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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2015)
Street Roots • February 6-12, 2015 SAG AGE, from page 4 go to my siblings and some really good friends that I can confide in and say anything to. But the person I often go to, to process and hash things out with is Terry. Twenty years together and fairly often on the same page about relationship and sex issues — we are each other's sounding boards. S.Z.: You have m any critics, m any o f whom are the conservative, “Family Values” crowd. B u t m any o f your critics are feminists, bisexual and transgendered people. Does criticism from fem inist, LB G T Q community or other left-leaning groups affect you differently than criticism from the ‘moral R ight.’ D.S.: It’s more aggravating. Some people are bizarrely invested in this caricature of who I am and what I’ve said and what I’ve done and what I believe. It says more about them than it does about me. It’s clear that I’m not trans-phobic or bi-phobic. Has my advice always been spectacular? No! But am I trans-phobic? No, Am I bi-phobic? No. We have enemies, LBGT people. We have enemies. We don’t need to create them. S.Z.: In fact, today you posted a Tumblr response from Arielle Scarcella who calls out LB G T Q com m unity fo r criticizing Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. D.S.: I love her. S.Z.: You posted the video with a comment that: “Too m any o f the queer social justice on Tuwb.lr a n f f . Twitter are more interested in “criticizing allies fo r not doing it perfectly. ” Doesn’t this kind o f statement kind o f rattle the beehive? You speak so confidently that people assume that you see yourself as the end-all authority on everything. D.S.: (Laughs) Oiie of my first editors at The Stranger was this really wonderful woman named Christine Wenc. I would write things and preface it with, “I think ....” blah blah blah. She would come to me and say, “This is a piece that you are writing that has your byline on i t It is what you , think. You don’t have to say it’s what you think. We know it’s what you think, it’s your column.” Sometimes I believe people think I think I am coming down the mountain with the tablets, when I am just presenting my POV, but not framing it as an “I” statement. S.Z.: I read your column regularly and enjoy it. Sometimes I think you offer some great insights, other times, I ’m not buyin’ what yo u ’re selling. D.S.: Find me the writer on earth that any single individual agrees with about everything. I don’t even agree with myself about everything. I read things I wrote five or 10 years ago and I’m like, “Wow. I don t believe that anymore.” My position can evolve. So, this attitude that some people have on the left that somebody who is also on the left who has written or said something that I disagree with is now my mortal enemy, is just bizarre. There are people on the left I disagree with and I regard them as my comrades in rhetorical arms with whom I have these small disagreements - not people that I have to crucify. And it’s not all News The project is LBGT adults sharing their people who disagree with me on the left who have that reaction. It’s these self- stories, their lives, their strategies for how they got through it, how they made it (life) appointed, bat-shit, thought police, better forthemselves. How they survived psychopaths who would rather go after someone who is actually going to listen to their adolescence with LGBT kids who them and pay attention to them. might not have access to LBGT adult role Bill O’Reilly is not going to give you the models - and that is really crucial. time of day. FOX News? Not every word that A kid is bullied because of his race or her J’ve written about transgendered people’s faith or his class, goes home to his or her issues has been perfect, but we all know a parents and siblings and aunts and uncles or lot more now than we did 25 years ago when grandparents and they are the same race, I started writing the column. same class, same faith who will support Think Progress has done this wonderful them if they open up about the bullying they job documenting all of the really vicious and are facing. And even if they don’t talk about vile and dangerous it, they are living anti-trans bigotry and examples of rhetoric that FOX perseverance - you News is pumping into "It*s siot enough to lo o k at what can get through this. people are d oing to determ ine homes all over Queer kids all too America in red states whales healthy? whales m - often go home to no and arguably healthy. We have to lo o k at who queer role models or endangering trans to parents, as in they are/* people’s lives. Leelah Alcorn’s case. There are no S.Z.: Leelah Alcorn demonstrations at is a tragic example o f FOX News parental bullying. (Leelah Alcorn was a headquarters. And yet these trans activists^ transgender girl who, citing loneliness, abuse often allies of trans people, not actual trans and alienation, committed suicide in people, will come to my speech in protest because I’m an anti-trans bigot There is Fox December and posted her suicide note online.) News headquarters, 20 blocks away. And D.S.: What the “It Get’s Better Project” there has never been a demonstration. does is provide to queer kids (a source) for It’s not like my shit don’t stink. I’m saying that information and those strategies, that I have not gotten everything right over the perspective of an adult person like them 25 years I’ve been writing. But in the that they often don’t have access to. aggregate, I have a lot more (good things) to show than shit. And I get these relentless S.Z.: W hat can one do when the bullies attacks.... I proposed to some trans folks: aren’t ju st (or even) at school, but rather, in You announce the demo at Fox News HQ in one’s own home? midtown Manhattan, and I will be there. * D.S.: There are lots of “It Gets Better” And I will talk it up and will make sure that videos that talk about that. I think some of my readers know about it and as many of the most impactful “It Gets Better” videos them that can get there will be there. But are people - queer adults - with the parents let’s take it to them. But, nothing. Silence. I who bullied them throughout adolescence. don’t understand it. And the parents apologizing to their kids for Why with so much agitos and activism what they did to them. around the trans issue right now, there is That really gives a lot of queer kids hope this ...going after Germaine Greer?! Let’s go - when they see parents, who were the throw glitter at Germaine Greer (Greer was bullies that their parents are, who have glitter bombed by a group of protesters in come around. 