Moments of annoyance

[trixtah]

So, there was a thread on dot_poly_snark over on LJ, where someone got snarked when they went all bawwwwww about their coming out to one friend who didn't immediately do the happy dance about the good news. And justifiably so.

But one person commented by saying in part, "But then generally, I don't get the whole "coming out" process for poly people. Just live your life and the people will either figure it out or they won't."

Obviously I'm just a big old queer with a chip on my shoulder, because this really irked me. And I had to rant in reply:

Mmmnh, so why would anyone bother coming out at all. Ok, I'm very slightly beyond "Queer Nation" myself, but if everyone chooses to remain invisible, society as a whole will certainly choose to continue ignoring you. I look as dykey as dykey can be, but it still irks the fuck out of me when people obviously decide not to "figure it out" and then force me to decide whether they are going to roll out the overt bigotry thing on me if I make it clear what my relationship status is, or just do the awkward why-are-you-making-me-deal-with-shit-outside-my-comfort-zone silence.

I know you're not precisely saying you are remaining invisible, but it's the more open people who ensure that we aren't ignored as a whole. Because being ignored is actually not that many steps away from being marginalised, excluded from the usual set of social rights, and then to outright persecution. No thanks, it's not long ago when I had no right to expect fair treatment in terms of retaining my job or accommodation.

I do however agree that people who get shocked and amazed when they give acquaintances confronting information that is not immediately welcomed with open arms are precious in the extreme. Not to wah on about privilege, but it's fascinating when (mostly) het white middle-class people realise that others will always consider them to be second-class citizens because of their "lifestyle choices".

I dunno, maybe I got a bit into lecture mode, but "letting people figure it out for themselves" is only a useful strategy when you're coming from a fairly secure base to begin with. I still don't overtly out myself at work, except to a selected few people, sometimes. Maybe I'm still paranoid, but fuck, we only got "rights" in NZ the year I officially came out. And given the whole gay marriage debacle, we still aren't fully equal citizens, according to most - I'm still not in favour of marriage as a whole, but this willful discrimination just serves to show we don't have "real" relationships and we're not "equal" in some fundamental ways. It's fucked up.

And I'm still fucking angry with Gillard, to give it some Australian context. Not that I can vote here, so it's all a bit moot.

Comments

[lederhosen]

Yep.

Also, there's the reason I came out to my family (and apologies if I've bored you with this story already). Rey and I watched a movie where two (straight mono) people are secretly engaged; when one of them unexpectedly dies, the other gets treated by the family as 'friend' rather than 'fiancee', because they don't know any better. If the worst happens, I don't want to be grieving in a closet and I don't want to put anybody else in that position.

(And then a couple of months after I came out and introduced my partner to my dad as a partner, the relationship imploded. And then I got excoriated for mentioning on my LJ that it had ever existed. C'est la vie, but at least it meant I could tell my dad why I was down in the dumps.)

And, yeah, Gillard wins my prize for shortest honeymoon ever. If Turnbull was still on offer, or if the Opposition were doing something about opposing the god-awful Conroy filter, I would probably be giving them my preferences. Come to think of it, I probably will put Conroy last of all in Senate.

[trixtah]

That's a prime reason not to hide your relationship status. I mean, there are years of stories of queer people being turned away from their partners' hospital beds, being cut out of wills by the "next of kin" and so on. And so true with the aspect of not being able to talk about emotional fallout if you only officially have one partner.

[kk1raven]

I think you make a valid point about invisibility and I think that has to be balanced against the appropriateness of discussing some subjects at all in some situations. Letting people figure it out might be appropriate some of the time. It seems silly and somewhat deceptive to me to just wait for your friends to figure out what kind of relationships you like. You should be able to talk about such things with your friends. Co-workers and other acquaintances you don't know well are another matter. I think that if your relationship with them is such that you'd talk about a monogomous heterosexual relationship, then you ought to be able to talk about other types of relationships. I've known a lot of people over the years who I'd never talk about my private life with at all though. Too much "coming out" results in people feeling like private matters are being shared too much in public which tends to turn them against you wheras being invisible causes people to assume you don't exist which doesn't help you. I'm glad I don't need to make a decision about that for myself.

[trixtah]

That's right, it's definitely horses for courses. If you didn't talk about such things with your friends, they may well think you have some shame about what you're doing with your life, and avoid the topic entirely.

Many of my queer friends (the ones I've known for decades) aren't actually very comfortable with my being poly, but as I point out to them, most of them (being exes) have DIRECT evidence of how it was when I was in denial (i.e. lots of cheating and resulting angst). So I'm not going to avoid the topic with them - one of them even unbent so much a few years ago as to say that I was the happiest she'd ever seen me in context of a relationship.

[ironed_orchid]

Okay, I think you may have just exposed one of my hidden prejudices, because until now I never really saw coming out as poly as in the same league as coming out as queer.

Of course, for lots of people, coming out as poly might also include coming out as bi, but not necessarily.

I need to think about this more.

[firecat]

I've come out as poly and I've come out as queer. They aren't the same IME, but poly people also risk discrimination and prejudice, so in a "strength in numbers" sense there is a political benefit to poly people if more of us are out.

[trixtah]

Yes, that's my feeling about it.

I do find it easier to come out to straight people as poly than being a dyke, because the consequences aren't so dire (I don't have children who could be taken away from me). But I was reading something just today when some grandchildren discovered their grandparents had been in an open marriage for 60 years, but no-one knew until the grandmother finally passed away and they read her journals. So maybe they were the "swinger" type, and didn't have long-term SOs, but how are you going to get all of your relationships appropriately acknowledged if you are constantly living in stealth mode? (Which is easier to do if you're poly, assuming you live with one or none of your partners)

[cleverthylacine]

I found, when I identified as poly, which I did for a while and then didn't and now I'm just not sure about the whole thing, that people accepted queer better, because you can't help that, but they think you can help being a slut. Of course this is SF.

[cleverthylacine]

I don't overtly out myself at work, either, and I live in San Francisco, just because you never know who you're dealing with and at work you can get hurt. I think one of my office mates is also queer because we're always fighting over the same days off in June. But I was annoyed with myself when I realised I was letting people assume the dance partner who mangled my foot was a guy. And then I thought, why am I annoyed with myself? I'm in so much pain codeine has made my thoughts CLEARER. I don't need to deal with someone's privilege and bigotry today. But still.

[trixtah]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Yes, who can be arsed dealing with bigotry all day? But, yep, perhaps we spend a little too much energy anticipating something that many not be there. Meh.

[cleverthylacine]

And bisexuality complicates things, because when you're dating an opposite-sex partner, you're passing for straight even when you aren't trying to, unless you make a concerted effort to out yourself.

(One of the things that irritated me most about being married to a man was the things that relative strangers who knew this information suddenly felt safe to say to/in front of me. While straight privilege is damaging when it's used against you by someone who knows you're not straight, it's also really gross to see people's casual homophobia and transphobia on display because they think that you'll be okay with it.)

I don't actively TRY to stay closeted, but because I'm bisexual and femme, most people do not assume that I'm queer unless told flat out. And, sometimes, I let them assume whatever they like if they have power over me and I don't know whether to trust them or not. Sometimes I don't. And a lot of it really depends on spoon count.