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When My Nan Died: Religion, Closets and Love (repost)

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , Leave a comment

I wrote this two years ago, on the third anniversary of my Nan’s death.  I want to share it with you all, because much as I would like to say I feel healed, I can’t. It’s been five years. I don’t think I can ever forgive that church for forcing so many things to be unsaid.

You see, when I think of my gran, I imagine sharing all the things I do with her and I know how proud she would be. I can imagine exactly how everyone in her town would know hopelessly-exaggerated versions of every achievement I’d made, and I can feel that secretly-delighted mortification of hearing them back after a few rounds through the grapevine. I know that she’d have been up at the Galas talking David Norris’s ears off whether he liked it or not, and that every newspaper article about derby or demonstrations where you could kind-of see the side of my face would be saved and shared with half the town. I know that, and despite the everpresent ache of missing, that knowledge buoys me up and leaves me feeling so loved. Even though she’s gone for so many years.

I think about my nan, though? I miss her so much. I think about how much I love her. How close I always felt to her. How I idolised her when I was a kid, and how I grew up and.. well, that never really changed. I never thought of her with anything other than love. But right in the middle of that love? Is the knowledge that even if she was still alive, I’d have to keep so much from her. I can’t imagine how she’d feel about the things that I do. I’d still keep so many of them from her.

Because I was afraid. I was afraid that words would leave my mouth meaning “here is how my heart is wired and where I find joy” and reach her ears as “I am broken and my heart is bent towards evil”.

There’s more. Here’s the rest.

When My Nan Died: Religion, Closets and Love (repost)
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Boundaries, Thresholds and Love: why it’s time to take back ‘Bi’. Repost.

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I promised you reposts while I’m on holiday, so reposts are what you will receive! This post- Boundaries, Thresholds and Love: why it’s time to take back ‘Bi’–  is extremely close to my heart. I’ve poured a lot of time and love into the bi+ community here where I live. I care deeply about how we create and constitute that community. This post is written especially for people within our nonmonosexual community, but it’s relevant for everyone.

I love ‘pan’ and ‘queer’. They’re fantastic words, and one of them is one of my absolute favourite words to describe myself. To put it in far more words: I am not arguing against the fact that there are a diversity of labels that people in the bi+ umbrella choose to use. We all have differing experiences, orientations, and ways of understanding these, and that is a damn good thing. But their use to the exclusion of bi comes from biphobia.

Let me phrase that again, with entirely different emphasis: Their use, to the exclusion of bi, comes from biphobia.

There are certain biphobic threads that I have noticed within pansexual/queer communities and discourse. Things you hear all the time. Things like:

“I’m not bi- I don’t see gender”

“I’m attracted to the person, not the body”

“Bisexuals are attracted to men and women, but I’m capable of loving all kinds of people”

It’s kind of painful to read/hear, to be honest. But, y’know something? I know what it feels like to say things like that. I used to say those things. All of them. They are, of course, all bullshit.

We all see gender- we’re bathed in gender, whether we like it or not, in every interaction we have with another person from the moment we’re born. It’s one thing to say that we don’t want to live in a world divided along coerced gendered lines. It’s another thing to blithely go about your life pretending that you already do. To do that only ignores the myriad of gendered ways in which all of us act towards ourselves and others. Saying that you don’t see gender just ’cause you can be attracted to people regardless of it isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card from doing the painful work of dismantling your own internalised misogynies and heteronormativities.

As for the second? People who are attracted to multiple genders are no more or less likely than monosexuals to have physical traits they find attractive. And the idea that physical attraction is somehow less valid than, or exclusive of, attraction to someone as a person is the height of sex-shaming. There is nothing shallow or meaningless about being physically attracted to people. And being physically attracted to someone doesn’t mean for a second that you can’t fancy the hell out of their brains as well.

As for the third one? We’ll get to that, but suffice it to say that bi+ communities haven’t been using the definition of bisexuality as meaning attraction to men and woman for a long time.

I said earlier that I’m not here to rag on people who use pan or queer. That’s not what this has been for- hell, I use one of them myself, and used the other for a long time as well. I’m talking about this because all of these statements come from a painful-as-hell place of internalised biphobia, and none of them will, in the long run, do a damn thing to make anyone’s situation better.

I love ‘pan’ and ‘queer’. They’re fantastic words, and one of them is one of my absolute favourite words to describe myself. To put it in far more words: I am not arguing against the fact that there are a diversity of labels that people in the bi+ umbrella choose to use. We all have differing experiences, orientations, and ways of understanding these, and that is a damn good thing. But their use to the exclusion of bi comes from biphobia.

