cripchick's blog

today is national coming out day. as i think about what this means for me as someone who is so out, yet so so closeted, friends and i are on a conference call going over notes from a recent summit where self advocates with developmental disabilities worked to create policy recommendations on community living. (sadly this is needed because too many providers use gov’t dollars set aside for community living to do things that are really hurtful to disabled people).

we asked people to talk about what group homes and other residential facilities for disabled people often look like. this is what the notes reflected:

• “You have to share a room or home with someone you don’t want to or know”
• “No freedom to leave or have company over”
• “It is literally outside the community, without transportation, cut off, hidden away”
• “You are called a “consumer” instead of by your name”

we also asked what community living should look like. this is what folks said:

• “You have your own keys for home, access to a telephone, and the right to lock your door”
• “People are allowed to marry if they wish, or cohabitate with a partner or friend(s) if they wish, and there is private space for intimacy between someone in the program and that person’s mutually chosen partner(s) or even just to be completely alone”
• “Freedom to hang out with friends that I choose”
• “Freedom to make my own schedule”
• “People (at church or at the place you volunteer, etc) come to visit you if you are in the hospital.. because they care about you”
• “People support you in deciding what to do with money, instead of deciding for you”

reading these notes while sitting with all the recent suicides and hate crimes has me thinking about community visibility and coming out day. with violence taking place on the bodies of beautiful queer people every day, i understand the importance of community visibility. it’s why i wonder if there are better coming out strategies we could be using or what our work could look like if we acknowledged that so many people do not have the money, safety, access, and support to go to parades, bookstores, and clubs or wear rainbow stickers and leave facebook statuses about being out and proud, let alone come out to others.

i’m not against national coming out day or projects like it gets better – i just want us to talk about what we understand “out” and how this is shaped by privilege. for example, i want a “better” and an “out” that doesn’t require queer folks to leave their communities (which i am in the process of doing, to be out). i want a visibility that understands ice raids, the murder of transgender women of color, and state violence.  i want a queer movement that celebrates queer resiliency instead of insisting on a certain type of visibility that is impossible for so many of us.

most of all, i want a national coming out day that is relevant to the queer people in the room that came up with the recommendations above, and to all the other queers trapped in group homes, psychiatric hospitals, institutions, state guardianship, and the prison industrial complex. i want a national coming out day that means something to more of us.

this reminds me of the time a friend and i sat in a queer—err excuse me, glbt with a q following it on the next line—disability caucus meeting this summer. the group invited a HRC person to speak and when we asked why HRC had been invited, we were stared at. then when we spoke up against the group simply focusing on marriage advocacy with so much work to be done, they thought we were stupid southerners who were against gay marriage because of ignorance or overexposure to too much homophobia. needless to say, i left the meeting early, never having been talked down to so much. 

kit yan, from the good asian drivers spoken word duo:

you’re a force with responsibility
so listen, think, then act
you’re an icon of equality
so remember the colors of the community you stand for
you’re the face that the devil trusts
but you’ve become its reflection
hear us, please.
unfortunately we can not wait for you
we’ll be here when you return,
but we cannot wait for you
in the meantime, we’ll fight for ourselves…
-kit yan at 2:10

last week we mourned the passing of duanna johnson. a few days later, another trans woman of color has been killed. this wednesday thursday is trangender day of remembrance, i hope you will remember our lost and speak out.

even after death
they stuff our bodies into boxes
ironing out the creases of our complexities
they use blades, fists
violence
institutions
and blood-tinged spit
to fold us into the faceless other
the soulless

even after death,
they refuse to recognize our names,
our genders, our loved ones.

even after death.
have you no respect?

no i don’t expect anything from you
i know better than that
but if not for who we are
if not for our communities
if not for the mourning families,
at least for the dead?

at least for the dead?
who, with your mocking
your open hatred
your silence,
have taken part in killing?

have you no damn respect?

Dear Wheelchair Dancer,

Hey sister— thanks for your blog post on the elections, racism, prop 8. I’ve been in such a funny place lately after all of this and your writing really helped me in naming why.

Sylvia posted a tweet the other day about wanting to wrap Obama in bubble wrap, Teflon, a condom, Fort Knox— anything— to keep him safe until January 20th. That’s kind of how I feel about my emotions. And I hate to sound cliché here, but also my hope. My head knows what this election means and what this election does not mean but I still want scream Yes We Can!, rock my Obama shirt in classes full of Republicans, and, well, just bask in the symbolism of it. I want to believe in what everyone else believes in for more than one night, even if a lot of it is compartmentalizing what I know and not thinking about things folks like Moya and so many others are sayin’. So I close my door, download all the free mixtapes people are producing for Obama, and bullshit around happily.

But then it changes, right? At least it did for me, couldn’t even last a week. I read a message from VivirLatino about another mass ICE raid where over 100 people are rounded up in Florida and separated from their families. I hear white racist gay folks getting time on the tv and then blame Prop 8 on communities of color! I get an email from someone I really care about saying someone she knows was being beaten to death from what seems like a hate crime. With tears in my eyes I read of Duanna Johnson’s death and then see talk show radio hosts trying to leave comments on my blog saying they’re advocates while simultaneously disrespecting who she was. All these things tear me right from that cloudy good place. These things come at me like a million lightening bolts, reminding me of all the work that needs to be done and more importantly, who will be the ones doing this work.

It will be us. We will do it cause there isn’t anyone else but us, the people, la gente. So like our dear friend asks in her blog— as organizers, as artists, as community-builders, as dreamers, how can we learn from his campaign? How can we get the folks on the ground, many who weren’t believers in power of people before, to keep dreaming and ready to pick up other tools? How do we stay focused? Clear-headed? How do we build this bigger than non-profits, projects, campaigning?

And what about when the evil, the hate, the bondage is internal— How do we combat these things when they come in the form of our communities, people we love? I mean I didn’t truly understand what racism and white privilege really meant until I got involved in social movements, you know? Is it possible to take these conversations happening post-Prop 8 and turn them into something that lasts? Will there be room to sew close our open wounds, our mistrust? And is it even worth it, trying to work it out with gays and lesbians who will always choose marriage, gentrification, assimilation and capital building as priorities, when so many fellow queers are homeless, forgotten, oppressed, closeted, beaten, denied their humanity?

I’m really hoping you have some answers, that someone has answers. In the meantime, thanks for being who you are, for our gchats, for the love…

In solidarity and w/ love,
cripchick