On Not Reading the Comments (Or, For Real, I Shouldn't Have)

You're not supposed to write angry. It's pretty much the first rule of writing, right after your teacher tells you that there are no rules and right before he/she lists several. Don't write angry. Doesn't mean you can't write about the things that make you angry, just that...if you're fired up in the wrong way, you'll lose your objectivity and probably make your point less effectively.

I've had waves of anger about this particular issue on and off for quite some time, the most recent of which happened maybe an hour ago. Let's see if enough time has passed.

Recently, when asked about the possibility of LGBT characters in the Star Wars universe, The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams offered his enthusiastic endorsement of the idea. Let's be clear: this wasn't an announcement of an LGBT character, nor even a statement of intent to include one on screen. Rather, it was a statement of support of the possibility of non-heterosexual characters existing. In a fictional universe.

Right away, the comments on the piece I was reading started populating with rage. I shouldn't have read the comments. Nobody should ever read the comments. But I did, so here we are.

Filtering out the blatant and purposeful homophobia, which isn't worth addressing because nobody here has time now or ever, there was a lot of this (paraphrased, because to directly quote would mean going back into the comments):

"And we should care why?"

"What does sexual preference matter, it's STAR WARS"

"Why? How often is sex a motivator in the plot? We don't know about it because it's not pertinent. Will this character blurt it out in a fight? Making sexuality a device to appease a community? Really?"

Let's take that last one first.

Open depictions of heterosexual attraction run rampant throughout the Star Wars universe and media in general. Most of us just don't think about it because it is the societal norm. Han Solo didn't blurt out, "I'm attracted to ladies," in a fight. Instead, he openly flirted with Princess Leia and then just straight up smooched her before they directly declared their romantic love for each other over the course of two movies. Message delivered. And that became a big motivator. It's still driving parts of the narrative.

So. Don't tell me character orientation shouldn't be a part of movies unless you're going to argue that every straight or straight-presenting couple's presence is superfluous to the story and should be kept out of your face.

Now, let's take the other two comments, which are branches on the same tree, as it were.

When we ask, "Why should I care," or, "What does it matter," often what we are really saying is, "I do not care," or, "This does not matter to me." And you know what? That's okay. Really. It's okay to not care about stuff when other people do, just as it's okay to like/dislike something that others feel the opposite about.

The problem lies in the attitude that, because something does not matter to you, it shouldn't matter to anybody else either.

'Cause here's the thing: the subtext of, "This does not matter to me," particularly in this scenario, is, "This is not me."

I am a not a straight person. When I get to see my orientation fairly represented in the stories I love, it means the world to me. It makes me feel a little more seen, a little more recognized. A little more understood within the framework of the world at large.

There are so many types of people in this world, all of whom are real and valid and deserving of a place in our stories - not as tokens, but as heroes and villains and leaders and lovers, because that's who we all can be.

Media representation is something that gets taken for granted by the majority of us because we are fortunate enough to see ourselves on the page and screen all the time. It's why so much confusion arises when the whiteness or straightness or maleness of anything gets questioned - what's the problem? Good stories are good stories, right? What does it matter?

It matters when that story is not, "you."

And it's beyond time we start making space for each other.

Don't tell me the idea of a Resistance pilot turning his charm on another man at the bar or two gals holding hands in the background of a scene is an impossible and ridiculous concept in a world where a wee CGI alien fondly calls a Wookiee her, "boyfriend."

Let go. Open up. Consider the fact that just because it's not about you doesn't mean it isn't important.

And take a minute to think about why you're so upset about an answer to an award season question about something that hasn't even happened yet and, hell, possibly never will.

Try being upset that it's a question that still has to be asked at all.

On Teaching Acceptance (Or, No More Hiding...)

There's a thing I've been trying to talk about, and I don't know how. So I'm going to talk about me for a little while.

I learned what it meant to be gay in school.

It was maybe around 1996. I was about ten years old. We were in music class. It was December, and we were singing, “Deck the Halls.” One of the boys raised his hand and asked what, “gay apparel,” meant, not because he was curious, but because ten is the age when kids really start figuring out how to be snarky. The old-school nun behind the piano looked at him sharply and said, “In this song, it means happy. It also means something very inappropriate that we don’t talk about. But in this song, it means happy.”

I’d heard, “gay,” used the other way before, but not with enough context to understand what it meant. This was pre-Google, and I wasn't going to ask my parents, so I didn't really have a lot to go on. Now I knew – sort of. It meant something bad.

That’s how easy it is to plant an idea in the mind of a trusting child. I still get upset about it, about the months I spent genuinely believing it.

It was my older sister who eventually set me straight, as it were. Six years my senior, she’d often pick me up and bring me back to her high school if she had meetings and both of my parents were working too late to pick me up from extended care on time. We had a good relationship – I was never treated like a cumbersome little sister, never banished to a corner or told to stay away from her friends. I knew her friends, and liked them. One of them, I learned, was gay, and I whispered a question about him once. Maybe she didn’t know?