Let me phrase that again, with entirely different emphasis: Their use, to the exclusion of bi, comes from biphobia.

There are certain biphobic threads that I have noticed within pansexual/queer communities and discourse. Things you hear all the time. Things like:

“I’m not bi- I don’t see gender”

“I’m attracted to the person, not the body”

“Bisexuals are attracted to men and women, but I’m capable of loving all kinds of people”

It’s kind of painful to read/hear, to be honest. But, y’know something? I know what it feels like to say things like that. I used to say those things. All of them. They are, of course, all bullshit.

We all see gender- we’re bathed in gender, whether we like it or not, in every interaction we have with another person from the moment we’re born. It’s one thing to say that we don’t want to live in a world divided along coerced gendered lines. It’s another thing to blithely go about your life pretending that you already do. To do that only ignores the myriad of gendered ways in which all of us act towards ourselves and others. Saying that you don’t see gender just ’cause you can be attracted to people regardless of it isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card from doing the painful work of dismantling your own internalised misogynies and heteronormativities.

As for the second? People who are attracted to multiple genders are no more or less likely than monosexuals to have physical traits they find attractive. And the idea that physical attraction is somehow less valid than, or exclusive of, attraction to someone as a person is the height of sex-shaming. There is nothing shallow or meaningless about being physically attracted to people. And being physically attracted to someone doesn’t mean for a second that you can’t fancy the hell out of their brains as well.

As for the third one? We’ll get to that, but suffice it to say that bi+ communities haven’t been using the definition of bisexuality as meaning attraction to men and woman for a long time.

I said earlier that I’m not here to rag on people who use pan or queer. That’s not what this has been for- hell, I use one of them myself, and used the other for a long time as well. I’m talking about this because all of these statements come from a painful-as-hell place of internalised biphobia, and none of them will, in the long run, do a damn thing to make anyone’s situation better.

Read the rest – I promise, it’s worth your while- and let me know what you think, right?

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Boundaries, Thresholds and Love: why it’s time to take back ‘Bi’. Repost.

An old friend died this week: where the personal and political collide.

Aoife O'Riordan, , 2 Comments

I’m furious right now.

An old friend died this week. I’m mad as hell with him for doing it, even though I know he’d have some choice words for me around the topic of minding my own damn business. I guess that’s something everyone feels when something like this happens. It’s easier to be angry.

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While I don’t know why he did what he did, I know this: LGBTI people in Ireland are three times more likely to attempt suicide than our cishet counterparts. The further you go along that acronym, the higher our risk of elevated stress, anxiety and depression. Trans, bi and intersex people are most severely hit. I know that we’re only human. A lifetime of microaggressions and macro oppressions leaves you raw. Wears you down. When life’s ordinary difficulties come your way, you’re that little bit less resilient. More exposed. More vulnerable. I’m furious that, knowing this, we seem to accept bigotry as just how some people are. I’m tired of tolerance. That measly little word puts our selves and loves on a par with someone else’s ‘right’ to proclaim us disordered.

I know this: we punish men when they are vulnerable. Insinuate that a real man could just power through, or wouldn’t feel that way in the first place. We teach each other that support, closeness and intimacy are weak. Feminine. Lesser. I know that when we do this, we put men in a double bind: to be respected, you shove those parts of you down. If you choose not to, there’s an ocean of internal and external shame to deal with. I don’t know if I could handle that. I’m not surprised that so many men can’t.

Do we even care?

I’m furious that in the face of hundreds of people ending their lives every year, our government wants to drain millions of euro from our mental health budget. Do those hundreds of lives simply not matter? What about the tens or hundreds of thousands of people who won’t kill themselves but who still need those services?

I’m angry that my friend’s death can’t simply be a private tragedy. I wish I could think about his loss to our community without being overwhelmed by how many others are going through something similar. I wish that him being a man, queer and trans didn’t slot his death right into one of the biggest suicide clichés of them all.

And I’m scared. Back in 2013 I knew how lucky I was that my friends and loved ones had survived another year. I’ve always known that, and a part of me always waits for the shoe to drop. For the phone to ring. I’ve had one of those phone calls this year. I can’t stop thinking: who will be next?

A year ago, the derby world was shattered by news that one of our youngest members- a 15 year old boy called Sam- had died through suicide. I wrote this:

Sam didn’t die because he was trans. Transness is a perfectly ordinary variation of what it is to be human, and there is nothing intrinsic about being trans that could make life not worth living.

