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There's a very interesting article under this headline on
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/view.php?id=3123
While I don't always agree with Peter Tatchell, on this occasion I think that he's completely right to point out that "gay" is a very modern and culturally-specific concept. The sooner we can reach a point where society doesn't distinguish between same-sex and opposite-sex relationships, and stops seeing people in terms of the relationships they have, the better (IMO).
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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It shows that, in this country, we are coming of age. We are people first, and have an orientation somewhere as part of us. So being "Gay" etc does not matter. We just happen to be "gay". It is the CaPiTaLiSaTiOn that matters.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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i prefer to be a student, who is, among many other characteristics, gay. I always hate it when people ask why, as a "gay student" i stand with the conservative future lobby on the union council...
Tatchell does indeed make a point. and its the same point that applies to multiculturalism. so long as we persist in maintaining differences between identities - you're one thing, and i'm something else - be it gay or straight, black or white, man or woman, christian or muslim and all the many other combinations there will always be hate groups and fear and prejudice on both sides of every line.
humans seem (and i'm sure a sociologist could explain it better) to need to belong to a group, and define themselves in relation to people around them. it seems to be a fundamental part of our existance. better then to define ourselves on grounds that ultimately don't matter, or can be easily changed, such as i'm british and you're french, since nationalism is easier to contain behind clearly defined boundaries (borders). and then work towards a truely global community.
anything that maintains or pepuates the divide between internal communities need to go, and for this reason i would like to civil partnerships abolished and repalced by a civil marriage ceremony thats regardless to the sexes of the two people involved. Until we can achieve such uniformity though, we also need to maintain our sense of identity to ensure that as a group, those people who are attracted to people of the same sex are not treated any differently to people of different sexual orientation.
i was curious to note that the article said many universities were holding their awareness work in november. My LGBT society always runs awareness week in February to coincide with the national LGBT History Month
Aden
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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the Black Prince wrote:
> i prefer to be a student, who is, among many other characteristics, gay. I always hate it when people ask why, as a "gay student" i stand with the conservative future lobby on the union council...
>
I'm sorry to hear that that kind of nonsense is still going on! When I was a student (and sabbatical officer, as an "Independent Left"), I got a fair amount of flack for saying that I found one of the Tories dead sexy and chatting him up ... It's all nonsense - he was a decent concerned human being, we wanted many of the same things for people, and just because we differed as to the best route to get there didn't make us enemies. Give me a sincere conservative over the kind of trendy lefty that will end up as a CEO of an uncaring multinational by the age of 30, any day!
NW (still a very untrendy lefty!).
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... but the approach is either touchingly naive or intentionally misleading.
Descriptive terms relating to sexual orientation are solidly established and - though the specific terms may change - they will always be with us. That's the way language works.
It may be that one day (and in a predominantly secular society such as the United Kingdom, that day may not be too far away) the terms may lose their negative connotations, but that does not mean that they will disappear. Sexual orientation, if one emerges from the closet, is and will remain an identifier, though hopefully a reference to 'the gay couple next door' will soon carry no deeper implication than 'the Scottish couple next door' - it will simply reflect a visible characteristic as a convenient descriptor.
Tatchell's historical analysis is reasonably accurate, but wholly irrelevant to future linguistic development. For several centuries there has been a constant inflow of new adjectives, often followed by associated nouns, and the process still continues. The evidence is that once a useful term arrives, it will dissapear only if it is replaced by a synonym or if the characteristic it describes becomes obsolete. Thus the colour once described as 'nigger brown' has been replaced by 'chocolate brown', and the term 'engine driver' is becoming obsolescent with the disapperance of steam locomotives. (Both examples reflect British English.)
The exception is legal terminology, where a word is created or adapted to carry a specific legal meaning. Here, I am in sympathy with Black Prince's views, though not quite in the way he expresses them. I'm prepared to accept that the term 'marriage' is rooted in the Church, and on historical grounds there may be a case for restricting it to those who have gone through a religious ceremony of union. What I can't accept is the validity of using the term 'civil union' for same-sex partnerships and 'civil marriage' for male-female partnerships. Either the same-sex partnerships should be 'civil marriages' or, if a religious concession is to be made, all non-religious life-partnerships should be 'civil partnerships'. That would require some legislative change, drawing all such partnerships into a single body of legislation, but anything less preserves a highly visible example of discriminatory language.
That said, gay-friendly legislative change is moving rapidly in the UK, and perhaps we should be content to wait for the removal of practical discrimination before moving on to semantic discrimination.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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cossie wrote:
> Descriptive terms relating to sexual orientation are solidly established and - though the specific terms may change - they will always be with us. That's the way language works.
>
I'm not entirely convinced either way on this. "Gay" as an adjective relating to specific acts and emotions (or its equivalent) seems to me to be both useful and well-established. "Gay" as an absolute, as a noun, seems to be to be being actively rejected by a lot of people, and I *hope* will eventually disappear because it tends to be taken prescriptively and people may fit themselves into what they think is appropriate to "a gay".
