my summer was pretty much a pause from real structured life with my only routines coming from going to time out youth on mondays. at any rate now that school is back in session and I'm falling into a daily/weekly schedule it feels like my life is back in session and the days of simply lounging around and wasting time are gone. and that's okay, I like that because then I don't feel like I'm wasting away.
anyways I know it's been quite some time since I lasted posted but I'm going to skip the inaugural post and jump right into my topic of the day: being leftist. for many reasons I enjoy being a radical, I won't even say liberal because I'm way past that. however, I know that the left can mean a lot of things and is generally considered to be the best when it comes to any kind of gay, environmental or social issues. this is always not the case though and I would like to distinguish myself from any kind of "leftist" who is really moderate but finds themselves a little more left leaning because of social issues. I'm conservative in only one way and that's gun control but even on that issue I'm more left leaning than right. in my book to be a true liberal you need to be all about gay rights and equality. either make gay marriage okay or rid the system of marriages and practice civil unions. I'm personally more in favor of the latter than the former but either would be huge step. I also believe in trans rights and not at the expense of anyone elses.
as far as economics is concerned I feel like we need to even out the playing field, tax cuts for the rich need to be completely done away with, we need bigger gov't to provide more social programs which will further level the playing field. we also need to crack the whip on big business and stop letting it from political america and those the entire country. perhaps I am more social than I thought. additionally we need to make college more accessible and this can be done with more social programs.
as far as environmental issues are concerned we need to crack down on lazy ass people and make it so that everyone will be all for environmentally friendly things. we need to promote sustainability, make it easier to access sustainable/compostable products, etc. clean energy needs to be pushed even harder than it is now and we need to stop letting big business control our futures.
I could go on for hours but my main reason for posting this broad overview is because I'm tired of people getting moderates confused with the true liberals and radicals. don't call yourself a liberal unless you've liberated your mind from the benefits of the life some of us live and opened up your eyes to see how you can change our country, for the better.
&& that's all.
-- lexy
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
07 September 2010
02 May 2010
the heterosexual world
alright so I'm supposed to be sleep (when am I not?) and I got the motivation to blog instead so I decided to take my body up on it. and the one thing that popped up in my mind is the constant struggles I have within myself to speak up or not speak up. particularly in situations in which I feel people are broadly stereotyping without even knowing that they're doing so. or in situations where people make statements with which I am uncomfortable with but I, once again, realize that they had no bad intentions or meant any harm by the situation.
many times I think people don't even realize how hard it is for a non-heterosexual person to live in the "regular world". many things are geared toward the heterosexual population and norm. what's even worse is that being anything else is looked at as a phase and something you do for a fun fling, nothing to be taken serious. it's actually the complete opposite, some people take their sexuality very serious and still respect the rights of others. why can't heterosexual people do the same? many times I get the feeling that the vast majority of people do not respect homosexual (or people of other non-hetero identities) at all and it's mostly in the statements people make. like today my friend was speaking about how on "sex and the city" they were talking about the "straight gay man" and "gay straight man". now I realize that she meant no harm by saying this and the show probably didn't either but that statement bothers me because it equivocates all behaviors of a certain type of being straight or gay. the main problem with this is that that means that all gay men are gay because of the way they act and not what they like (and the same for straight men). the conversation had a pretext of a male is automatically gay when he's extremely feminine and while there is immense overlap of behavior and sexuality I still think it is wrong to assume that just because an individual follows a set of behaviors that makes them a certain sexuality.
the saddest part is that even as a homosexual person I have been so conditioned by this heterosexual world that I too participate in this behavior and catch myself labeling people because of the way they act. and I apologize but that brings me to another point: labeling.
I went through a "I hate labels" phase myself and I realize now that that was mostly because I didn't want to label myself as lesbian because of all the negativity I associated with it. I am now more educated, have accepted myself and become perfectly fine with being called such. looking back I realized that during that phase I was an intense hypocrite because I would advocate one thing and do another. I was an intense proponent of not labeling myself and letting people be. I believed that labels were evil and what caused so much hatred among the human race (I now realize that non-acceptance and intolerance does that) yet I still labeled people when they said certain things or merely walked past me in the mall. the thing is labels are a necessary evil in our lives. we must learn to accept this because it is a natural instinct for us to label things and put them into their separate categories. that is what we as humans do. it's really as simple as that and as soon as we learn to accept this fact and stop trying to fight it the better off we are. if this weren't true people wouldn't always create new words and combine words to explain what they are, they're simply creating their own labels. instead of worrying about labels we should all put more effort into teaching tolerance of everyone and their quirks. not even acceptance in some cases, simply tolerance. trust me, it'd be a better place if we did.
finally I'd like to say that I wish we didn't have a default sexuality. I understand that as long as religion exists we always will but I'm saying I wish we didn't. why is it that the coming out process is even necessary? this is yet another downfall of living in this highly hetero world. a lot of times (and I'm not saying this is true for all) people do not choose their sexuality. they can't help who they're attracted to so instead of criticizing them and putting them down for who they love we should accept them. we should make it so that children everywhere know it's okay to not be heterosexual. so they know it's okay to have feelings for members of the same sex because otherwise kids end up doing bad things to themselves or simply stifling their sexuality because of the negativity they hear about other sexualities. I know this won't happen in my lifetime (if at all) because let's face it gays are still fighting for simple civil rights, however it would be an amazing thing to see/live through or even hear about later on in life. let's let our kids know you can be gay and beautiful (or any other identity). as long as you're okay with you that's what matters the most.
let me tell you something life is about creating yourself. so be who you wanna be and love yourself. it took me a long ass time to get there so you just be you and you'll be a lot better off. I'll love you either way and that speaks volumes 'cause I don't even know you. =D
&& I'm out.
