Ergane in Retrograde

Because Faggot is my rightful name...

Without certainty, I want to say that generally, I think GLADD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) is pretty stupid. No, really.

However, perhaps not for the reasons I was going to write about since I have fallen for the inaccurate news feeds I have seen, too. (Including on yesterday's The Soap)

But I do want to talk about American Idol and Claykin for a moment.

In case you haven't been paying attention, it seems as though Clay Aiken's days as a sexually ambiguous gay dude are about to be over. For those of you who want the shorthand version, he hooked up with some guy from the internet, went to his room, had sex with him, and the guy kept the rag he shot his love juice into and went str8 to the Enquirer. Now, while this story has some issues (mainly... "Don't Ask, Don't Tell anybody? But he's a *former* soldier. Eh.) the fact remains that *something* happened.

But really, *who* thought he was str8? Ok, maybe that is a trick question. Teenie boppers LOVE Clay Aiken. Shit, my MOTHER loves him (and as a birthday gag gift to Ryan, my partner, she sent him a frame with a picture of Clay Aiken in it... no, this brand of my mom's humor never translates to me -- I lack that gay funny bone I guess). Maybe they like him for the reason reason so many women and teeny boppers have loved sexually ambiguous white male performers like Wayne Newton, Liberace, Michael Jackson (ha! j/k) -- because they seem so harmless and gentle, the kinda boy you can take home to Mama, that you can totally ravish behind doors because he wouldn't know anything about sex, which would be so sweet...

*shakes head*

What's up with that kind of romanticized sentimental malarky?

So, Clay Aiken has been effectively outed -- I mean, homeboy kept the cumrag... his career as he has known it is over.

Or maybe it is just beginning?

Artists like Rufus Wainwright has never been closeted and his career is just fine. Jim Verraros (don't groan yet... have you SEEN that child lately?) still has a career, too -- and he was like the first Idol queer -- the grandma of the Queers of Idol (Wait... that's Seacrest... does anyone else remember the first season, before Simon made that comment, when Ryan Seacrest would str8 flame out? I miss that Ryan Seacrest. Although I like Seacrest more this season than I have since that moment. Seacrest is the orginal Gay Idolmother... but who knows about his politics... maybe I give him too much credit!). We are on the verge of sweeping social and political changes regarding gay sexuality, and we still have artists (like the late Lutha) who are closeted.

My partner and I had a conversation about outing. He doesn't like outing. I don't like outing either, HOWEVER, I don't like that there are some people out there gaying it up and closeted, depending on other people to keep their lies intact. Besides, I am not yet convinced that outing has ever hurt anyone (sexual desires outing, not gender outing). Besides, I have this horrible, naive feeling that it will free Claykin as an artist. Let him flame on and maybe be authentic and maybe be himself.

One of the things I have always enjoyed, sometimes much later, as an out person is the effect I have had on people who were not out, who would see me and somehow get enough strength from my being out to come out themselves. Now, that is not to say I understood it -- I have to be honest and true to myself in all the conflicting ways and messages and forms that takes... I am not trying to be anyone's hero. But if I am *shrugs* that's cool, too. Now, while I am not someone who thinks people should look to "famous" people (preferring to find my heroes in my community... one of my heros is Cookie Brown -- both the real person and the person they called "Cookie Brown" who's real name escapes me from Bennettsville, SC and Jeff ____ who was a total Bette Midler queen....), but folks do. *shrugs* "Give 'em what they want" -- Claykin, stop being selfish and self-serving and do your duty to those young fags and dykes looking for someone to inspire them to come out of their closets. Shit, North Carolina could use it.

To switch subjects slightly, I don't think Simon's remarks are cruel. The little trannygirl who came in (the one that embraces himself, but you know will be on hormones in two years and good for him because that child is fierce) is used to people being closed and narrow-minded and perhaps this was the shove she needed to be who she is. The B/black boy who Simon said should shave and wear a wig actually WOULD make a gorgeous woman.

Thing is, this is the entertainment world and fags and transfolks have always been involved and there. To be a male and to sing (whether you are good or not) by most masculinity codes means you are going to be picked at -- I know.... I am a male who can sing h/is ass off and I have been picked at because of my voice, mannerisms, and general noncompliance to B/black Southern masculinity codes. I have had to sit in choruses where guys called themselves "basses" because at least if you sang "the low notes" you still hang onto some semblance of masculinity because everyone knows that tenors are just faggots.

So, I don't think Simon is being homo- or transphobic, he is just being, well, Simon, which is to say insulting and amused with life. I mean, *grins* one might ask how he'd know... since many say that male Brits (well, before the Lad movement anyway) just seem gay in some manner anyway (I've heard... I don't really notice or care very much... I mean, they work from a different cultural context -- American masculinity isn't their brand... or wasn't. *shakes head* Enough of this messy topic)...

I guess... my rambling leads here: When will people stop acting as if it is a shameful thing to be identified as a homosexual (lesbian, gay), bisexual or transgendered person? Honestly, when the power is taken out of the possibility of being identified as such, everything else gets easy.

That's the problem. Everyone is "supportive" of LBTG people and politics and issues UNTIL they are identified as one. Instead of chuckling and nodding or something, they respond with a HUGE disclaimer -- as if something is wrong with being, thus negating their entire position and making being a TLBG person be seen as something shameful and disgusting.

The day someone called me a faggot and I could do nothing but laugh because, well, I AM a faggot and there's NOTHING BAD about it was the day I became free. I feel that all the censoring, over-sensitivity keeps oppression in play instead of truly liberating anyone.

If you are serious about TIFQQLBG liberation, whether het ally or queer, call yourself the word your would-be oppressor calls you and laugh, don't let it hurt you... because... really, whatever.

I wish Clay luck... and Verraros's stylist.

posted by Ergane @ 8:25 PM