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Community Matters
Sandra and I were watching Ellen and Portia on Oprah last night. Among other moments, they shared video footage of their beautiful wedding, and naturally, I started crying.
When I came out in 1998, Ellen had just come out the year before. I remember well the repercussions on her public career, as well as the reactions in all forms of popular media. I remember being totally unsurprised. She took the first, really big, really GIANT, step for popular gay rights. And it wasn’t going to be easy. She’d made waves; big ones. She went from the girl next door to an abomination in the eyes of many, simply for speaking honestly about what many people had to have assumed already.
What surprises me, if I think about it as I did last night, is how very far we’ve come in the last decade. My committed relationship is legally recognized by the country where I live. How amazing is that? I have the legal – and social – right to call Sandra my wife. Without quotes. Without joking. And although there have been so many setbacks in the States in the last year, I can’t help but think that progress there will come soon enough, and surely, in the decade still to come.
I’ve written before about personal activism and how I firmly believe that being honest, being unafraid, and being out is the key to changing minds, to getting more of THEM to be on OUR side when the votes matter. I’ve written before how our allies need to be out and vocal as well; as a believer in equal rights for all. It’s too easy for people to think they’ve never met someone gay, or someone who believed in equal rights. Let’s continue to prove them wrong. This is an issue that matters.
But also, on top of activism, there’s the idea of community. In the past, the gay community was the only place anyone could feel safe being out. Whether it was private clubs (or circles of friends), bars, or political organizations, keeping your true personality inside the community was once essential for North Americans, even in big cities. Even when I came out in central Illinois, I wasn’t immediately out to my friends at all. My first conversations about the me I was discovering were in my gay and lesbian studies classes, in my weekly Rainbow Coffeeshop volunteer sessions, and in the community online. Community was everything. The only place I could feel totally comfortable. The only place that seemed to not view me through rainbow-tinted glasses.
Now, things have changed for me. Although we ran into so much homophobia (and ignorance) in Calgary, Toronto is more open and accepting. I rarely go a day without seeing gay couples being affectionate in public. I never have to explain what I mean when I use the word ‘wife’. (I’m not the only woman I know here who even HAS a wife!) I am no longer the only out person at work. My straight friends here truly see me and my wife as no different than any other married couple, just maybe with a little more yarn in the house.
So, is this idea of community becoming less important as we’re growing less and less afraid of just living our lives? Does community still matter?
I spent seven days at the end of October on vacation on an Olivia cruise. If you’re not familiar with Olivia, it’s a company that started in the midst of the gay rights movement of the 70s. Originally, it was a record label to promote women in music. Now, it’s an upscale travel company, organizing a dozen or so trips a year for women only. Trips range from tiny and exclusive adventure travel tours to large cruises and all inclusive resorts. The prices and destinations may vary, but what doesn’t is that everyone on the trip will be a woman, and nearly all, lesbian or bisexual.
Spending a week in the company of women (except for the ship’s staff) is a pretty unbelievable experience. 1300 in this case. There’s love and drama and big personalities, of course, but there’s also this all-too-fleeting feeling of being in absolutely the right little world for maybe the first time ever.
Renewal. Joy. Inclusion. Comfort. Friendliness. Diversity.
Breathing a little easier without spending even a second worried about reactions to words like “lesbian” “partner” and “wife”. Being reminded that if we don’t continue to vocalize our lives, if we don’t continue to fight for equality, it’ll never come.
And really, at the heart of it, the fight we’re in is for that community to keep growing until it includes everyone, gay or straight, and where we can all feel equally comfortable to just live these diverse little lives of ours in peace.
So yes, community still matters, even after all the changes we’ve seen in the last decade, in the last two decades. Community reminds us of who we are, where we come from, and where we can go together.
November 17th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
There are people who question why I make a point of saying I’m bisexual, even though I’m married to a man. It’s because I’m still part of the community, and my identifying with and participating in it as another voice counts, and might even make a few people question their assumptions about who else around them doesn’t fit into their preconceived notions.