-- lexy.
many times I think people don't even realize how hard it is for a non-heterosexual person to live in the "regular world". many things are geared toward the heterosexual population and norm. what's even worse is that being anything else is looked at as a phase and something you do for a fun fling, nothing to be taken serious. it's actually the complete opposite, some people take their sexuality very serious and still respect the rights of others. why can't heterosexual people do the same? many times I get the feeling that the vast majority of people do not respect homosexual (or people of other non-hetero identities) at all and it's mostly in the statements people make. like today my friend was speaking about how on "sex and the city" they were talking about the "straight gay man" and "gay straight man". now I realize that she meant no harm by saying this and the show probably didn't either but that statement bothers me because it equivocates all behaviors of a certain type of being straight or gay. the main problem with this is that that means that all gay men are gay because of the way they act and not what they like (and the same for straight men). the conversation had a pretext of a male is automatically gay when he's extremely feminine and while there is immense overlap of behavior and sexuality I still think it is wrong to assume that just because an individual follows a set of behaviors that makes them a certain sexuality.
the saddest part is that even as a homosexual person I have been so conditioned by this heterosexual world that I too participate in this behavior and catch myself labeling people because of the way they act. and I apologize but that brings me to another point: labeling.
I went through a "I hate labels" phase myself and I realize now that that was mostly because I didn't want to label myself as lesbian because of all the negativity I associated with it. I am now more educated, have accepted myself and become perfectly fine with being called such. looking back I realized that during that phase I was an intense hypocrite because I would advocate one thing and do another. I was an intense proponent of not labeling myself and letting people be. I believed that labels were evil and what caused so much hatred among the human race (I now realize that non-acceptance and intolerance does that) yet I still labeled people when they said certain things or merely walked past me in the mall. the thing is labels are a necessary evil in our lives. we must learn to accept this because it is a natural instinct for us to label things and put them into their separate categories. that is what we as humans do. it's really as simple as that and as soon as we learn to accept this fact and stop trying to fight it the better off we are. if this weren't true people wouldn't always create new words and combine words to explain what they are, they're simply creating their own labels. instead of worrying about labels we should all put more effort into teaching tolerance of everyone and their quirks. not even acceptance in some cases, simply tolerance. trust me, it'd be a better place if we did.
finally I'd like to say that I wish we didn't have a default sexuality. I understand that as long as religion exists we always will but I'm saying I wish we didn't. why is it that the coming out process is even necessary? this is yet another downfall of living in this highly hetero world. a lot of times (and I'm not saying this is true for all) people do not choose their sexuality. they can't help who they're attracted to so instead of criticizing them and putting them down for who they love we should accept them. we should make it so that children everywhere know it's okay to not be heterosexual. so they know it's okay to have feelings for members of the same sex because otherwise kids end up doing bad things to themselves or simply stifling their sexuality because of the negativity they hear about other sexualities. I know this won't happen in my lifetime (if at all) because let's face it gays are still fighting for simple civil rights, however it would be an amazing thing to see/live through or even hear about later on in life. let's let our kids know you can be gay and beautiful (or any other identity). as long as you're okay with you that's what matters the most.
let me tell you something life is about creating yourself. so be who you wanna be and love yourself. it took me a long ass time to get there so you just be you and you'll be a lot better off. I'll love you either way and that speaks volumes 'cause I don't even know you. =D
&& I'm out.
-- lexy.
04 April 2010
Just-a-Joe
the most saddening thing I have read lately is the blog of anonymous soldier, just-a-joe. he recently came out to his comrades during a political conversation in which he felt that he could no longer conceal his identity. just-a-joe was told he wouldn't be singled out by his commander but he was lied to. shortly following his coming out an investigation was launched and he will most likely be discharged when he returns to the states after his tour (in iraq presumably) is over. [read the full story here]
I think one of the saddest things we do in this country is tell our soldiers that you can serve but you must keep your sexual identity secret if you are not heterosexual. it is ashame that we discharge individuals, strip them of their dignity, and tell them their identity is unacceptable after they've sacrificed their bodies and lives for our country day in and day out! it is imperative that we repeal DADT and make obama/washington stop dragging their feet on this issue! write your senators and representatives, get out and picket, advocate, write blogs about it, do whatever takes to repeal DADT so our soldiers can serve freely.
&& I'm out.
-- lexy.
&& I'm out.
-- lexy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
