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I want the world to know...
Oct. 11th, 2007 02:56 pmAs I have reminded all of my coworkers (spurring one of them to come out to several others), TODAY IS NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY. I love National Coming Out Day. I know there are issues with who can be visible. I know that visibility as a goal is questionable and silences complicated narratives.
REGARDLESS.
National Coming Out Day makes me think about the first time I went chalking at Wesleyan, before it was banned, and how incredible it was to move around campus with our buckets of chalk and cover the campus. It was a cool night, actually the evening before, or maybe several evenings before (I forget) Nat'l Coming Out Day. I got on a plane the next day and flew to L.A. for the GLSEN Teaching Respect for All Conference. The conference was good, but crazy stuff was happening at Wesleyan, and it was hard to be away. National Coming Out Day chalkings were scandalous, and were vulgar, and I feel okay about that. The hurt I felt when they were erased and the pain that we were never able to get the ban lifted is still there, but I wish I could convey how it feels to write "Go both ways" at an intersection, or "Latex is sexy," or to draw a person in the wheelchair in a handicapped parking spot buttfucking another person.
The National Coming Out Day event at Wesleyan was several days after the chalking, and some of us decided to chalk on our bodies. The Argus covered our stripping, and I remember my friends' parents looking at the Argus when they came for Homecoming that week, and then looking at me, and...yeah. At the event, though, it was just kind of ridiculous but cool. We were interrupting the rainbow tablecloths to talk about how we felt that the university was hypocritical to sponsor this event about breaking silences but to ban the chalking that had allowed us to raise our voices.
National Coming Out Day helps me to reflect on all of the comings out that I have done over the years, and reminds me to be honest in all of my dealings. Coming so soon after Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur, National Coming Out Day gives me yet another chance to engage in narrative acts of creation and growth, of telling my story. What is my story? I'm not totally sure, not at all sure. I love reading and riding my bike and cooking. I have massive crushes on many of my friends of all genders, but very little ever happens. I like softball and running and alcoholic cider; I like suduko and the New York Times online, eel sushi and Kabbalat Shabbat. Older butches make me weak in the knees. I have mixed feelings about New York City, and miss trees and kayaks. I am leaving a job with great benefits -- including health coverage for gendered body modifications-- and good friends for one with gendered bathrooms and crummy health care. I do not know where my life is heading. I try my best to be honest.
REGARDLESS.
National Coming Out Day makes me think about the first time I went chalking at Wesleyan, before it was banned, and how incredible it was to move around campus with our buckets of chalk and cover the campus. It was a cool night, actually the evening before, or maybe several evenings before (I forget) Nat'l Coming Out Day. I got on a plane the next day and flew to L.A. for the GLSEN Teaching Respect for All Conference. The conference was good, but crazy stuff was happening at Wesleyan, and it was hard to be away. National Coming Out Day chalkings were scandalous, and were vulgar, and I feel okay about that. The hurt I felt when they were erased and the pain that we were never able to get the ban lifted is still there, but I wish I could convey how it feels to write "Go both ways" at an intersection, or "Latex is sexy," or to draw a person in the wheelchair in a handicapped parking spot buttfucking another person.
The National Coming Out Day event at Wesleyan was several days after the chalking, and some of us decided to chalk on our bodies. The Argus covered our stripping, and I remember my friends' parents looking at the Argus when they came for Homecoming that week, and then looking at me, and...yeah. At the event, though, it was just kind of ridiculous but cool. We were interrupting the rainbow tablecloths to talk about how we felt that the university was hypocritical to sponsor this event about breaking silences but to ban the chalking that had allowed us to raise our voices.
National Coming Out Day helps me to reflect on all of the comings out that I have done over the years, and reminds me to be honest in all of my dealings. Coming so soon after Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur, National Coming Out Day gives me yet another chance to engage in narrative acts of creation and growth, of telling my story. What is my story? I'm not totally sure, not at all sure. I love reading and riding my bike and cooking. I have massive crushes on many of my friends of all genders, but very little ever happens. I like softball and running and alcoholic cider; I like suduko and the New York Times online, eel sushi and Kabbalat Shabbat. Older butches make me weak in the knees. I have mixed feelings about New York City, and miss trees and kayaks. I am leaving a job with great benefits -- including health coverage for gendered body modifications-- and good friends for one with gendered bathrooms and crummy health care. I do not know where my life is heading. I try my best to be honest.