Sam died because we failed him. He died because we accepted a world where trans kids- kids, people at the start of their lives who haven’t had a chance to develop the context to see how things can change and who don’t have the option to get the hell out of where they are- are forced to live in worlds and with people who tell them every day of their lives that they are worthless. He died because we didn’t shout loud enough, didn’t insinuate our voices into every single crack, didn’t object every single time, didn’t counter enough of that kind of hate and torture of kids with nowhere else to go and by not doing that we let it continue. We let people hound another trans kid to death.

Are you tired of this yet? Because I am. I’m sick and tired of seeing yet another headline for yet another person killed or tortured into killing themselves because of who they are. Yet another teenager.

And here’s something I said way back in November 2013 on the Trans Day of Remembrance:

Today, though, I do feel luckier than most. I wish that it didn’t have to be that way. Today is the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, you see, when we take time to mourn and recognise all of the trans* people who should be here with us today, but who have been killed by transphobia in the past year. Everyone who was murdered because of how their gender was perceived. Everyone who was driven to suicide by this transphobic, ciscentric society that we live in. Every year we do this, and every year I want to hold the trans people who I love just that little bit closer. Because we’ve all survived another year. Those I love have been spared.

Isn’t that selfish? I guess that we’re all a little bit selfish. We all love who we love, and though we care for those outside that little group, it’s the loss of our family, friends and lovers that tears at our guts and rips our lives apart. So every year on November 20th I feel a little bit lucky. The people I love are still here.

It’s a cruel kind of luck, and one that nobody should have to feel.

Like most of us, I’ve said goodbye to people I love over the years. They’ve died in different circumstances. Some after long years of illness. Some after short months or weeks. Some expected, some unexpected. Some peacefully, some in pain. The loss of every single one of them tore- and tears- my heart apart. But there’s one thing that is common to every one of them that I will always take comfort from. Every one of them died knowing that they were dearly loved. Everything that we could do to ease their suffering was done. They didn’t want for a hand to hold. They were cherished as they died.

Nobody can tell how each of us will end our lives. But that one simple thing- that in our last moments we know that we are loved and cherished, and that if there is any way to ease our suffering it will be done- is something that we can hope for everyone we care for. It’s the one thing that we can do.

Too many of our trans community are denied that.

Too. Damn. Many.

An old friend died this week: where the personal and political collide.

Guest post: What now? Why do we throw our less respectable queers under the bus?

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , Leave a comment

As a follow-up to last week’s Guest Posts for Equality series (read them!), I asked people to share their thoughts on two topics: what does the referendum’s result mean to them, and what comes next. 

The author of this post has asked to remain anonymous, as they are currently only out to a small number of their close friends.  

equalityheart

Now that the referendum campaigning is done, and the yesses have it, I’d like to talk about something I felt I couldn’t much during the past few weeks. The run up to the vote has been wearying, painful and damaging to the queer community. The venomous homophobia spewing forth from the many heads of the Iona hydra has taken its toll on everyone. How deeply that pain is felt depends heavily on the network of support a person has around them, and I for one am grateful that my immediate family and circle of friends are, at least most of the time, not outwardly homophobic.

However.

While hateful lies published by right-wing scummers are easy to criticise, to mock, and, for some, to brush off, it will be harder for those of us on the Yes side to self-reflect and see the many ways in which our campaigns have been harmful to the very people they claim to represent. A good example of this is the incredibly misguided “Straight Up For Equality” campaign. The slogan serves no purpose, other than to state that you can vote in favour of same sex marriage, even if you’re Not A Gay. For straight people, literally the only people not directly affected by the outcome of this referendum, this campaign gives them an excuse to assert their own heteronormativity, to maintain an “us and them” straight versus gay dichotomy, while allowing themselves to feel like progressive liberal heroes. Straight people, listen up; this is not about you.

Another thing that the Straight Up For Equality slogan implies is that there are only two types of relationships, straight or gay, and that your sexuality depends on which relationships you happen to be in. What of queers who aren’t gay? Do two bi women in a relationship suddenly become lesbians? Are a straight woman and her pan husband in a straight marriage? What of individuals of nonbinary gender? I can imagine the answer from our self-professed straight allies would be something along the lines of, “…huh?”

