Also, remember that adulthood isn’t about having a relationship and a mortgage. It can mean lots of different things to different people but I think it’s mostly about taking control and responsibility for your life — no matter what that life looks like.
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
“Chrystos is one of those poets who qualifies as a “hidden gem” herself. A Menominee rights activist who identifies as Two-Spirit, her writing offers depictions of the harms of colonialism, the struggles of solidarity, and the earthy joys of lesbian love affairs. Despite being a prolific writer, well-known and well-traveled in the 1990s, her books have gone out of print. Despite being one of the most beloved and prolific queer Native American writers, I seldom hear her work discussed in literary circles. That’s a shame, as her poetry is trailblazing” (via Hidden Gems of Queer Lit: Chrystos and ‘In Her I Am’ | Autostraddle)
This is a book you’ll probably want to read in your room with the door closed.
If there was advice that I wish I’d received two years ago when my relationship with my long-term live-in partner began dissolving and I eventually became homeless, cat-less, best friend-less, broke, and the mortified new owner of a single bed crammed into my 76-year-old great aunt’s home study, it would be to give myself plenty of time and space to mourn before charging ahead into the future. Even though in my case, losing it all was voluntary; it was The Right Thing To Do and The Best For All Involved. You can still grieve something that you don’t want back.
Here’s the thing, though: if you’re anything like me, games at a party can be hit or miss. I am, by nature, a teeth-gnashing, dirty-playing, trash-talking competitive monster, which is no fun for anyone. Now, my friends put up with it because they are charitable angels, and because we usually play games like Cards Against Humanity, which technically is competitive but usually ends with net positive laughter. That’s the point! Games are fun! They’re social! They help you feel closer to people and less like a misanthropic hermit with the heart of a robot!
I didn’t intend to create a tarot business – it sort of happened organically. I saw opportunities to help people out, so I started gearing my blog more towards tips for learning tarot, how-tos and helpful posts. After a while it became clear that I could make a living from this, so I designed and wrote an online course – that was my first digital product and I launched it at the start of this year. It felt incredible! People liked it, and I made a bunch of money, I was able to buy a new laptop, invest in my shop and go on a road-trip. That was the point where I really thought ‘yeah – I’m good at this. I want to put loads of energy into this and build a really sustainable, awesome business that people love.’ It was a scary thing to do – to create a project and put it out into the world not knowing if it will succeed or fail, but now I’ve done it, it’s given me loads of confidence.
Eventually the hike was upon us. I was maybe two miles in, climbing a set of stairs that seemed to go on forever next to a waterfall that was making said stairs slippery. It was too fucking early, I was too fucking miserable, and everyone else seemed like they wanted to be there. I took a sip of Smart Water which I thought was disgusting but put into my Camelbak anyway because I’d been pestered to death about the ‘electrolytes’ and I thought, 'You know what? Fuck this. I’m going back.’ 'Why?’ they asked. Why, why, why. And that’s when I got to the second piece of the No puzzle. Why? Because I don’t fucking want to do this anymore.
Why raining on everyone else’s parade is the least effective way to keep up the fight.
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Now that Pride is behind us, sanitation departments across the country are still sweeping the streets free of glitter and Svedka bottles, meaning it’s time for us to shake off our hangovers and reflect on this week’s events. Reactions to the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality have been a mixed bag, running the gamut from overbearingly ecstatic to self-righteously unimpressed (and we’ll just ignore the right-wingers). Naturally, thinkpieces of all sorts have been clogging everyone’s Facebook feed, the most strongly worded of which criticize the celebration, arguing that the ruling’s significance does not extend to the trans community or those who don’t intend to marry.
In their defense, the Pride partying was a lot, to say the least. The Supreme Court could not have picked a more appropriate time to legalize marriage equality, only two days before many major cities were having their Pride parades. Seattle, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago have been in a drunken fervor for the past 96 hours.
I understand the criticism because I, too, felt resentful of the expectation to cavort. I’m as gay as the day is gay, but when I woke up on June 26th, I was worried, not about the Supreme Court’s potential ruling, but about where my next meal was going to come from. You see, June only has 30 days, and the timing of my paycheck meant that I had to pay my rent out of the 25th’s check, which meant I had $23 for the week… and an empty fridge. Ah, the whimsy of living paycheck to paycheck.
When I heard about the decision, and saw the sea of rainbows on Facebook, I didn’t feel much. My mind was decidedly elsewhere; no excitement, just a dull sense of anxiety about the week ahead of me, and a gnawing hunger in my stomach. What the hell was everybody so happy about? As I perused the thinkpieces, my indifference melted.
Some responses were balanced. At Autostraddle, Rachel Kincaid wrote the subtly titled “Supreme Court Greenlights Marriage Equality, WE WON A MAJOR THING,” which acknowledged a major victory while drawing attention to issues like workplace discrimination and child custody. Others were absurd, like Fredrick Deboer’s article for Politico that argued in favor of polygamy as the next major progressive movement (if it’s a joke, then I’m offended; if it’s serious, then I’m actually still kind of offended). The most scathing reactions either took issue with the concept of marriage as a legal institution at all, or argued that the decision had no bearing on anyone but white, upper-class gay men and lesbians.