So I don’t hide, even though I know it makes people uncomfortable, because hiding will do nothing to bring about the equality we all deserve, and everyone’s ability to marry and publicly proclaim their love and commitment for each other.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I get so emotional when I talk about gay rights in America, especially as they pertain to something as simple as love and marriage. It feels as backwards as denying women the right to vote, and yet so many people – even family members who used to go to great lengths to tell me that America is great because it’s a free country – still get all hedgy when it comes to the voting booth, as though they’re afraid gay marriage will snowball into something unimaginably terrible. I can’t imagine the mental connections they’re making with gay marriage (bestiality? robot love? WHAT?), but in every case, it perpetuates my suspicions that gay people are equated with non-humans.
I’m very proud to have moved to a country that just allows people to love each other and commit to each other without, like you said, quotes. Without apology or shame.
November 17th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Beautifully stated.
We still have a LONG way to go…
one step at a time.
One foot in front of the other.
Forward.
November 17th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
beautiful milt. i started crying (in my still lingering post-olivia cruise disorder) when you started talking about the perfect amazingness of being on the cruise. you’re the awesomenest and i <3 you. just sayin…
November 18th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I don’t actually believe that human beings are either gay, straight, bi etc. I believe very strongly that we are all beings capable of love and that we all crave emotional, physical and sexual intimacy. And we all have our own sets of tastes and desires. I like to think that the first person who decided to name our desires and decide that some were more acceptable than others was a coward who probably didn’t have the courage to deal with what was really on their mind (imagine the bully who calls a kid ugly when they really resent the fact that the kid did better on a test than they did).
That said, I believe that community is profound. For me, the communities that I nurture in my life have nothing to do with my essence as a person, they have to do with my experience and my hopes and dreams for my essence. My knitting community cradles my creativity, my political community is a safe haven for my beliefs, etc.
Okay, my last rant. I live in NY where you would think marriage equity would be a no brainer. However, it’s still a ridiculous mess. And I refuse to accept straight people who have “commitment ceremonies” rather than marriages. CCs have been offered as a lesser choice and when we accept the lesser choice for all, we reduce the opportunities for all of us to make what is considered the higher choice. Once everyone can get married, then everyone can have commitment ceremonies. You can’t raise standards when people accept lowered standards. P.S. I will always support a commitment ceremony for my same sex friends because it is the highest standard available for them right now and I want to celebrate their love. Thanks for the great post and for being a part of my knitting and blog community.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Community is definitely important – very few people these days like to feel they are alone in the world, and even with a loving spouse and immediate family. It’s the others you connect to on a day to day basis, whether personally or by observation, that can bring that common acceptance to Life.
Like DataGoddess I am also bisexual, and just married the love of my life, who is male. He came out last year – so needless to say a lot of people have a hard time keeping up with us.
But we are very fortunate to have friends and a church that accept us as we are. We feel fortunate to live in MA, where our gay and lesbian friends CAN marry and stand on equal ground with our straight friends. Because equal is where we should all be.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I don’t believe in labelling anybody. We are all unique.
And yes, wow haven’t things come a long way in the last 10 years.
November 19th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
We ARE all unique, absolutely. I’m not just one word. I’m a whole book full of different nouns and adjectives, all of which could be used to show a subset of commonalities with other people. I think the choice we have to choose our own labels, if we want, is so powerful.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Thoughtful post, as usual, Amy. It’s not often that I get a burst of patriotism, but when it comes to same-sex marriage, I am proud to be Canadian.
November 21st, 2009 at 2:13 am
‘Although we ran into so much homophobia (and ignorance) in Calgary’
is that so? i was there in that store day after day, and what i saw directed your way was love and acceptance. i’m really glad you’re in a better place now; you deserve that.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:37 am
Oh yes, the shop was wonderful. The neighbor who threw beer bottles in our yard and stole Cooper was not. Sandra getting let go from a job for dating me was not. There was just a lot.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:08 am
you are absolutely right.. that neighbor was insane. completely and utterly crazy. and sandra’s old job was some kind of hell, gay or not gay. she was lucky to get out of there.
November 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 am
My wife and I jumped the broom in Windsor. . .just over the border for us in Michigan. I so agree about community, and if you think the Olivia cruise was good, you should consider a week in the woods in August. This will be year 35 of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. It is renewing beyond belief, and not too far of a drive for you. Just sayin’. http://www.michfest.com
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I’m glad that you and Sandra had a great time and it was a time of rightness for you. Just know that you are loved for who you are.
Also was I the only person NOT surprised when Ellen came out? I mean you could pretty much figure it out by just watching her show. It was such a brave act and being true to herself has paid off more than hiding I think.