“Yeah,” she said firmly, “It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

That’s all it really took to reverse the damage that had been done.  I had wanted, since learning its true definition, to believe that being gay was fine, because it seemed a silly thing to think otherwise. It’s equally silly that I needed somebody else to give me permission to trust my own feelings about the matter, but I was ten. I’m willing to forgive kid me for not being better.

I was raised Catholic, and I received an exclusively Catholic education, from kindergarten right on through to college graduation. During this massive chunk of my life, I learned a lot. When I hit high school, my personal value system really started to form, and I was so lucky to have teachers who encouraged me to trust myself. A few of those teachers really stepped up and acted as mentors, patiently helping me navigate the challenges and curveballs that got thrown my way while I tried to carve out my path. They never judged. They always listened.

When I think of the eighteen year-old kid in her college dorm who had just experienced conscious feelings for a woman for the first time, I think of how much harder it could’ve been for her if she’d been born to a different family in a different city. I know it would’ve been harder if she’d had different teachers.

It was still hard. It would be another two years or so – two years of quiet denial and confusion – before I fully understood and accepted that I was bisexual. It would be another eight years before I said it out loud.

Full disclosure: my master plan was to only indulge the attraction I felt toward men so that I would just never have to talk about it. It was a really dumb plan. Like, it was always a dumb plan, because feelings are feelings and we should really just go with them, but it was especially dumb because wherever I fall on the wider and much debated spectrum, I’m for sure attracted to women more often. Not exclusively. But more often. If you're thinking of adopting a similar plan, maybe don't. Just some friendly advice.

Saying it out loud? Best ever. There was so much of me that I was holding back because ridiculous, paranoid closet logic told me that letting it out would let everyone know. You know how sometimes you’re playing hide and seek, and you’ve got the best hiding spot, but after a while you kind of just want to be found so that you can go back to having fun being loud and visible and a part of the world? That’s how I felt at the end of that gross and complicated decade.

I don’t know that I hid all that well. There were people who definitely knew, or suspected. Toward the end, the closet door was cracking like crazy, I was so sick of keeping it closed. But it was a punishing way to live all the same, and I want to go back to that me and let her know that it's all going to work out.

Once I did it and the initial wave of euphoria passed, I spent a lot of time being irritated with myself. It was upsetting to acknowledge that I spent such a long time denying a huge part of my identity, not because I thought it was wrong, but because I thought it was wrong for me. I had gotten so worried about what people would think that it felt like I had arrested my development – like I had wasted time in understanding myself, and was now behind everyone in the race to be a person.

People who were much younger than I was with much more to lose came out everyday. I felt like a coward and a hypocrite.

Last November, I got to see Rhea Butcher and Cameron Esposito live for the first time. I was a week off my first bike accident. I was tired, my ribs were kind of busted, and I needed the laughs. I got much more. Rhea and Cameron are stand-ups and fiancées. They talk about their lives without apology. Their sets touched me and made me happy in a way that I don’t think they could have if I hadn’t stepped up and taken ownership of who I am. Post-show, after receiving compliments from them on my tie (always makes me proud), I said, “Listen, I came out this year, and what you said – what you do – really means a lot.” I mean, I probably said it way worse than that because I was nervous and being nervous makes me a jackass, but that’s what I meant to say. And immediately, Cameron pulled me in for a hug, then looked me in the eye with a big smile and said, “Hey! You’re doing it!”

That stuck with me in a big way. I have no problem admitting that I repeat it to myself when I hit rougher patches, when I start to get mad at myself or do something that scares me. It was a nice thing for one stranger to say to another stranger because she knew, and I’m grateful for it.

The way we treat each other matters. The things we say to each other matter. Words carry weight, whether we want them to or not.

Ugly words have been thrown around recently by powerful people in my city. It’s upsetting, disturbing language designed to denounce and condemn. It can call itself whatever it wants, but that is what it is. And it is wrong.

These words, and worse, have existed for a long time. But now it feels like they’re in my home, in my safe space. I’ve been trying to write about it for weeks and I haven’t been able to. I get too angry to do it right.

I don’t know that this is doing it right.

So yeah, rather than talking about it, I decided to talk about me. Because there wasn’t some Divergent-y ceremony when I turned eighteen where I stood up in front of my peers and sliced my hand open over the bowl of bisexuality, making my choice. It’s who I’ve always been. I started writing stories when I was in grade school, guys. It is not that difficult to read between the lines and see that I was a little bi kid with gently romantic feelings for a pretty diverse range of people.

My parents didn’t get weird when I didn’t want to play with dolls and begged for a poster of Jennifer Love Hewitt to put above my dresser, where she remained for years, looking amazing. When I came out to them, they said okay, and kept right on loving me. I’m so, so lucky for all of that.

