libraford:
Thoughts about rednecks and queers when I get home today.
It’s very important that we talk to people different from ourselves, and that goes for both of us.
I was having a conversation with a coworker today that started with ‘I don’t care of you’re gay or whatever, just dont rub it in my face.’
Had he said that a few years ago I probably would have gone on the defense or tempted to have some snappy one-liner. But where he grew up, it was no ones business. If you were gay that was it, everyone knew and nobody cared.
But now it was political.
As a political queer, I explained to him that we’d always been political, but it’s only fairly recently in our history that we’ve been able to have platforms. Like… his knowledge of anti gay laws was legalizing gay marriage ten-ish years ago, but when I told him that when I lived in montana in 2011 sodomy was a misdemeanor he had no clue.
So now that he knows I’ll answer questions without shutting him down hes got a lot to say on the topic and I’m listening. And he’s getting some of the details wrong for sure but hes trying. But I can tell that these are questions hes been afraid to ask before because he didnt want to say the wrong words.
And the thing is that theres queer rednecks and redneck queers, but it always seems like we’re fighting each other and we needn’t be. We can, and should, be friends. Because they hate being exploited and excluded and written off the same way we do. Weve got a lot of overlap, we have a lot in common, and we’re all tired of houses being too damn expensive.