2012 for her 2009 comments about trans Some of the videos recommend: don’t women) and the people at Fox News can come out of the closet. Tell your parents leave the building unmolested every day. what you must. Tell them what they insist Google “trans” and “Keith Ablow” and on hearing and run out the clock. That is a see what comes up and then compare it to horrible message in some ways. But in some anything I ever said that trans people cases, it is the only realistic message. objected to. What (Ablow) is saying is There are videos made by people who insanely toxic and there is no Tumblr war on say, “My parents are fundamentalist Keith Ablow. Christians or Mormons and rabidly anti-gay, I am listening and paying attention and and they’ve thrown one kid out already my position is evolving. I am an ally and I because he came out or had pre-marital sex, am on trans people’s side. and I knew I couldn’t tell them without I haven’t used the word “trannie” in imperiling my safety, my education. And so I years. The only time I use it is to talk about didn’t tell them, I waited.” And sometimes how I stopped using it. Why do you not that is the best message. know that? Because all of the stir and drive A mistake that the LGBT community about it online is in the present tense. makes when talking to LGBT youth is S.T.-. You and your partner began “I t Gets pretending that “coming out” is the solution Better” in 2010. The organization’s mission is . to all of your problems, when for a lot of to communicate to lesbian, gay, bisexual and kids, coming out - or being outed - (can be) transgender youth around the world that it the beginning of much more serious gets better, and to create and inspire the problems. changes needed to make it better fo r them. Tell Another failing is we also don’t tell our me how the project works. LGBT youth that when they come out, not all LGBT adults are nice. Then you have D.S.: It’s very simple. My theory is that kids coming out who think everybody they you don’t look at people and present them meet who is queer is going to be a nice with a huge problem and make them feel helpless. You look at people and you present person and is going to look out for them. Their expectation is that trans, gay, lesbian, them with something they can do: a doable bisexual people will be better people. And thing. Page 5 we’re not necessarily better. S.Z.: W/z the advent o f “Fifty Shades o f Grey” book and f i l m ... people’s kinks are becoming recognized by the mainstream. Basically, “consent” is the new “gay” for mainstream America. D.S.: Consent is the baseline that has always existed. When you look at a picture of two people engaged in hardcore BDSM and you look at a picture of missionary position, heterosexual intercourse and I were to tell you to pick the one that is violent, a lot of people would pick the BDSM. But what if that act were completely consensual and the missionary position photo reflects (an act of) force or coercion? Then that’s rape. That’s violence. It’s not enough to look at what people are doing to determine what’s healthy, what’s unhealthy. We have to look at who they are. Are they consenting adults who want to be there and enjoy what’s happening? That’s the standard by which we should judge sexual conduct - are all parties involved, joyful and willing participants? For years, I’ve called it, the magic ingredient Consent turns to fairy dust. It turns something ugly into something beautiful. S.Z.: From my perspective, you have spent much o f your career, norm ing your lifestyle for “m ainstream ” America: you are an openly gay m an who, with one hand, offers the suggestion that his partner looks great in leather, while with the other hand, adopts a nd raises a child, who is straight. I get the sense that you have spent a lot o f your time norm ing what already is norm al fo r you. D.S.: It’s what’s normal for us. Bringing this back to my critics on the radical queer fringe, sometimes they call me a heteronormative assimilationist and (accuse me) of being sex negative - which just makes me laugh! We are a gay couple with a child who came out as non-monogamous. We go to events like International Mr. Leather; Terry puts pictures of himself in fetish gear (on social media sites). Urn. We are about as non-heteronormative and non-assimilationist as you get. We entered the mainstream, but on our own terms without compromising who we are. At all. So, it’s not that we changed or we’re asking other queer people to change. We made demands, not on queer people to change, but on straight people to change. That’s not heteronormative, assimilist sell out shit. That’s radical-queer-barging-in shit. S.Z.: Favorite Valentine’s memory? D.S.: Oh my God. All of the Valentine’s Days I’ve spent with Terry were neither of us got each other anything ... because we don’t really give a shit. My Valentine’s Day present is the cup of tea Terry makes for me every morning before I come downstairs. And I pick up after him after breakfast without saying anything. That’s what matters - those constant daily acts that no amount of flowers and chocolates one day a year could compensate for, or replace.
