LGBT...A...B..C?.. Me!

Everyone has heard of "LGBT", right? So I am part of that. I am the G. The L's and the B's and the T's are my people too. I am part of a culture of people that includes LGBT's. That's cool. It's great. I love it. I know people from each category and I love them. Fine.

    LGBT = Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgendered

I think more recently this acronym has grown. Now it's:

LGBTQ.

Queer.

Cool.

But have you heard? Even more recently it's:

LGBTQI

Intersex

Ah, OK. Got it.

Oh but wait, hold on. No, I'm not shitting you. There's this too:

LGBTQIA

Asexual

Oooook. Don't get me wrong, I'm accepting of all people, all perspectives. I don't judge it's fine. But really? Come on. How about we just add an "H" for heterosexual people too? So that we're alllll encompassing. Then we can just eliminate the ENTIRE acronym and make it "E" for eeeeveryone. Let's just make a subculture of all people.

I'm joking. But truly my motto is: "You just do you, and I'm just gonna do me." That's it. Easy. 

My grandma used to have this corny frame hanging on a cabinet in her kitchen. It always struck me, even as a little kid. I later learned it was called the Gestalt Prayer: 

That's truly how I feel about everything. I am happy to love and be loved but as long as I am doing me, and you are doing you. If what I do works for you--- and what you do works for me--- then it's beautiful. Otherwise, fuck it bruh.

Anyway, I wanted to comment on my friend Lily, who I've mentioned a few times in this blog. Lily is my "queer" friend--one of my best friends in DC. Love her to death. Great soul but so confusing. I understand that sexuality isn't as clear cut as it is for me. I know that I am a man and I like men. Period. The end. Maybe I'm lucky? I am open minded enough to understand it isn't that easy sometimes. But I just don't get her sexuality. I used to say she was a lesbian but she has since corrected me. She condescends, "Don't call me a lesbian, I hate labels." As she sort of rolls her eyes, then continues, "I like queer, just call me queer". I refrain from pointing out that "Queer" is also a label. But I decide I don't want to get into semantics. Whatever she wants, great.

Her sexuality has evolved a lot over the years. When I first met her she was straight. Obviously started off dating dudes but admitted to never really having any sexual chemistry with them. She then admitted to not really understanding what her vagina was all about and thought maybe she should explore it. I suggested she try masturbating to figure out what she liked. Nothing. Then she just made this HUGE assumption without any real evidence, "Well, if guys aren't really doing it for me then I MUST be a lesbo!" She then, almost overnight, was an out and proud lesbian. She started dating girls but found it to be only moderately better. She said she's not really attracted to penises or to vaginas, it's the person attached to it. Which is sorta nice, sorta poetic, but just not how I operate. Then she started dating a FTM (female to male) trans-guy and got all "high and mighty" about pronouns and asked me things like "Johnny, what is gender anyway? What is sex? What is preference? What is identity?" 

Honestly, I don't care if someone is trans, FTM, MTF, I don't give a shit, you just gotta do you, I get that, I don't judge. What got under my skin was Lily's approach which was to force this onto everyone around her, almost like she was looking for confrontation so she could publicize her advocacy for transgender people. 

Pronouns! Fucking pronouns! I never thought so hard about something so simple. Something we take for granted. It's literally wired into my brain. I told her it was a language thing, not a society thing--not an ignorance thing. When we meet people we don't think about what pronoun we use, it is implicitly applied.

When I would talk about Lily's boyfriend, I would say she, She, SHE! I couldn't help it. I tried to take my time with it, I would speak slowly and that worked for as long as my attention could bear it, then once I let my guard down and started talking more freely, a SHE would pop in there and Lily would literally start punching me each time. And it bothered me. I even decided to just always fill in pronouns with his name to avoid the dilemma altogether, but still, even that act is hard to keep up and doesn't sound natural:

"So then Cris texted me and said Cris would be here by seven, but then Cris realized Cris forgot Cris' jacket so Cris had to go back home. Bottom line, Cris is going to be late!" 

To make matters worse, Lily sometimes used the neutral "they" pronoun which confused everyone all the time. 

Lily: "Oh, they will be here soon!"
Me: "Who?"
Lily: "Cris"
Me: "Oh, who's she bringing?"
*Punches me in shoulder*
Me: "Eff, sorry, who is HE bringing."
Lily: "No one, why? He's alone."
Me: "You said 'they'."
*Condescending eye roll*

OR

Lily: "Errmahgerrd, they licked my pussy so good!"
Me: "Daaafuck you do last night?"

I would try to justify my inability to refer to him correctly. I said maybe it's easier for me with MTFs? I was good with RuPaul afterall! Then I made the worst mistake ever and said, maybe he's just not that convincing, and that's why my brain hasn't made the switch. That did NOT go over well. I kept blaming my brain, not myself because her argument was that I was ignorant and insensitive, but my point was, no matter how aware I become, I could sit down with him, get his whole story, try to understand his struggles, try to empathize and sympathize and become as educated as I can, and still I think my brain would slip in some "shes" here and there. I took a psychology of gender course in college, I know what Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is, I watched America's favorite trans kid: I am Jazz. I find it hard to just accept that she thinks I'm ignorant when she goes around saying, "Well I think being gay is a choice." That! Is ignorant and if you're choosing to be gay, then you're probably not really gay, honey. You're just riding a trend or really confused. 

I don't think I'm ignorant to transgendered people. I think there is a bigger issue at hand.

Anyway, Lily dated Cris for a solid 5 months or so (you decide if that's a long time or not, I don't even know what's normal anymore) when out of the blue she just decides she doesn't want to do it anymore. She breaks up with him cold turkey, no warning signs, just fucks him over completely. Newly single Lily then decides she needs to "look more lesbian-like" but remember, she doesn't like labels, or stereotypes or anything, so she cuts off all of her hair and stops shaving her armpits. 

For the past 2 summers she's been going up to NY state to live on a Yiddish farm (I swear I can't make this shit up) and she just got back last week. And. This. Time. She. Came. Back. With....

.... A boyfriend.

Which is fine. She doesn't need to know what she likes-- more importantly she doesn't have to like ONE thing. Sexuality is fluid. People are people, and some people just love people. It's almost enviable-- but for me, I'm happy being simple. A man who likes men. It's definitely not the easiest combo there is, but hell, it's a lot easier than what she's been dealt, so again...

"I do my thing and you do your thing.  I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine... "

So to each his(her?) own.