When Manifestos Lead To Selective Silence

[Larstrup]

I remember a time when too many young gay men were afraid to speak. Let alone speak-out. I remember those times very well because I lived and survived during those times often because of the people who spoke-out on my behalf for queer people like me, when I was perhaps too young and didn't have my personal footings yet or felt uncomfortable or unequipped to do so. Perhaps in many ways it was in fear of the repercussions which might affect my own personal life that I then chose to let others fight for me.

 

Age and personal growth heals those fears and inabilities if we're lucky. I know it did for me. Yet it wasn’t without scars from those of past and those who still, to this day, attempt to silence us.

 

I’d like to start a thread about silencing.

 

How it might have impacted your life when you were young and how you might have overcome it or are perhaps still challenged by it. And why.

[+ WilliamM]

I remember being bullied as a freshman in high school. Luckily, the math teacher was also the vice principal. He did not stop it immediately. But once he talked about it openly in class, it did stop.

[+ E.T.Bass]

I remember being young, closeted and frightened at work.

 

Years later I felt bullied by one of the security organization at my company. I reported it to the HR director. I had decided there was no effing way I was going to exist in an oppressive environment.

 

Eventually he was dismissed after pissing off our local executive. My input may have made the decision easier. Don't know.

 

I later found out the HR director was lesbian. I decided there are really a lot more friends and allies around us than we might realize and that over the years being gay may have led certain people to look kindly on me. Of course it hasn't hurt that I do a good job.

Edited November 27, 2018 by E.T.Bass

[Guy Fawkes]

I was raised right in the middle of the Bible Belt. Most of my life consisted of bullying of one type or another.

 

I retreated into Science Fiction books because I didn't know how to speak up. It wasn't until I ended up in Portland that I came to terms with my Gayness and the right to speak up for myself. As a Programmer, most people in my environment, didn't care. So I was an innocent and silent.

 

It wasn't until the age of 24 that I learned: "Fuck 'em if they can't accept me for who I am." and the very important: "I'm not everybody's cup of tea; but for those that I am, I'm a very special cup of tea!"

 

I don't wish bigotry on anybody for no matter what the reason. That's why a few years ago I embraced diversity, and I reject bullying. That's why I've been more vocal and rejecting being silent because "that's the way it's always been."

 

I've been horrified to learn that the LGBTQ community is just as bad as the Christian Community that I experienced in the Bible Belt. Just as resistant to changing their behavior for the better.

 

As @deej has said: "That's why we can't have nice things!" I want the nice things, the nice people, the nice community. Sadly, it starting to seem an impossible dream. But I'm willing to keep tilting at the windmills.

[+ purplekow]

Prudent silence is intelligent. Coerced silence is tyranny. While one may sit for prudence, one cannot stand for tyranny.

[TruthBTold]

Luckily I was never bullied for being gay when I was at school or really when I worked. I don't know why. However there were children in school (especially in classes like gym) who were taunted and bullied in front of me. And I did nothing to speak in their defense or come to their aid. I am sure it was nothing like the degradation they felt at the time or after but there is a guilt that I (and I'm sure people like me) felt and continue to feel because we failed to do anything. Certainly I think part of me knows that little can be done at that age (or even when you get older in certain situations) however some of that guilt is so visceral it never leaves you.

[Guy Fawkes]

I'm interested to find out why you're relating this to silence?

 

man·i·fes·to /ˌmanəˈfestō/

noun

a public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate.

[+ tassojunior]

Prudent silence is intelligent. Coerced silence is tyranny. While one may sit for prudence, one cannot stand for tyranny.

 

The first half of that was great and then the 2nd half happened.

[Walker1]

Perspective too. There are still countries where they kill you for being gay. For some reason in almost every mass persecution of groups of people in history-they always throw in gays. It is like we are the "safest" group to be cruel to while being self righteous.

 

I think until the Supreme court stuck it down not that far back-it was illegal to have gay sex and you could be arrested. Hopefully someday escorting becomes legal too.

[+ Charlie]

I grew up in a family in which sex, of any kind, was never discussed. Although I realized by the time I was in early adolescence that I was attracted to males, I was rather shy, and I didn't even know the mechanics of having sexual relations: the first time I did anything with another male, at age 17, I was amazed to discover that a penis could be inserted into an ass! Apparently others didn't perceive that I was homosexual--perhaps because I was pretty quiet, physically average, and developed secondary male features like body hair earlier than my peers--so I don't remember ever being bullied.

 

I became sexually active at exactly the same time that I graduated from high school and went away to a small college, where absolutely nobody knew me, so I was free to create a new persona. But those were the Eisenhower years, an era when being "different" often did lead to persecution, so I became a scholar rather than a rebel. I did find gay friends and sex partners off campus and on long summer breaks back home, where I had access to the NYC fleshpots, but on campus I was just one of the regular guys, albeit with hints of worldliness from more than just books. Just like my straight roommates, I had girlfriends, but my reputation was unexpectedly established when the beautiful girlfriend of the football team captain broke up with him and started dating me. When the relationship threatened to become serious, I told her that I had sex with men, and that proved a deal-breaker. While I was in college, I also came out to my parents, though not to other family members.

 

When I graduated, I immediately went off to graduate school, where again nobody knew me, so I was free to create another new persona. This time it was in a major city, and because I was an adult, I decided it was time to be more completely out. I lived downtown rather than on campus, and became a regular part of the gay community. Many of the friends I made at the university were gay as well, though I wasn't "loud and proud" there. However, I did join the Janus Society, an early gay rights organization, joined protests, and became an officer when JS morphed into the Homosexual Law Reform Society. When I finished my degree and started working, I didn't declare myself to employers and colleagues (being actively homosexual was, after all, illegal), but I didn't try to hide it either. I lived with my first male partner, and people could draw whatever conclusions they wanted to. I never lied if directly asked.

 

After Stonewall, all the shackles were off. In the 70s, I worked with other organizations, like GAA, lobbied the state legislature, taught my school's first Gay Literature course, and was televised carrying the rainbow flag at the head of the Gay Pride parade downtown. In the 80s, when Silence=Death, I volunteered with AIDS organizations. As I have grown old and gray, I am less interested in gay activities than I used to be, and am more inclined to give money to support activism than to man the barricades myself. There is no reason to be silent, because there is almost no one I come in contact with who doesn't either know or assume that I am gay, including distant relations and those long-ago high school and college classmates.

Edited November 28, 2018 by Charlie

[+ WilliamM]

Thanks to @Guy Fawkes, @E.T.Bass and @TruthBTold for answering the questions posed by @Larstrup.

 

Like @Charlie, I had a new start later in high school in a new town and later still in college, grad school and the military. I was in college during the Kennedy and Johnson White House years.

 

And it was wonderful to no longer be bullied again, as I had been as a freshman in high school. The 9 the grade was the world time in my life, far worse than spending two years in the Army from 1967 to 1969 during the Vietnam War.

Edited November 28, 2018 by WilliamM

[+ purplekow]

The first half of that was great and then the 2nd half happened.

I'll alert my editor

[+ ProGay]

I was called fag, faggot, and homo nearly every day of junior high school for three years.

 

My parents didn't care and told me to "fight my own battles." No teacher intervened. Two teachers laughed along. I stopped speaking in school, unless I was called on. I developed health problems and stayed home a lot.

 

My high school principal tolerated no "name calling" and suspended students who violated his rule. I was finally left alone. To this day, I remember him telling the assembly on opening day: "Verbal abuse IS abuse."