From: STella@thelema.uucp (STella)
Subject: Queer Heads was WARNING
Organization: Idiosyncratic Anarchic Order
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 13:03:11 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.214016.8674@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU> GLADSTONE@csmcmvax.bitnet writes:

>I am some, but not others.  In America, we are unusual in that we are
>trying to achieve a multi cultural, multi racial, multi ethnic,
>multiply oriented and multiply valued culture.

Sometimes I think we aren't trying, but since we're stuck with each
other, it'll work out in time.

>Most discrimination is totally without a rational basis.  There are,
>however, some emotional, if not totally rational reasons why gays face
>discrimination.

There are also emotional, if not totally rational, reasons dykes don't
like hetboys in our hangouts.  I don't give in to them, and don't
spend much time in wimmin-only space, but I understand why you get The
Look when you barge into the only dyke bar in town or live in the
queer ghetto.  When my husband and I go cruisin' the Castro, we get
the look unless we stroll in open formation....  But what you
experience in Hollywood -- being seen as Other because of your
sexuality, is the common daily experience of being queer.  YOU can get
on a bus and go to places where the majority of the folk are
heterosexual, and get away.  Must be nice....

You're not used to having queer people around who don't pretend to be
het.  But over the next ten years, you'll get there.  Your kid will
learn how to turn down a pass without using his fists.  And you'll
learn how to recognize the gay social life of a dead show.

I'm deleting most of what you say because I don't have time, and this
isn't the place, to address it.  It saddens me that you blame for
promiscuity a group you will not permit to marry, and it frightens me
that you still think of AIDS as a gay disease.  But this is
rec.music.gdead, not misc.flamewar.omigod.martha.the.fags.are.taking.over.

<cut to the chase>

>        It's very easy to live in suburbia and preach peace.  It's
>not so easy on the front lines.

I know that.  My friends get hit with tire-irons and baseball bats for
loving.  I've stopped a fagbashing outside a dead show.  And the
deadheads are one of my tribes.  (If you're a fat dyky looking woman,
shrilling "Ooooh, are we proving our manhood by fagbashing?  Isn't
that CUTE!" works REAL funny.)  But children being carried into shows
today will have a better world to grow in.  Even if they ARE queer.

>And gays must try to understand the difficulties that their non gay
>counterparts have in coming to peaceful terms with them.  If not,
>Colorado will be the first, not the last.

Colorado is not the first, not in any real sense.  Alan Turing was
forced to take female hormones to turn off his balls because he was
queer.  He killed himself, soon after.  Colorado is not the first
government to institutionalize bashing.  But in a sense, AIDS has
freed queerfolk to insist on our freedom to marry, to be out, because
if we're patient, and quiet, and conciliatory, the disease will keep
on doubling as kids who think "I don't need rubbers 'cause I'm not
queer" keep on sharing viruses.

I saw a deadhead mom who had run out of money hand her hungry baby to
a woman she did not know, and not worry for a minute about HIV.  That
scared me so bad I walked away crying.

I see a lot more needles than I do bleach outside shows.

And by the time most of the queers are dead, your kids will be waking
up wet and scared, with the taste of thrush in their mouths, afraid to
tell you they're HIV+.  We must love one another or die.

>        When I look in my heart, I don't see hate. We all need to live
>in peace, and that is going to take work and understanding on both sides
>of the sexual fence.

So mote it be!

>        And please, my fellow Deadheads, don't go off on a holier than though
>flame rampage.  In hundreds of BAY AREA shows, I have noticed that either
>1. Gays don't go to shows ( WRONG )   or
>2. They perceive the Deadhead crowd as being intolerant and unaccepting of
>   their orientation.  So they go in stealth mode.

Um, are we living in the same reality-tunnel?  When I go to bay area
shows, I see out, proud leatherbykes, femmes of all genders in
twirler-shirts, clones, magyck-hyppye-dykes....  Stealth mode?  Not
that I've noticed!  Sure there are 'phobic drunkies in the parking
lot, but the fools are always with us, but I just don't see the same
scene you do.

>        If you can't be as wierd as you really are at a SHOW, the paragon
>of wierdness and acceptance, then where can you go ?

I've never had that problem.  But what the hell, I wear my whip to the
grocery store now and then....

>Peace ( Someday ? )

Not good enough, I'm afraid.

Peace _NOW_, ok?

Give me what I want, exactly when I want it, forever, now, once upon a
time!

We must love one another or die.

STella@xanadu.com	1016 E. El Camino Real, #302, Sunnyvale, CA 94087
aka stella@glg.ucs.dec.com -- ping there if you can't find thelema
Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian!
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead