What do the monolithic letters “LGBT” truly stand for nowadays?
The LGBT community that once served to fight for the very survival of its people (and that still does in certain cultures and parts of the world) is a nostalgic vestige of the past for the majority of 21st century America, as unnecessary as saving the Big Three in Detroit. The reason that most young Americans support gay marriage isn’t because they’ve accepted the queers – but because the “other” no longer exists when it has been integrated into your own community! And beyond irrelevancy, the LGBT label has become downright stifling for most of its wearers. The number of gay men and lesbian women met with disapproval from a homo community, hypocritically preaching diversity while commanding conformity, when they’ve found themselves attracted to the opposite sex is certainly equal to those straights sick and tired of having to pretend they’re 100% hetero.
Indeed, this identity labeling has reached a menacing tipping point, wreaking more havoc than it is saving souls. When someone recently referred to me as a “gay male trapped in a biologically female body” I took offense. I’m not “trapped” – I’m perfectly content that my insides don’t match my outsides. It’s only the LGBT community that perpetuates such nonsense, thereby encouraging sex change operations and chemical enhancements to align with society’s expectations, over the choice of acceptance of the gloriously imperfect bodies we’re all born into.
From Stonewall to the gender revolution, “Come out of the closet!” has been replaced by the new rallying cry of “Jump out of the box!” (Or as my heroine and favorite transvestite comedian Eddie Izzard so clearly puts it, “I didn’t jump out of a not-wearing-dress box into a have-to-wear-dress box.”)
1 comment:
I've only known a few people who described themselves as simply sexual. Its understandable that those who had to fight the laws and prejudices of the past might feel resentful towards those who feel unencumbered by the labels the oppressors provided. An individual's identity should be an ongoing work of art. As gender roles are in flux it should be no surprise that gender itself is questioned. Still there is social pressure to define oneself. I suspect it comes out of the innate fear we all have of the chaos of sexuality without which it would be boring.
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