This notion of straight and gay binary has been rampant throughout the referendum campaign. Using terms such as “gay marriage” when you mean “same sex marriage” erases the identity of the majority of people on the queer spectrum. I was surprised to see some of my bi friends championing former president Mary McAleese for the speech she gave to BeLonG To, in which she stated, “the only children affected by this referendum are Ireland’s gay children.” Using “gay” as a catch all phrase to mean the LGBTQIA community hurts those of us who are queer in anything other than the most mainstream, socially acceptable way.

A powerful symbol of the appeal to acceptability is the mural in Dublin of two men embracing, with the slightest suggestion of a kiss, which was followed almost as an afterthought by a mural in Galway of two women, decidedly not kissing. An important thing to note here is that all four individuals in these murals are white, able-bodied, and to be presumed cis. Where are the murals of our queers of colour, our queer Travellers, our queer trans folk, our queers with visible disabilities? No, poster gays (and lesbians if you insist) only please!

Why do we throw our less respectable queers under the bus? Are we afraid that mainstream society would vote against same sex marriage if it knew the reality of queer diversity? Is that is a society into which you would happily be assimilated?

I can only hope that the inevitable post referendum drop-off of “acceptable” queers (i.e.; gay and lesbian couples who wish to marry) will give rise to a more radicalised approach to queer politics in Ireland.

Fingers crossed.

Guest post: What now? Why do we throw our less respectable queers under the bus?

Arguing for Marriage Equality: Engagement over Debate

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , , 4 Comments

I love a good argument as much as the next person. There’s something glorious about a perfectly placed point and the delicious combination of wit and incontrovertible evidence that feels so damn satisfying. Watch your opponents crumble before your logic. High five with your friends. Or, if it’s a friend you’re arguing with, high five anyway and make them buy you a beer for the privilege. Good times.

That said, I can’t remember the last time I argued someone- particularly a someone who I didn’t have a preexisting connection with- into agreeing with me. Most of the time being argued with just gets your back up, makes you feel attacked and digs you even more firmly into the position you already held- particularly if the position is one that you had an emotional attachment to. And, in fairness, if you didn’t feel attached to your position it’s not likely that you’d have bothered arguing it in the first place, is it?

This isn’t an intellectual exercise. This is something that is becoming incredibly important in Ireland right now. It’s a little over two months until the marriage equality referendum here in Ireland, and the No campaign have already started resorting to every dirty trick they can muster in order to scare people into voting with them. Supporters of equality already have facts, arguments and research on our side. Those aren’t going to be enough. Continue reading “Arguing for Marriage Equality: Engagement over Debate” →

Arguing for Marriage Equality: Engagement over Debate

Bi+ Ireland Upcoming Events

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Hello, my lovely bisexual, pansexual and queer readers! If you’re in or around Ireland in the next week or two, Bi+ Ireland have been busy organising meetups in (literally) all four corners of the country. If you’re anywhere under the nonmonosexual/romantic umbrella and in this part of the world, we’d love to have you along. If you’re not, though? I’d appreciate it a ton if you could share the events and let people know about them.

And before I go, remember: Bi+ Ireland isn’t just our public page and events! We have a thriving worst-keptsecret FB discussion group as well- just send us a PM for an invite.

Here’s the details: Continue reading “Bi+ Ireland Upcoming Events” →

Bi+ Ireland Upcoming Events

‘Winning the War’ for Marriage Equality?

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , 2 Comments

Love, Joy, Feminism is one of my favourite blogs, and has been for a long time. Libby Anne’s writing has a wonderful combination of clarity and empathy that I always look forward to reading. A couple of weeks month or so ago (can you tell I’m a little behind on responding to things?) she wrote about marriage equality. Hardline anti-LGBTQ US evangelicals are losing support for their position not only in the general population, but in Millennials within their own communities. There’s some lovely looking graphs at her post, by the way- go check it out!

Libby Anne describes this, happily, as anti-LGBTQ evangelicals losing not only the individual state ‘battles’ against equality, but the ‘war’ as well. If we’re talking about marriage equality in the United States, this is undoubtedly true. If you widen your lens to take in my own Western Europe as well as some parts of South America, it stays that way. In these parts of the world more LGBT people are entitled either to legal equality- or at the very least some legal protections- than ever before.

Does that mean we’re winning the war, though? I’m not sure. But it definitely doesn’t mean that it’s okay to see “marriage equality throughout the United States” as the war that needs to be won. It doesn’t even mean that “marriage equality throughout the United States” is the war that needs to be won by USians.