I'd actively welcome a much more fluid understanding of sexuality all round, and I think there's a fair chance we might eventually get there. That's why your point "Either the same-sex partnerships should be 'civil marriages' or, if a religious concession is to be made, all non-religious life-partnerships should be 'civil partnerships'" is so vital, and why I think language (the tools with which we think) are as important to the removal of discrimination as legislation is. The important thing is the relationship - not whether it's with someone male, female, or transgendered (M2F or F2M).
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... except that I was (I hope!) implying, by mentioning the removal of negative connotations, that the word 'gay', whether adjective or noun, would ultimately became as innocuous as 'Scottish' or 'Scot'.
However we choose to define ourselves, others will define us by our characteristics - 'twas ever thus! I don't see any objection to being described as 'gay', or 'a gay', if social linguistics reach the point (as I think they will) when the words are pure descriptors implying no element of criticism.
Let's face it - if two guys live together in an obviously romantic relationship, language will supply a term to describe the phenomenon; that, I would suggest, is fundamental and inevitable. Consider what happened to colour prejudice; however conciliatory our use of language may become, it will always retain the ability to distinguish by skin colour - it simply ceases to be offensive. 'Gay' was, after all, a term specifically adopted by the homosexual community; personally, I'd prefer to see it lose its pejorative associations than see it replaced by a more 'politically correct' term.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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I'm happy to be considered a "gay Londoner" or an "out gay man". But I seem to be rather unhappy about being considered a "London Gay" or a "male Gay". There's something about using gay as a noun that seems to make it appear much the most important thing about me - when of course it isn't in most contexts. Perhaps I'm showing my age again!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... but I'm looking ahead to the time when 'Gay' as a noun will have lost the offensive connotations.
My point is simply that if 'Gay' disappears as a noun, it is inevitable that another word will replace it - and I'd rather stick with a word the community chose for itself.
Are you, perhaps, influenced too much by present-day usage? Usage can change very quickly but, as I've tried to demonstrate, if a useful descriptor is suppressed, it will simply be replaced by another and, to me, that isn't progess!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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well, i'm right wing and proud. well, right of centre anyway. in this day and age, you can't easily divide right wing and left wing with labour and conservative. the conservative leadership don't seem to have any issues with my sexuality or gay rights, especially under this new brand of "compassionate conservatism" and the university branch of Conservative Future is about 50% gay or bi anyway...
never was popular enough to run for a sabbatical post though, and since my post grad course is run by the college of law, not a university, deferring on condition of me winning said election would be hard.
Aden
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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i'd rather be called gay than the politically correct "Homosexual"
there were times in this country when faggot and fag were offensive, these days anyone using such a term is more likely to be laughed at for being rather out of touch (and a fag is a cigarette now! lol)
Queer used to be a rather derogatory term, but seems to be being reclaimed by various groups. In the UK, one of our biggest youth support groups and campaigning groups is Queer Youth (formerly the Queer Youth Alliance) and in the USA, LGBT groups often are known as GLBTQ(Q) Gay Lesbian Bi Trans Queer (and Questioning, sometimes) for those people who prefer not to self define further thna that, but still consider themselves part of the "Queer Community"
i wouldn't get overly hung up about a particular word, more the way it used and the meaning behind it. A swastika is only associated with evil in the Nazi context. There are many other, older contexts, with different associations. Its not what it is, its how we use it, how we define it.
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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I think it's probably precisely because I am one of those who has actively reclaimed the word "queer" for my own use that I think rather carefully about language.
Of course you're right that intent is far more important than the the words used to express it - but in some ways these interact, and language helps shape the range of possible thoughts.
As for "homosexual", to me that is a value-neutral (if somewhat clinical) word and I tend to use it dispassionately, whereas "gay" is used by many (not me) to mean "living an out gay lifestyle" and "queer" certainly implies a more fluid approach and certain theoretical/political stance (as in "queer theory"). But even among gay men, there isn't any consistency of understanding or use of these words in my experience - it varies by age, degree of political activity, use of the scene, etc.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I could not (currently) consider adopting "Queer". When I was a kid it was such a bad word, such an awful thing to be. And it was knowing I was "queer" that made me unhappiest, knowing that I did not feel "normal", or at least "usual", and knowing no other kids like me.
I think we are prisoners of our upbringing in many ways. That one keps me prisoner.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I can understand that - I feel much the same way about the word "nancy" or "nancy-boy".
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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It is why I empathise with Tatchell, something I never ever expected to hear myself say.
I am me. Everything else is secondary
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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ewminds me of a motto a former president of our society coined for us to use at birmingham pride...
Keele LGBT - Proud to be Us
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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That article express succinctly almost the exact point that I think I was trying to make in my "2 types of gay" topic. I have only two more thing to say, though, firstly I think that in modern society gay people HAVE to exist to give credability to our relationships, without the word "gay" as in "gay" people, all we have is "gay behaviour" which plays right into the hands of the conservatives. If only our behaviour is gay, rather than ourselves then surely we can be changed? That is dangerous ground until the future when homosexuality is more accepted.
Secondly, I wish that through all my bablings I would have been able to make my point as clearly as Tatchell did.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I don't like the word "queer" even though I never really heard it used in a gay sense, to me "queer" is abnormal, funny and odd. And not in a good way. I don't mind having a word that refers my sexual orientation as different, but "queer" to me says "divergent" and "wrong".
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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