Not Another Second

The idea that we have nothing to learn from the people who came before us is a useless exercise in narcissism. And in futility. I agree with what people say that if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past all over again. 

Learning from LGBTQ+ people who have experienced coercion, who have feared for their lives and livelihoods, who have had to hide and deny parts of themselves that people nowadays celebrate, deserve to be heard. Or at least that's what I think. I have learned more about LGBTQ+ history by sitting down and listening to people who have actually lived that history than from reading books. I still remember the first time I heard someone tell me about the bar in New Orleans that burned down because a disgruntled patron decided to 'teach the queers a lesson' and killed dozens of people. Or when someone told me about the raids that police used to stage in certain parks in Chicago to 'trap' homosexuals. Or when someone told me about the dangers of going to a gay bar in the sixties, when you never knew how the night was going to end. Those stories seem shocking today but they were sometimes very common back then.

I think that the oral history of the LGBTQ+ community is much more interesting and comes to life when we are reminded of the strides the community has taken in the last forty years when a person who has actually lived through it tells us about it. Books are somehow clinical and even though they are instructive, they lack warmth. Hearing stories and reflections from people who have lived through the events that have shaped LGBTQ+ history in the United States (and the world) adds a layer of interest, a layer or reality, to the rights we now enjoy like they belong to us.

This mini-documentary was illuminating because we get to hear and understand what is it that people have had to go through for us to have the rights and liberties we have today. Going from being jailed if you didn't have enough garments corresponding to your gender to having a Trans person being nominated for an Emmy has taken time. Going from being thrown out of the Army or Navy if someone suspected you were a homosexual to having apps in your phone that let you choose who you are going to fuck tonight has costed many men their lives. Going from being considered a clinical case to being able to get married to the man or woman we love has taken time and the effort of many men and women who will never be recognized. 

Generation Z is a little bit too much into themselves (I am not as young as you may think, mind you. You could say I'm a ageing twink at this point and you would not be lying...).  Gen Z and even Millennials, take for granted many rights and privileges that just ten years ago did not exist (Obergefell vs. Hodges!). Not to mention rights and privileges what didn't exist thirty or fifty years ago. I think LGBTQ+ people who have lived through the decades that have brought the progress we enjoy today should all get together and create a MOOC of experiences to teach the children where is it that the rights and privileges we have today come from. People take too much for granted. Just one more conservative justice in SCOTUS and we would all go back to being considered basket cases, if we let the religulous wrong have their way. Well, not really, but you get my drift.

Familiarity breeds contempt, darling.

Happy Pride.

XOXO