I was angry at was this was an opportunity, as always, for anti-gays to take ONE example and apply it to the ENTIRE group. It's a frustration with THEIR bigotry, not her.

And, so what? Haters gonna hate. Anti-gay bigots will always be scouring the totality of the queer experience for that handful of instances which confirm their established prejudices and then trumpeting those to anyone who'll listen. But why do we care so much now that fewer and fewer people are listening? Why are we more worried about the message remarks like Nixon's are sending to our "enemies" than the message our reaction to them is sending to our allies?

What is that message? From my point of view, intolerance and insecurity. Nixon made it explicit that she was talking solely about her own personal experience and yet she's being everywhere taken to task for being "unclear" and "irresponsible". This sends the message that people shouldn't be allowed to talk about their experiences if they don't fit the dominant narrative. And all the very public hand-wringing about how these comments will be "used against us" makes it look like we haven't escaped the ghetto mentality of a generation ago. Today it's not the queers and their allies who are in the minority any more, it's the homophobes.

"It's not a choice" is not the sole or even chief basis for demanding equal rights in this country. After all, religious minorities are a protected class before the law and if being a Christian isn't a choice, then why are so many people trying to get me to "choose Jesus"? Sexual minorities should be treated as equal before the law because there's no compelling argument for them not to be, just some claptrap about "traditional values" cobbled together from squeamishness and bits of scripture. Cynthia Nixon's remarks don't weaken the position of gay rights advocates in anyone's eyes but their own--a perceived threat that risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Comments

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Imma repeat what I said to niemandsrose:

Sometimes I feel very privileged to be living now and not at any other time in the past few hundred years. Other times I'm astonished at the glacial rate of social change and all the idiotic shuffling baby-step changes that we apparently have to go through one at a time before we deal with long-standing cultural hangups.

How about this: your identity is in your hands; you are who and what you say you are, and who you have sex with and how is none of anybody else's business, unless they're somehow directly involved or consent is breached.

Lord knows, I don't expect to be treated as an example or guide for any class of people. I do what I do, I eat what I eat, I have sex with who I have sex with, I form emotional attachments with individuals. and I'm making all this shit up as I go along, because I don't trust anyone else to provide me with an instruction book. Maybe you can feel the privilege oozing off this statement. Sorry about that, I happen to be lucky. But from this privileged position I can also extend the same courtesy to everyone: I'll be who I am, you be who you are, maybe we'll have stuff to share.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

or in brief, yeah, it depresses me too.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

"What I was angry at was this was an opportunity, as always, for anti-gays to take ONE example and apply it to the ENTIRE group."

Not that I spend much time on those strands of the web, but I would be surprised if any significant "traditional values" sites were trumpeting "See, Miranda is on our side!!!" The only people who seemed to care were these so-called activists.

I never understood the usefulness, let alone the allure, of the "born this way" argument. Sociopaths are almost certainly born that way; nobody gives them a pass because of it.

What's wrong with "I'm a free person (though even that is redundant), and I'll live my life as I see fit." You know, as long as you're not a sociopath.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I suspect the "it's not a choice" argument may have originally grown out of a rejoinder to opponents who took issue with comparisons between Gay Lib and other civil rights movements. Be that as it may, it seems to have outlived it usefulness.