From: rsr@soda.berkeley.edu (Roy S. Rapoport)
Newsgroups: talk.rape
Subject: Survivors v. Queers
Date: 20 Dec 1992 11:53:05 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Dec20.054628.15390@news.stolaf.edu> cjohnson@lars.acc-admin.stolaf.edu (Carrie L Johnson) writes:
->In response to your response to my post asking aboutebing public as a survivor,
->you responded as to say that you were not personally a survivor but that you
->were queer and related the two as such......
->Thanks, cause I am also queer, and damn proud of it!!!!

*grin* Been a while since someone thanked me for being queer :)

Interesting topic, though ... how similar are the two areas? I can see some
similarities / dissimilarities ...

On one hand, I think guilt is something that most queers will only face for
a short time, on the issue of "Why can't I be more like my family wants me
to be."  It won't be as intense as that of a survivor (for the record, when
I speak of how a survivor copes with these things, I'm not referring to all
survivors, but rather common patterns I've seen in those women who I've been
close to who had been raped.  I don't presume to talk for any others).  It's
also a different type of guilt.  "Why can't I be someone different" isn't
the same as "Why didn't I do <X>," or "Why did I do <X>?".  The former is
only guilt ... the latter is also regret and possibly anger at oneself for
getting into the situation ... 

_From_my_experience_, society will also confer less guilt on queers than on
survivors.  Survivors, on an average, have to deal with a lot more of the
"It's your fault" shit than queers.

On the other hand, from what I've seen, societal opression of queers will
tend to be more deep-seated and more vehement than its dislike of
survivors.  Harassment of survivors will tend to be more psychological, and
not really malicious, as much as stupid and ignorant.  Harassment of queers
tends to be more active, and more malicious.  On at least one level,
however, psychological/emotional pain will be much nastier than physical
damage ... certainly this is true in the case of most survivors I know,
where physical injuries healed much faster than the emotional ones
(the question of whether or not these scars ever heal completely, and if
not, to what extent they do heal, on an average, is something I still don't
know enough about).

I think the underlying similarity is that both survivors and queers were
'born normal,' then, though some means, did something or experienced
something that society finds unacceptable, or at least doesn't want to be
reminded of ... 

The majority of people these days, I think, don't really have a problem with
queers or survivors ... as long as you/we don't get in your face .. as long
as we're not out about it, as long as they don't have to deal with it.

I suppose that's one way to describe the similarity: The common experience
of the Closet, the place where we hide what people don't want to see, what
they don't want us to show them ... 

It's OK to be a survivor, really.  It's OK to be queer, really.  Why do you
have to be so damned vocal about it, though? Why do I have to know about it,
to hear you talking about it?  Just shut up and go back into the closet ...
In Oregon, the people who were trying to get the anti-queer-rights measure
passed were very specifically saying that they wanted to keep people in the
closet.  You won't find them as vocal, or as organized, when it comes to
survivors, but the urge to not deal with it, the desire to make that
annoying person go away, is still there.  

It may be time to start making some noise ...

-roy

-- 
Roy S. Rapoport     internet: rsr@soda.berkeley.edu      bitnet: rsrsoda@ucbocf
anonymous mail: wi.5836@n7kbt.rain.com        androphile, gynophile, kerryphile
"What I used to think is me / is just a faded memory." -NIN
DISCLAIMER:  I speak for the University of California at Berkeley.  Rrrright.
Newsgroups: talk.rape