Tuesday, June 11, 2019
With Friends Like These.
The past few weeks I have been reading a lot of stories about LGBTQ people experiencing negative situations, from being called names to physical assault. A lot I feel, has to do with what happened in the last American election. It gave the homo-bigoted a sense of "our time is now". I hate using the word homophobia because those people don't have a fear of gay people, they know exactly who we are and they have an agenda of repression and hate. They should be described as homo-bigoted or homo-prejudice because they hate us and see us as some sort of damaged people who should just keep quiet and pretend to be straight.
I'm lucky however, I live in Canada and I find that things are slowly getting better all the time. I was thinking back to something that happened to my ex boyfriend over ten years ago. He was at work and asked an employee to redo something they had been working on. The guy walked away angry and said out loud something like "I hate working with a big fruit or big queer like him" words along those lines. The ex was humiliated, not everyone knew yet that he was gay. He said nothing and just let it go like gay people have often done for years.
A day later the ex was pulled into the main office. The boss had heard what happened, and was horrified. He found out because the other workers loved my ex and went en masse to have the other guy fired, they were outraged, they were behind their friend. Later my ex received a note from the guy that was fired, it was an apology letter and he felt it was sincere.
I was thinking about myself, the beautiful thing is, if I was eating lunch at work with my usual group and some dumbass came up to torment me saying, "hey heard you're a big queer, you certainly look like a fag". That guy would have a group come down on him like a hammer. He probably would get threatened physically and he definitely would have his ass fired in 1.2 seconds. It's hard to believe at times when I think back, twenty five years ago the table would have been against me, now it's the opposite. Yes we are used to having to stand up for ourselves but it's nice when you realize we are not always alone.
Yeah, that definitely wouldn't fly at my job, either. In fact, any person who said something like that would probably know enough to just go clock out for good.
ReplyDeleteBut people want someone to hate and the easiest people to hate are people that seem to be different than those who were around you when you were a kid. I guess.
I don't know. I've never seen a downside of having the greatest variety of people possible around me.
Harry, I feel the exact same way, I feel that I am always learning when I make friends with people of all stripes and types. It enriches us, it doesn't hold us down.
ReplyDeleteAllies are always good to have.
ReplyDeleteDebra, yes and it's nice that society is finally realizing that we are the good guys.
DeleteHarry commented on my blog and I couldn't agree more. Things are changing and fast. Companies giving money to our pride, that years ago was unheard of.
ReplyDeleteAnd never let someone call me or someone I know the fag word. Hello have we met...I'm hammer.
As for haters.....not to worry. Karma is just finishing her drink and filing her nails. She'll be with them shortly.
Maddie lol, I love the karma paragraph! :)
DeleteYes it's very cool that companies want to be seen as be LGBTQ positive.
And yet you are still hesitant to come out to that group you eat lunch with? Even though you know they would have your back?
ReplyDeleteLurker, and you seem to be the only one bothered by it. :P
DeleteI'm glad you feel comfortable with your work peers and they with you.
ReplyDeleteRichard, they are a nice bunch of guys.
DeleteI'm so glad most people will not tolerate bigots. Still, most of them do crawl out from under their rocks time and again to make those they hate feel like they are inferior when they aren't. It's good that friends are standing up to the haters.
ReplyDeleteLeanna, the funny thing now is the haters are thought of as stupid, backward or unintelligent.
DeleteI WILL NOT tolerate the h8ers - ANY of them! h8ers can FOAD NOW!
ReplyDeleteAnne Marie, lol and that's why I'm creating an army of cloned Anne Maries!
DeleteC'mon, make Lurkster happy! Put on some rainbow colored booty shorts and have your own personal Pride parade in the lunchroom! I'm being facetious. You do you the best way you know how at any given moment. I'm tired, hot and ready to cry at any moment and all of the rainbows, unicorns and glitter are depressing me for some unknown reason. I guess I'll go make me a sandwich ;)
ReplyDeleteDeedles, those are three little words that I just can't do, "make Lurky happy" now why would I want to do that! ;p
ReplyDeleteYou are quite fortunate this way.
ReplyDeleteDr Spo, I am very lucky as a gay man to live in Ottawa.
ReplyDelete