From: sara@castle.ed.ac.uk (Sara's ElectroPostie)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Outing at the Oscars?
Date: 12 Apr 92 19:39:11 GMT
Organization: News Addicts

STella@thelema.uucp (STella) writes:

>rhialto@falu.sneakernet (Olaf Seibert) writes:
>>The fundamental problem is the contradiction between everyone's privacy,
>>and the fact that it is a Good Thing if the whole world knows that the
>>"default" orientation isn't really the only thing there is.

>What's the problem?  I'm out.  This is MY choice, and I've made it,
>and I am quite happy about it.  I don't need to out others.

Quite so.  The contradiction between privacy and visiblity is only an
apparent contradiction; the important thing about privacy is one's
*right* to privacy, not that everyone should be private about their
sexuality.  There are heterosexuals who are private about their
sexuality and that is their right as much as it is the right of queers
(using the term I think to mean all non-heterosexuals).  The fact that
I'm queer is no one's business but my own - unless I choose to share
that information.  And I do, I'm probably not as gloriously out to the
world as STella is and certainly haven't been for as long, but it's not
a secret.  But *I* made that choice.

>If you think (and I would agree) that it's important to break the
>power of the heterosexual default, that's great.  But what gives you
>the right, or our struggle the necessity, to out others?

I don't feel I have that right.  Yes, sometimes I'm nearly convinced by
arguments in favour of outing hypocritical queers in high positions, but
if I believe in everyone's right to privacy on matters that don't hurt
anyone else then I must take an anti-outing position.  We must find
another way; the end doesn't necessarily justify the means, **especially
if the means helps perpetuate the evils we wish to combat**. 

>And I'd rather that queers be represented by people like Elf!!, like
>Jeff Dauber, like Harry Ugol and Tsilke Pearlman, who are gloriously
>OUT as what they are, than by some poor wounded soul with
>closet-splinters tangled in hir matted hair.  I don't want to be
>represented by Roy Cohn, or Liberace, or Rock Hudson, but by people
>who are so little ashamed of who and what they are that they can say
>"I'm here, I'm queer, Yougottaproblem?"

Yup, role models are important, and I don't mean that all queers should
be "nice", I mean that we should come out in all our glory and variety
and demonstrate that we're here and we're queer and *we are* society at
least as much as heterosexuals are. 

>For me, there is a simple answer.  I will be private about the things
>I choose to keep as secrets.  I will be as honest, as open, as
>assumption-breaking as I can be about others.  And I will respect the
>right of others to likewise make their decisions as they see fit -- if
>I knew Jody Foster personally, I might tell her how glad, how free, I
>am to not have that secret to keep.

Well I don't know about Jody Foster, but these are fine sentiments
indeed.  If we all behaved this way then there would never be any
worries about whether to be closeted or to be visible - there would be
no closet, merely individuals' privacy, and there would
be no out-people because there would be no closets to be out of, there
would merely be open and proud individuals.

Sara

-- 
 >{8-)  Sara Hopkins  (-8}<                      ______             ^
 Geography Dept.  Edinburgh Uni.  Drummond St.   \  / / Glorious OOO
 Edinburgh,  EH8  9XP,  UK. +44 (0/31) 650 2662   \/\/   Stereo  ++  
 >  sara@geovax.ed.ac.uk  < < Six of one, half a dozen of the other >
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