Microcosmic diversity

Monday, September 18, 2006

I have often written about diversity on a large scale...race, religion, gender, sexuality...how this variegation we see in human lives is reflected back to us through every facet of nature.

I was given an epiphany last Saturday night when I was afforded the grace to see, appreciate and assimlate the effects of diversity on a microcosmic level, specifically the mutifactedness of the gender diverse community. I had occasion to be invited out for the evening by a group who might describe themselves as heterosexual cross dressers. There are those in the TG community who might assert that there really is no such critter...that all hetero CD's are still in denial and are "in process". There was a time when I might have concurred, but no longer.

I realize, and this became very clear to me Saturday night, that we must embrace the differences WITHIN our community before we can expect to be embraced by the GLBT community, a slightly larger microcosm, or society at large, the so called macrocosm.
Why we should attach ourselves to pejorative judgement, to elitist and exclusionary mindsets, defies logic. It seems evident that the same factors that create division in larger populations are also at work here; namely, a lack of understanding leads to some type of fear...perhaps the fear that this "other" community is not serious enough or the fear that they will preclude or defer acceptance of OUR group. This is all perceived and maintained, by a party line, with alleged "higher" goals in mind, but the fallacy is in believing that ANYONE can be disenfranchised or marginalized and not inevitably and inexorably destroy the original intent of those "higher" goals.

I suspect that, regarding the differences between pre and post op TS's (who might consider their efforts to be "more serious") and hetero CD's are the elements of alleged promiscuity and frivolity. That a group of individuals should be spurned because they have embraced a certain joie de vivre is preposterous. Their zest for life should not only be admired but embraced! That is NOT to say that we must all become promiscuous. Each and every one of us must determine, for ourselves, exactly who and what we are. Nonetheless, there is no reality to a perceived threat to whatever "higher" goals we would like to attain. This same argument applies to all other subsets within the overall TG, or gender diverse, community, be they gay, lesbian, bisexual, gender queer, drag queen or any variant of TG...or anything else, for that matter. I understand (from an examination of myself) that perhaps the off-putting characteristic is the less than serious conception of sexuality, of which I, myself, experience a pronounced ambivalence. Any therapist could note that we are a culture which has repressed our sexuality and that we are a culture of mixed messages. At one and the same time, we are encouraged to embrace sexuality while concurrently remaining thralls to denial. This is a very strange combination, indeed! I do have further thoughts regarding my own personal take on this phenomenon, but I will reserve THAT discussion for another day.

We must never lose sight, however, of the proposition that either we all get to ride in ANY seat of the bus, or we are ALL consigned to the back seats. There are no exceptions and I have discovered that this is a fundamental issue for which I can abide no deviation. If all peoples are not given equal opportunitues and equal treatment in the eyes of society and the law, then no one is truly free. It would be an illusion. We may choose to live this illusion as though it were reality but we would necessarily be deluding ourselves.

As I sat with my new friends, saw their amorous interaction, I came to realize that they had EVERY right to be exactly who they are and to do exactly what felt right and good to them. And, furthermore, anyone who would choose to demean them by copping a "more TG than you" attitude has no grasp of the bigger picture and serves to undermine ANY effort towards a pervasive sense of tolerance and acceptance in society.

I felt a love for and bond with these new friends and embraced that joie de vivre they expressed without a thought of denial or repression. I experienced that epiphany... that we are all part of the Great Spirit's plan, that no one's life is incidental, nor insubstantial, and that we must all celebrate the beauty and wonder of diversity. We must always remember that we are mirrors, reflections, so to speak, of the rest of creation and that diversity and multifacetness are the real faces of nature.

trickster108