Despite what some of the textbooks and official party lines may have said, my teachers taught me to honor myself exactly as I was, because that was more than enough. I don’t know that I believe in a higher power – and I’m so happy in the not knowing, so don’t worry about me – but if I did, the one with that message is the one I’d get behind.

I’m a teacher now. I’ve had chances to be the mentor, advisor, and non-judgmental ear that my teachers were to me, and I hope that I’ve done even half as well as they did. Standing up and being myself – loving who and what I love, wearing what I wear, doing what I do – feels like a responsibility now as much as a right.

There is no rule, no word, no power that will make me go back to hiding any part of who I am, nor tell anybody else to do so.  

I will do my best to lead by example, because I’m in a position right now to do that. I will continue to try and be a good person, who surrounds herself with others who are trying to be good people.

“Good,” is not who you love or do not love. It is not who or if you marry, how or if you have kids, who or what you believe in. It’s not what you look like or where you came from.

It is how you are. To yourself. To others.

I will teach acceptance.

And I stand proudly with teachers and students and parents and people who are doing the same.

Hey. We’re doing it.

On Secrets (Or, I Am Not In The Illuminati...)

So a new post about the ongoing saga of CDog vs. Raging Driving Anxiety is in the works. It's very thrilling. There are jaywalking old ladies and billions of cyclists and lots of hills. And bison. Seriously. Golden Gate Park's bison have been weaving their way into my life with startling regularity lately.

But all that's going to have to wait, because I have a thing to say.

I began the month with a deeply personal post, and I'm going to end it the same way. There's no significance to the day outside of that. Just...I'm feeling determined, and I'm wearing a fabulous bow tie, so why not sit down and let you in on my last big secret?

That was a big set-up. It shouldn't have been. I'm not about to drop some Illuminati surprises on you or anything. Look, if you know me personally, you know I kind of just put it all out there. I do my best to live a good life in a way that feels right and authentic to me, and I don't really make space for anyone who feels like telling me I'm doing it wrong. That was one of the best pieces of advice I ever picked up at a comic book convention - the panelist, without malice, said, "If there's anybody in your life who doubts you, who tries to convince you that you should  give up and do something else, you need to cut them out, because that's not going to work." It was a response to a question about writing, but it kind of applies to everything.

I haven't been living authentically, though. Not completely - not the way I want and need to, and it feels like the only reason is because I've been worried about what other people would think. I don't like that. It's a bad habit to get into, and I'm not going to let that be a thing.

So let's not have it be a thing: I'm bisexual.

Right? It really didn't need a big set-up. It's probably not even that surprising - I've known for a long time. I've even sort of said it to a few people, but in a pretend, non-committal, I-didn't-really-say-it-so-what-just-happened-probably-nothing kind of way. All of that amounted to just building a custom closet for myself to hide this piece of my identity in - roomy, sure, and full of fun stuff, but a closet nonetheless.

It wasn't an earth-shattering revelation when I figured it out. I was irritated, more than anything, because I felt like I was suddenly in a category that didn't fit anywhere - not straight, not gay, just there. Growing up, even in San Francisco, I remember the idea of bisexuality being met with derision and scorn - at best, you were in denial; at worst, you were hypersexual and untrustworthy. I absorbed these things that eventually turned into the message that who I was - who I knew myself to be - was not real and would not be accepted.

Instead of saying, "Whatever. That's not me, and if people don't realize that's not me, that's their problem," I got scared. And I stayed scared, and silent, for a very long time. Friends in situations similar to mine came to me for advice, and I told them exactly what I myself would've wanted to hear - you're you, and that's 100% rad, fuck anybody who says otherwise, and tell them I said so. But I couldn't find a way to apply that to my own life.

I didn't want to be the bi, vegan writer from San Francisco who dresses like a hipster professor and is in therapy for chronic anxiety and depression. Say all those things together and tell me it doesn't feel just a little bit ridiculous.

But the longer I sat with those things, feeling like a raging stereotype of the west coast lifestyle, the more it occurred to me that I was absolutely unwilling to change any of them. I love my bow ties and cardigans - wearing them makes me feel fantastic. Going veg is one of the best decisions I ever could have made for my life. Writing is the only thing that has always made sense to me. And I can't change who I'm attracted to any more than I can change the way my brain is wired or where I was born.

I've spent far too much time being a hypocrite over the past few years, encouraging the people around me to live fully while refusing to do so myself.

This is me undoing that, the only way I know how: clumsily, via the written word, in a vaguely public way. It's one of those things that changes nothing and everything - it's already who I was, but I'm finally free from the silence of it.

I'm not in denial. I'm not confused. I like guys. I like girls. That's it. That's my truth.

I'm me, and that's 100% rad. Fuck anybody who says otherwise, and tell them I said so.