I've become fairly jaded and bitter over the years when it comes to representation. And for one particular aspect of my identity, I prefer erasure because of how wrong and flamboyant and wrong they get it; it's not a plot point in a story, it's every day life. My everyday life. Several other people's everyday life.
But I had a therapy appointment on Tuesday where all I did was go 'There's a name for me!' Along with the realisation I'd been searching for one for YEARS and just feeling broken. So for the first time, I'm feeling the 'please sweet heavens, there's a word for that' and thinking a little differently, despite my bitterness, of having a reality broached in wider mediums.
It's one of the reasons I don't feel up to some broader discussions I've found. When people start debating the 'nature of oppression' or if oppression is worse than erasure, I think I might go off.
I'm sharply reminded of the circumstances, for some, in their later or even silver years, due to fear or hesitation or confusion or lack of freedom coming out as gay or queer. I find myself wondering at the age group in the discussions I've found. If there are people with an inkling of isolated communities, maybe some idea that there might be 'people like that' in 'big cities' somewhere. Maybe. And that's counting there were movies to hint at that. And with the knowledge such movies always implied such a 'lifestyle' was tragic and unhappy and horrible, but yeah, it/those people existed.
If they realize that there are people, older people, who in this day and age are still going "There's a word for that?!" Or 'That's what that word means? It's not something else?" Because who wants to identify with suicidal perverted depression wasted lives?
I keep wondering why they can't see the similarities or extrapolate to what it might be like to end up well past adolescence, even well past one's twenties when it seems most everyone else had their starting point and you with no clue you're not effed in the head.
Thinking of it that way, I think I can see why you got so excited at the thought of the word even being floated in a wider medium and possibly explored. So someone out there might go 'Wait, what? That's an option?!'
If definitions hadn't been floating around these last two to three years, I'd still be feeling like I was in a holding pattern to 'fix' myself. I realize my preferring erasure on that other part of me seems selfish given that, but it also falls under a possible 'to be fixed' label and the more outrageous representations could scare the stuffing out of someone managing a more or less regular life. There's no lesser evil there. But there might have been here, as you saw it.
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timeasmymeasure
Re:
Date: 2011-09-01 04:05 am (UTC)But I had a therapy appointment on Tuesday where all I did was go 'There's a name for me!' Along with the realisation I'd been searching for one for YEARS and just feeling broken. So for the first time, I'm feeling the 'please sweet heavens, there's a word for that' and thinking a little differently, despite my bitterness, of having a reality broached in wider mediums.
It's one of the reasons I don't feel up to some broader discussions I've found. When people start debating the 'nature of oppression' or if oppression is worse than erasure, I think I might go off.
I'm sharply reminded of the circumstances, for some, in their later or even silver years, due to fear or hesitation or confusion or lack of freedom coming out as gay or queer. I find myself wondering at the age group in the discussions I've found. If there are people with an inkling of isolated communities, maybe some idea that there might be 'people like that' in 'big cities' somewhere. Maybe. And that's counting there were movies to hint at that. And with the knowledge such movies always implied such a 'lifestyle' was tragic and unhappy and horrible, but yeah, it/those people existed.
If they realize that there are people, older people, who in this day and age are still going "There's a word for that?!" Or 'That's what that word means? It's not something else?" Because who wants to identify with suicidal perverted depression wasted lives?
I keep wondering why they can't see the similarities or extrapolate to what it might be like to end up well past adolescence, even well past one's twenties when it seems most everyone else had their starting point and you with no clue you're not effed in the head.
Thinking of it that way, I think I can see why you got so excited at the thought of the word even being floated in a wider medium and possibly explored. So someone out there might go 'Wait, what? That's an option?!'
If definitions hadn't been floating around these last two to three years, I'd still be feeling like I was in a holding pattern to 'fix' myself. I realize my preferring erasure on that other part of me seems selfish given that, but it also falls under a possible 'to be fixed' label and the more outrageous representations could scare the stuffing out of someone managing a more or less regular life. There's no lesser evil there. But there might have been here, as you saw it.