There IS a B and a T in LGBT. RECOGNIZE!

StonewallAGAIN: Our Time Has Come

When we look at where the LGBT community is today, we have to really thank the B and the T.  For if those founding drag queens hadn’t starting kicking off their heels and run into the night screaming, we would be in a similar situation to what our Russian brothers and sisters are currently in.  State imposed genocide.

Sochi Winter Olympic Games presents us with a unique scenario to reflect about where we are as a community.  This is a time for us to unite.  However, it is a time to us all to really reflect on WHO we are and HOW we treat each other in our own community.

When people talk about LGBT, they think Gay Gay Gay.  There are other letters in the acronym, but they fall silently away.  LGBT is more than young white underwear models with tight tuchus and pretty hair.  Sadly, that is what people see in their mind.  Or the opposite is true, dirty lecherous creeper in a raincoat flashing children.  In reality we know that we are not that.

That hidden in the Pride Flag rainbow there are different shades of Purple, Blue and Pink that represent the bisexual and transgendered people.  I think now is exactly the time for these colors to shine through.  I think that we need to have a conversation about who B and T are and why it is important to recognize them.

In the general population, people do not understand the gay community.  Obviously in Russia, they have no concept of diversity or recognizing individualized contribution that each person brings to their culture.  As we have seen and I have personally experienced, if you say you exist then people are aware.  I personally am out at work.  It doesn’t matter and no one cares.  If anything, people come up to me and ask me questions about my world.  They genuinely want to understand me and share in my life.

I think the Bi and Trans world are in a similar situation within the LGBT community.  No one understands them.  I know that I didn’t understand until I started to talk to and be around openly bisexual and transgender people.  They are real.  Once they became a real entity in my world, I could ask questions; hear what they did differently than me and what they were interested in.  We have lot of the same things in common.

So as we face this great tradgity in our community about Russian oppression, we need to reach out to help and help with understanding.  We need to make sure that we are reaching out to everyone in this community including the B and the T.  Just like in ’Blackhawk Down’, we leave no one behind.  Our outreach to these people needs to extend to ALL.  EVERYONE must learn to understand that it is more than just GAY people that are affected.  That each one of these letters in LGBT has special needs and respect.

When it comes to marriage equality, it is the same thing.  If we strip ourselves of our self imposed labeling, regardless of lesbian, intersex or bisexual, and simply calling our person as HUMAN.  You should be able to marry the HUMAN that you love regardless of anything else.  This should be important to all of us.  To share our lives with the HUMAN that we love.  Build a home and have children with the HUMAN that we love.  Practice the religious dogma with same said HUMAN.

We are here for a finite time.  We should all respect each other in a humane capacity.  Whatever the letter you should label yourself with, embrace it and identify with it.  Reach out to another letter when the opportunity comes and acknowledge that.  If you don’t know how to act around another letter, treat them like an H for HUMAN.  I’m sure it will go over great.