Pride
POSTNOTE: Life on the airwaves – where most of us seem to get our news – goes on, and Joyce Vance and Heather Cox Richardson had a couple of pertinent posts overnight Wednesday. They are linked under their names, above. Also, from time to time I just do ‘quiet’ kind of posts, as I did on June 4, about a Quebec native important in early North Dakota. All posts for a given month can be found in a group at the archive at right. Simply pick the month and click. Here’s June, 2023, which thus far includes two items. Your choice.
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June is Gay Pride month. Two of a great number of sources of information I share are from the Library of Congress; and a powerful column by George Takei.
There is an immense amount of available information, worth seeking out, and taking time to engage in learning and participation during the rest of this month.
LGBTQ+ has become a familiar acronym, and this is important.
Also, there has been a lot of negative reactive action recently, and this is also important. As I’ve mentioned before at this space, pushback is often a sign that an initiative is succeeding, rather than failing. Sometimes the temptation is to quit acting to move forward; I hope that the LGBTQ+ community does the opposite.
I have often said, publicly, that I am not conversant with LGBTQ+ identity, specifically because I’m not any of these.
I’ve also said that I’d add W to this – I’m not a woman, either.
This is not to dismiss me, or anyone else. We are all unique individuals; and the best that we can do is to understand and appreciate uniqueness of each one of us. Most especially, I suggest that this applies to those who identify in any way as LGBTQ+. Individually and collectively they have been marginalized forever, and shamefully.
I didn’t grow up with this understanding.
In my youth, there were Boys and Girls, period. This was a societal and theological given. You were either one or the other, even if psychologically or otherwise you weren’t a fit with your designated gender. Over recent years especially I’ve gotten to know, better, LGBTQ+ folks who’ve talked about what it was like to have their identity denied.
But, like sex, this isn’t something that was invented in 1960.
This has always been part of the reality, only it has been denied in all of the ways such denials manifest.
In my rural high school, there were eight of we seniors in 1958, a few boys and a few girls. A tiny, very rural sample.
Back in the early 1990s, an Aunt of one my classmates revealed to my Dad and myself that Jerry had died of AIDs in 1993. This was something of a shock, as AIDs was still a shock at the time – the Gay Disease. Sure enough, Find-a-Grave verified the death. Jerry was a college graduate, and a Navy veteran, and died at age 51 on the west coast.
Time has gone on, of course, and there have been more changes – positive in my view – but at this moment in time being challenged.
As I said earlier, get active, learn and affirm those who are personally recognizing Pride Month this month.
COMMENTS (more at end post as well)
from Lindsay:
Your thoughts on persons who identify as LBGTQ+ resonant with me. As grandmother of six I’ve observed all of them at the moment, fall somewhere in the spectrum of LGBTQ+ness. In truth… in the larger sense, we all fall within this spectrum- the spectrum of our own humanity. In the long ago past, I also would have had clear definitions of what maleness and femaleness was, a simple definition confirmed by the society I saw around me in the 1950s- early 60s.
There were a handful of folk’s during this time who didn’t quite fit into the dominant stereotypes of maleness/femaleness and for them I am grateful for nudging me to question my simple definitions, thus expanding my worldview.
There was the mother of a classmate who had ‘run off with another woman’. To compound it all, this ‘teacher’s wife’ Mary, had been seen driving around town in a pink Cadillac convertible no less, with her partner. I was young and naive, but I perceived this was ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ at the time. Mary’s husband and children were pitied.
My own father didn’t exactly fit the rough and tough male stereotype that dominated our Oregon logging town. Dad didn’t hunt, fish or even enter a tavern…as my friends’ fathers did. My dad was different. When he wasn’t busy teaching- caring for his wife and children, he read big books without pictures in them, helped at church, listened to classical music and connected with cultures far beyond our tiny world.
And now, my own grandchildren refuse to be subject to the narrow definitions of maleness/femaleness from my long ago childhood days. They are defined by who they are… exploring who they’re becoming
with no firm definition in sight. And when I look at my past definitions of gender, I see that I myself cannot be defined by those strict boundaries of what it is to be male or female… We are not either or, WE ARE BOTH.
A mime of the Holy Trinity I saw recently said…”The Trinity were the first to use inclusive pronouns… They/Them”😂
It is amazing to realize that the impact of opinions from anyone on how we live our lives and believe (or don’t) what we hear. As a child I recall “The sky is falling, the sky is falling…! Another is “What goes around comes around”. We cannot “throw caution to the wind” at this time in making decisions at every level of government in elections but rather read a variety of opinions and look at facts that will help us to know the candidates’ positions rather than opinions of the news media. No one should come out feeling like we were “force-fed” as occurred when we were babies and children, and now have a hatred of a nutritious food.
So many towns were named after or by “founders”, first person to arrive at a place where a railroad stop established in many cases. It was interesting to read about Lamoure and reminded me of where I live and knowing that the first family of the near area were descendants of Mary Towne Estey. She was among the last group to be executed during the Salem Witch Trials. After her death, the family move to New Brunswick Canada and one generation made their way into Wisconsin before coming to Minnesota. They also were considered French Canadian – actually of English origin.
It behooves us to read more, read deeper to get to the truth about people.