The most inflammatory of the op-eds appeared on CreativeTimeReports. In “The Other Side of Pride,” performance art duo Dark Matter make a lot of important points about trans violence and the involvement of corporations in Pride parades, but use both ideas to strip the Supreme Court’s decision of any significance to the trans community, while simultaneously condescending to anyone who may have felt a shred of happiness about the ruling. Their definition of progress is particularly ascetic:
“In this context we question what has been handed to us as markers of “progress”: political recognition by officials and institutions that criminalize, incarcerate and deport members of our communities and the visibility of rich white individuals who are not representative of LGBT people as a whole. We challenge the claim that the United States and other nations that have passed gay marriage legislation are “progressive.” LGBT people aren’t dying because there aren’t enough weddings or enough sanctions against Uganda. It seems clear to us that they are dying because of racist and classist state policies—policies that these gay “victories” often invest in and strengthen.”
This assertion that celebrating this victory implies indifference towards the rest of the America’s problems is not only faulty reasoning, it’s politically unsavvy and absurdly anti-joy.
My own cynicism was shaken. Reassessing my initial disaffection brought me back a time in my life when I, too, was passionately invested in marriage equality, back to a not-so-fabulous year known as 2004.
At the time, I was a California transplant living in Cowtown, TX (Fort Worth), a speck of blue in a sea of red. Only a year out of the closet, I was an opinionated, hypersensitive, gay 17-year-old liberal stuck in the westernmost notch of the Bible belt. It was oppressive, homophobic, and ridiculously Republican, and when George W. Bush dropped his family values plan during his presidential campaign, it got even worse. His anti-gay agenda successfully won over conservative voters, and — though there’s some debate over how much effect it actually had on the outcome — many journalists and studies have agreed that his homophobic platform increased turnout in conservative districts throughout the country and won him the election.
I remember the rage and hopelessness I felt when Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the midst of his presidential campaigning. I screamed at the TV (with all the bravado and angst that a teenager could muster). I was nowhere near the point in my life when marriage was a practical concern. I wasn’t upset about not being able to plan my wedding, I was upset that the majority of the country in which I lived was able to so easily vote away my rights — regardless of what they were — and that I had no say in the matter. It was the fear I felt that a candidate could politically mobilize bigotry in order to become the most powerful person in the world. Marriage itself was beside the point.
11 years later, I no longer live in Cowtown. Now I reside in the distant liberal fantasy bubble of New York City, a far cry from the conservative and homophobic atmosphere of Texas in the early 00’s. It’s nice in this bubble: being gay isn’t something I think about that often, and it’s certainly not something I worry about anymore. My anxieties are reserved mostly for the fact that I still live paycheck to paycheck, my $230,000 worth of defaulted student debt, and my utter lack of health insurance. Beyond the fact that marriage is financially impossible, I’m also generally not that interested in the idea. In fact, the only reason I would get married is for the health insurance, but none of the gay guys I know seem to have it either.
My problems aren’t that bad by comparison; sure, my debt has completely debilitated me financially and I’m totally screwed if I have a sudden major health scare, but those are all run-of-the-mill working class issues these days. They are nowhere near as immediate as the threats of violence, unemployment, and homelessness that face huge portions of the queer and trans community every day.
It was my personal plight, however, that made me unwilling to put on a boa and take to the streets with a bottle of Andre, so obviously I can’t criticize anybody for feeling out of touch with joy that others were feeling. Furthermore, I can’t criticize anybody for feeling disconnected from the so-called “Gay Movement” as a whole, which has largely been out of touch with trans issues, class politics, and racial equality for far too long.
But this ruling is bigger than its connection to the white, upper class “Gay Movement.” More than anything it means that homophobia is not the political currency it once was. Granted, homophobia and transphobia are aren’t always the same thing, but there is an undeniable venn diagram. Bigotry isn’t that nuanced; marriage equality doesn’t amount to much for huge portions of the LGBTQIA population, but this is a loss for bigots, who only eleven years ago were winning right and left (pun intended). It’s a big loss, something the entire queer community can agree is a good thing. I’d say it warrants a party, even if I can’t afford it (or just hate the crowds).
Does the ruling reduce violence against trans people or people of color? Absolutely not. Does it create a single-payer healthcare system? Clearly, no. Does it do anything to alleviate the financial disaster that is student loan debt? Trust me, it doesn’t. But acting like marriage equality has absolutely no bearing on the slew of other issues facing LGBTQIA people is naive — not ten years ago, Republicans and Democrats alike campaigned on homophobia — and criticizing the celebration is the least effective way to get people to focus on those issues going forward. After losing for so long, we needed the morale boost, and that energy can keep the fight going.
After all, there were millions of people at those parades. That’s so many people invested in queer rights, and they’re so excited. Do I feel that excitement myself? Not this week, but they deserve to, and now that we have their attention we can direct it to the myriad of issues that we still have left to fix. Don’t shit on joy — mobilize it.