There’s a parochialism to a lot of USian thought. You have a massive country that has been exercising a cultural dominance (among other things) over huge swathes of the rest of the world for decades. Lifetimes, even. Like all social relations borne of inequality, we in the rest of the world pay a lot more attention to you than you do to us. We know more about you than vice-versa. Non-USians internalise US concerns and understand some of the nuances of US culture(s) in a way that is not reciprocated.

Not reciprocated, that is, in all ways except one. The average USian doesn’t have the understanding of Irish (or German, Argentinian, Ugandan or Thai) politics and society that we do of yours, but this hasn’t stopped the US from actively interfering in other countries. Sometimes this is overt militarism. Sometimes it’s more subtle, but no less real. Take here in Ireland, where antichoice forces are bankrolled by American backers. People who have never met us campaigning for laws that will never affect them. Similarly, when you look outside your borders you can see that many homophobic USian fundamentalist evangelicals have set their sights outside your country and are busy interfering elsewhere to drum up homophobia, transphobia, and legal and physical violence against LGBTQ people. It’s not that the war is being won. Battles may be being won, but front lines don’t end at a particular nation’s border. The war is shifting, being taken by USians to places where most USians aren’t even looking.

The progress made in Western and Central Europe, the Americas and Australia on marriage equality and other LGBTQ+ rights and protections is incredible, although even in these parts of the world we’ve a long way to go. There are battles being won. But the rest of the world- Eastern Europe, Asia, the vast majority of Africa and the Middle East- matter every bit as much. Especially when Western forces have been interfering in most of these parts world for centuries, we don’t get to wash out hands of the results of our ongoing interference. Ever.

The war is nowhere close to being won.

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‘Winning the War’ for Marriage Equality?

Sceptics, Religion and Queers, and some Rather Exciting News

Aoife O'Riordan, , , Leave a comment

Do you know how tough it can be to sit on incredibly exciting news for days on end, while you get things in order for the big announcement? Especially if you happen to be the kind of person who likes talking about things so much that they habitually do it in public for all the internet to see? And if your news is that you’re now going to be writing for one of your favourite sites on the entire internet? It is really tough.

Which is why I’m both excited and relieved to be able to link you to my first post at Queereka. Queereka, if you’re not familiar with it (though you should be) is the Skepchick network’s LGBTQ sister-site. The Skepchick network is a ridiculously awesome group of sites which have in common a feminist, sceptical perspective, and I couldn’t be more chuffed to be able to write for them.

And with that, on to some linking!

Why don’t LGBTQ people leave their religion after their communities harm them?

It’s a question you see a lot, around the skeptical side of the internet. You’ll hear yet another case of an LGBTQ person being treated horrendously by their religious community. Maybe it’s another kid being kicked out of home after they come out. Maybe it’s another teacher being fired from the job they excel in after their employers find out who they’ve married. Maybe they’re not as lucky as that kid or that teacher, and it’s their body or their life that’s been put at risk by the religious communities they come from.

We see these things happening, and every single time, someone wonders the same thing: why on Earth are there any LGBT religious people left? Why aren’t LGBT people hightailing it out of their religions, haemorrhaging from their churches, mosques, temples and synagogues without a backward glance?

Continue to my answer- and don’t forget to let me know what you think!- over at Sceptics, Religion and Queers, Oh Myyy.

 

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Sceptics, Religion and Queers, and some Rather Exciting News

Who’s for trans rights?

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , , 4 Comments

SolidariTy is a joint initiative by LGBT Noise and Transgender Equality Network Ireland. It’s all about getting cis people- in particular LGBs, but straight cis people should get their butts on board too- to stand up and be counted and support trans people’s rights. They’ve just released a video (yep, that’s me in the blue). Check it out:

I love that something like SolidariTy is happening. It’s not enough for cis people to give quiet thumbs-up to our trans friends and then go on about our lives. Trans people in Ireland don’t have the same rights as cis people do. Trans people are at terrifyingly high risk of being  fired from their jobs, having an even harder time than the rest of us actually getting work in the first place, ostracised from families and communities, denied necessary healthcare, and of suffering from mental health difficulties, self-harm and suicide. Trans people are denied legal gender recognition in this country, and the government’s proposed legislation to remedy this is outdated and damaging. That legislation would force people to divorce, it would force trans kids and teenagers to spend years with documents that don’t match their identities, and it would enshrine the idea that to be trans is to be mentally ill.

That’s no way for our country to treat its citizens, and no way for our society to treat its members. If you’re here in Ireland, keep an eye on SolidariTy to see how you can help change things.

 

Who’s for trans rights?