There are a surplus of Maryscott/WaPo diaries right now, so why this one?
Because, while I've seen us dancing around the edges of this core issue, I haven't really seen us deal with it head on in quite this way (though, I admit, I have not been able to read every comment or every diary).
And because the ones on the Rec list are getting too big to load easily.
And because there comes a point in every successful movement where this needs to be talked about...
My finely tuned gaydar isn't only good for knowing which coworkers I can talk to about Halsted St. Market Days. It is also the spidey sense that tells me I've seen this all before.
Maryscott is our swishy queer, and we're not sure if she should be so prominent in our Pride Parade.
It's as simple as that. And for all it's simplicity, it's a damn complicated thing to wrestle with.
Is there anything wrong with being a swishy queer? Most in the queer community at this point (I would hope) would say no. I offer an emphatic, Fuck no!
If a news organization, without fail, shows nothing but swishy queers in its coverage of Pride, is that indicative of an agenda or bias of some sort? Probably.
Is one-dimensional, agenda-driven coverage potentially damaging to the full spectrum of queer America and the fight to be taken seriously and treated fairly? Probably.
Should the swishy queers have to pretend to be something they're not because they might get their picture taken? Hell, no!
Is it ridiculous and offensive that we even live in a world in which being swishy and queer are seen as, well, ridiculous and offensive? Of course!
So, where does that leave us? We have two essential truths:
1. Maryscott has the right to be who she is and express herself as she is. As I've said before, I love her and wouldn't change a thing about her. We all have a right to be angry, and there's nothing wrong with being angry. And she's damn good at it, too.
2. There are a number of powerful and adversarial groups in whose interest it has been to portray the liberal base as angry (always read this as "crazy" when you see it in any of these groups' outlets), unhinged, dangerous, and unworthy of listening to. When those outlets choose to portray examples of liberals who are angry (even if justifiably so), that occurs in a context in which they are building a much larger text than that single article or news segment. Articles like today's say much more than is contained within their words, and we need to be aware of that.
So, again I say, where does that leave us?
The real fight here is against the people who, for myriad reasons, both benign and malevolent:
1. Define angry as crazy.
2. Choose to selectively represent a broad population as one-dimensional... in this case, angry, which has now been defined as crazy.
Those are the two ideas that are causing this problem. Not Maryscott. Not even one article by one journalist.
Instead of fighting each other, we should be fighting those ideas. They serve us all poorly.
The unanswered question is, how best to fight them?
I leave that unanswered on purpose. There are no easy answers to this one. This is a fundamentally unfair situation for all of us, whether we're swishy or straight.
Update:
Some people seem to have gotten the idea that this diary is about Maryscott's sexuality. It's not. Maryscott is not literally a swishy queer. It's an analogy. In fact, it's not even really about Maryscott. She is not the issue. She is the context for the issue. This is about the issue, itself.
And now, at 266 comments, this thread is getting to the point of being too big for my browser to comfortably load again. Ah well. To those who engaged and enjoyed this discussion, thank you.